Joey (Chicago Ruthless, #2)

by Sadie Kincaid

But nothing hurts more than Max telling me to leave. After everything he said last night, everything we did, he didn’t fight for us.

“So, why him, Joey? Why not any other guy?” I lean forward, squaring up to him as he goes on giving me that infamous Dante Moretti glare. “Like you two have ever let me be around other guys?” I yell. “Wherever I go, whoever I meet, as soon as they hear my last name, guys shrivel up and back off faster than I can blink. You think it’s easy being me, Dante?” “What about Toby?” I shake my head. “I don’t like Toby that way.”

“I don’t want anyone else. I want Max. I’ve only ever wanted Max, and despite your huge ass ego thinking this is about you, it really isn’t. It is so not about you. It’s about Max and me. Nobody else.”

When my phone rings a few seconds later, I almost dislocate my shoulder trying to get to it. And when I see Max’s name on the screen, I damn near burst into tears. I answer it quickly. “Hey.” “Hi, baby girl. You okay?” “No,” I sniff. “You left your pendant.” I instinctively reach for my neck, and my fingers brush over bare skin. Shit! “Will you take care of it for me? Please don’t let anything happen to it.” “I’ll wear it until I can give it back to you. Maybe it will protect me the way it protects you.” “You don’t believe in St. Christopher,” I remind him. “No, but I believe in you.” “Max …” I practically sob his name. This is too hard. “I’m sorry, Joey,” he whispers. “What for?” “For not doing this right. I shouldn’t have taken you to my cabin.” Oh my god, my heart is going to split in two. “Are you saying you regret what we did?” “No, baby girl. Not a single fucking second of it. But I do regret causing trouble for you.” “I can handle Dante and Lorenzo.”

“You have nothing to be sorry for. I knew what would happen if I took you there.” “But you took me anyway?” “Yeah. I’m a selfish prick.” “No, Max,” I insist. The fact that he knew what would happen and risked it anyway makes my poor aching heart feel like it’s going to burst. “But what do we do now?” There’s a deep sigh followed by a silence that seems to last an eternity. “I have something I need to take care of. It’s going to take me a few days.” “What is it?” “I’ll tell you all about it, I promise. I just need to focus on this and give your brothers time to cool off.” “And then?” “I told you, you’re mine, baby girl. I’ll find a way to fix this, okay? You just hang tight and let me handle it.”

“Max?” I moan his name. “Just a few days, baby. I promise. I can’t live without you any longer than that.” “Don’t leave me here alone, Max,” I plead, feeling lonelier than I have since my brothers shipped me off to Italy four years ago. “You’re not alone, baby girl. You’re fucking mine.” I swallow my emotions, determined not to cry. “Whose are you?” he asks, and the deep timbre of his voice makes goosebumps prickle along my forearms. “Yours,” I whisper with a smile. “Every fucking part of you. I’ll talk to you soon, okay?” “Okay. Can I call you later?” “Call me before you go to sleep.” “I will.” “I love you, Joey.” He hangs up before I can say it back.

At the end of the day, those men are my brothers. It would kill me to lose them, but I will if that’s what it takes. Because I would die a thousand painful deaths before I willingly lost Joey Moretti.

“That’s too long.” She lowers her voice and practically purrs, “I need you.” God, I fucking need her too. “I need you too. As soon as I’ve taken care of this thing, I’m coming for you.” “Will you be safe?” “Always, baby girl. Because I will always come back to you.” “I miss you, Max.” Fuck, hearing those words from her lips makes my heart and my cock ache painfully. “I miss you too, baby. Get some sleep, okay? I’ll call you tomorrow when I get a chance.”

“Be careful, Max. My father was a very cautious man, and they still got to him.” “I’ll be fine,” I assure her. The cab is on the street by the time I get downstairs. I’m just about to pull the car door open when a woman with a stroller bumps into me and drops a bag of groceries at my feet. “I’m so sorry,” she exclaims. “No problem.” I crouch down to help her pick up the items that spilled out, and she ducks down beside me. Smiling sweetly, she takes hold of my hand and something pricks my skin. “Night, night, pretty boy,” in a thick Russian accent are the last words I hear.

Dante speaks. “He is never to set foot in this house again.” “But I can see him?” “You will take a security detail with you,” Lorenzo says. “What if he picks me up outside the gate? I won’t need a guard then, right?” I mean, Max used to be my armed security, why do I need both? Dante rolls his eyes. “Do not fucking push it, Guiseppina. You will have an armed escort at all fucking times. Do I make myself clear?”

An unexpected sob wells in my throat at the thought of our future. There’s no escaping how sick Anya is now, and there’s every possibility that my niece will never get to know her wonderful aunt.

