"Do you know who he is?" he asked and then laughed. "Of course you do. Everyone does now that the Cappo has been killed. See? See how I'm already laying out my cards on the table? Now, let me tell you how this is going to work..."

"No." I whispered into his chest.

When he tensed I slid up his body and whispered in his ear, "Volpe."

Tex's eyes immediately flew to mine. A bit of understanding dawned, but it was enough. He'd put me in an impossible position. But in that moment I could at least offer him hope.

Because things weren't at all what they seemed.

And by using my word-the one I used to scream when I was little, when Nixon was trapped in the torture box my dad built, when I was locked in my room -Tex knew exactly that.

A war was coming.

And he was the target.

He just didn't know it yet.

CHAPTER SEVEN.

Impossible: Also known as trying not to love the person who holds your heart.

Tex VOLPE MEANT FOX in Italian. Mo had a fascination with foxes with she was little. Okay, so maybe it was more of a fixation. She liked their tails. At any rate, it was the word Nixon told her to use when she was either afraid or something was suspiciously wrong.

It was the one word I knew she would never use.

Unless she truly meant it.

The only problem. Was she afraid of me? Of the situation? Or was she suspicious that things weren't as they seemed?

I didn't have time to think any further.

A knock sounded at the door, and then Nixon burst through. "It's time, grab your s.h.i.t."

"Wow, good afternoon to you too."

I sang.

"It's nine in the morning." His eyes scanned the room. "Let's go get the ceremony over with."

"Just like that." I whispered under my breath.

"Did you say something?" Nixon asked, his voice even, his eyes blazing with fury.

"Nah, man." I rose from the chair in the corner. I'd been drinking by myself in that chair, sitting at the stupid courthouse just waiting for someone to tell me it was time. "Just thinking about how excited I am to be your brother-in- law."

Take that b.i.t.c.h.

Nixon scowled and held the door open for me. "Please, I'm already going to have nightmares after today. Don't make it worse."

"You're going to be an uncle."

"Tex."

"That was me making it better," I snapped. "Because regardless of how you feel about me right now or even about Mo, there's a child, okay? A child that has our blood." I pushed against Nixon's chest. "Our blood. Our family.

We protect our family."

Nixon hung his head, licking his lips. "You're right."

"I know." I gripped Nixon's shoulders. "Don't make it worse than it is. You've had your fun, you shot me in the shoulder, beat the s.h.i.t out of me, and made me bleed. You've taken out your anger, and you've let me take responsibility. So for the love of G.o.d, can we please, just hug it out and be friends again? Because I'm scared as h.e.l.l, and I can't do this alone."

Nixon nodded and then grabbed my face with both of his hands and kissed each cheek. "Welcome to the family, brother."

"Now I finally get a family." I joked.

Nixon didn't laugh, instead his eyes softened. Oh, h.e.l.l no, the last thing I needed was for him to feel sorry that I was an orphan.

I gripped his shirt and jerked him close to me so that our heads almost knocked. "Look at me like that again, and I'll get your sister pregnant again just for the h.e.l.l of it."

"You son of a b.i.t.c.h!" Nixon knocked his head against mine sending me sailing back against the wall. Oh, look, a candlestick just got impaled into my shoulder. d.a.m.n it!

"Too soon?" I winced.

"Tex," Nixon roared just as the door to the room opened.

"Boys?" Trace peeked her head around the door. "Everything okay?

Everyone... alive?"

"Sad she has to ask that, huh Nixon?" I winked.

"Mother loving son of a-"

"Nixon." Trace grit her teeth.

"Leave it."

And just like that, Nixon did. I never imagined I'd see the day where bad a.s.s Nixon Abandonato would be shut up by a woman. But miraculously, he put his gun away, thank G.o.d, and walked over to Trace, softly pulling her into his arms.

Jealousy surged through me from every angle.

I.

looked down, immediately ashamed.

"Let's go." Trace's clear voice rang out. "The family's waiting."

Numbly, I followed them down the hall and into the small room where the justice of the peace was waiting.

Mo was standing as stiff as a board in front of the room.

I wanted to weep. And I wasn't a guy who let emotion take a hold of me that often; I was more of a believer in emotion being a weakness.

But she was so pretty.

Not beautiful, pretty.

Like something my ma would have told me not to touch when I was little, something so precious that I couldn't play with it. Instead, it would be set far away from my grubby little hands. I wasn't allowed to touch, but I could stare all I want. I could memorize the lines of the object, I could visualize what it would be like to be with it, I could even