“Ah, he wakes,” says a man with a thick Russian accent.

and the sound of rustling plastic has me sucking in a deep breath just before a bag is placed over my head and pulled tight. This is a scare tactic, an effective one I’ve used myself many times. But it won’t work on me. They revealed their hand too soon. They need me alive. So I count and I wait. It calms me, at least until my nervous system takes over. I get to ninety-nine before my lungs start to burn and my body twists and bucks involuntarily as it fights for oxygen. Then comes the lightheadedness. A blinding spark of euphoria before— The bag is ripped from my head, and I suck in deep lungfuls of air. “Not so tough now, are you? Vyblyadok!” He snatches the chain around my neck and yanks it off, snapping the delicate gold links and muttering in Russian as he throws it onto the floor at my feet. That was my girl’s fucking pendant, you motherfucking fuckwit. Rage burns a hole in my chest. Now that he will definitely pay for.

“You took what was his, Maximo. You touched his girl. Tainted her,” Ponytail says, confirming my thoughts. Definitely not Pushkin, but who? Fuck! Kristin’s all alone without me. Is she safe? “Where is she?” I say with a snarl, amusing them both. Ponytail chuckles. “Pushed a button, Maximo?”

Dante shoots me a look of concern, then returns his attention to the young girl. “And is he? Your boyfriend? Your baby’s father?” “Yes,” she says, her voice firm. My whole world stops turning. I’m definitely going to be sick. I clamp my lips together because if I don’t, I will wail so loudly that the house will crumble to the ground. If I open my mouth, I will shriek and I will scream. I’ll call her a liar and demand she tells me the truth. My legs tremble. I can’t breathe. I can’t think. I can’t even be. Is Kristin the situation he was fixing?

Confused, I shrug. “Then no. Max has it.” Kristin still doesn’t react. I guess she trusts Max the way that I used to. Pair of fools, the two of us. Dante pushes his chair back from the table and Lorenzo follows suit. “Joey,” Dante says as they walk out of the room, so I follow them, wondering why my pendant is so important. As soon as we’re in the hallway, Dante grabs my arm. “Max has your pendant?” “Yes. He said he was going to wear it and look after it for me.” Lorenzo doesn’t often display his emotions, but I swear his eyes shine with joy. “You think he’s still wearing it?” “Only one way to find out,” Dante says over his shoulder as he strides toward their study. “Can one of you please tell me what the hell is going on?” I demand as I trail after them. Dante’s the one who answers. “That pendant is a tracker, Joey. Why do you think we gave it to you when you went to Italy?” “A tracker? You’ve been tracking me?” “We track your phone as well.” Lorenzo shrugs nonchalantly. “We track each other’s phones too.” “Yeah, but that’s different.” I don’t know how it’s different, but it is. “You told me the pendant belonged to Mom.” “Would you have worn it otherwise?” Dante retorts.

“If Max is wearing your St. Christopher, then we can trace the signal and find him. Shouldn’t you be focusing on that right now?”

“It doesn’t transmit constantly because it doesn’t have a battery to sustain that kind of activity like a cell phone does. It’s activated remotely and now we wait to pick up its signal.” “Wow. That is some fancy shit. Do I have any other tracking devices I need to be aware of?” They both shake their heads. “You’re sure?” Lorenzo puts his hand on my shoulder. “We didn’t lie to you because we wanted to deceive you, Joey. We only ever wanted to protect you.” “I know, but you’ve got to stop the lying. I’m not a kid anymore.” “You’re here now, aren’t you?” Dante says. “Not in the dining room with Kristin. We know you’re not a kid, Joey, but you are our little sister, and like it or not, it’s our job to protect you. Just like we protect each other.” “It’s active.” Lorenzo nods

“Where is it?” I peer at the screen, hoping it isn’t at Max’s penthouse or the cabin. “Cedar Rapids,” Dante says with a frown. “What the fuck?” Lorenzo looks at our brother. Dante closes the laptop. “Let’s go get our boy.” The two of them immediately slip into tactical mode, like generals of an army, discussing grenades and weapons. “I want to come too,” I say, interrupting their battle planning. “No,” they reply in unison.

None of us are prepared for the deafening explosion that rocks the room.

Light glints off a blade in the mute one’s free hand, and there’s nothing I can do to stop him from plunging it into my abdomen. Burning agony has me seeing stars, but I block it out and focus on gaining my freedom. He probably thought it would make me scream and release his hand, but it only makes me channel all the pain toward crushing his hand with my jaw.

the door bursts open. A cloud of smoke fills the room, obscuring the faces of the men who enter. I release Ponytail’s deadweight as the mute motherfucker pulls his hand back to stab me again. Bracing myself for another strike, I flinch when a bullet whizzes by my ear. The weight of his body dropping to the floor jerks his thumb out of my mouth, and I unclench my jaw to spit out blood and chunks of flesh. “Nice shot, Loz,” says a familiar voice. Oh, thank holy fuck. “You two took your goddamn time,” I croak. “You’re lucky we came at all, asshole,” Dante says.

“Joey’s pendant. They pulled it off.” Dante picks it up and slips it into his pocket. My eyes flicker closed. “Hey, I need to ask you both something,” I mumble. “What’s that?” Lorenzo asks. “Can I date your sister?” I don’t hear their answer because everything goes black.

“Kristin? Thank fuck you’re safe. But … Wait. What are you doing here?” My head throbs. What the fuck is going on? “If it wasn’t for your girlfriend here, we wouldn’t have even known you were missing.” Kat’s voice drips with disdain, and my head pounds harder. Why do I feel like I’ve woken up in an alternate universe? Hang on. What the fuck did she just say? “My girlfriend?” “I’m sorry, Max. I didn’t know if I could trust them,” Kristin says.

“Fuck, Kristin!” I push myself up and swing my legs off the edge of the bed. Kat rushes over and tries to push me back down. “You should rest!” “I need to speak to Joey,”

“You have nothing to be sorry for, sweetheart,” Kat assures her, but I tune them both out because all I can think about is Joey and what she must think of me right now. How long have I been out of it? How many hours, minutes, seconds has my girl spent thinking that I’m the kind of piece of shit who’d do something like that? I run out into the hallway, adrenaline coursing through me, making me stronger and more determined with each step. “Joey?” I shout as I head toward the den. “Joey!” I see Dante first as he walks out of his study. “Keep your fucking voice down,” he orders. “I need to see Joey. Where is she?” “She doesn’t want to speak to you right now.” “I don’t give a fuck. Where is she, Dante?”

I sense her even before I hear her soft footsteps, and I’m filled with adrenaline and anguish when I look up to see her drifting down the staircase. Her bloodshot eyes make me wonder how many hours she spent crying. What the fuck have I done? “Joey?” Her name comes out like a plea. “Shouldn’t you be with your girlfriend?” She spits the last word like it’s poison on her tongue. “She’s not my girlfriend, I swear to you.”

“She’s just some poor girl you knocked up then?” she snaps, her eyes brimming with fury. I close my eyes as a fiery poker stabs my gut, but it’s nothing compared to the searing agony of Joey’s contempt. “Not my kid either,” I groan, my hand pressed against my stomach. It feels like my guts are spilling out onto the floor. “Fuck, he’s bleeding,” Lorenzo says and crosses the hallway, putting his hand on my shoulder. “Let’s get you back to Kat.” I shrug him off. “I’m not going anywhere until I speak to my fucking girl,” I shout, even as my head spins and I sway on my feet. Joey steps forward, baring her teeth. “I’m not your girl, you lying, cheating asshole.” “Yes, you fucking are.”

“Tell that to that girl carrying your baby, Maximo. The one who’s been sobbing by your bedside for the past six hours.” “It’s not my fucking baby,” I protest. “You need to get back to Kat so she can take a look at you,” Lorenzo insists, wrapping an arm around my waist. “I need to speak to my fucking girl.” I try to shrug him off again, but I don’t have the strength this time. She rolls her eyes. “There is nothing you can say—” “Kristin is my little sister, Joey. That kid she’s having is my nephew, not my son.” “What?” Joey frowns and shakes her head. “You don’t even have a sister.” “I fucking knew it,” Dante says. Joey slaps her brother on the arm. “If you knew that, why the hell didn’t you tell me? Asshole.” Dante sighs. “I mean … I didn’t know …” He shakes his head. “It’s a long fucking story.” “Can we do this later? Max is fucking bleeding all over the marble here,” Lorenzo snaps impatiently.

“I thought your wife was good at stitches, buddy?” Dante’s chuckle is cut off by his wife stomping toward us. “She is, but I didn’t stitch you up, and you’re not supposed to be out of bed yet, dumbass!” Kat yells. “Get him back in the bed.”

“Jo—” “I’m right here, Max,” she says, but I can’t read her tone. Does she believe me? Does it even matter to her now? Whatever, I’ll make sure it fucking matters to her. She’s still mine.

Only when my head stops spinning do I look up, scanning the room until my eyes lock on Joey’s. I hold out my hand for her, and it feels like a goddamn eternity passes before she gently entwines her fingers in mine. “You are the only fucking girl for me, Joey Moretti.”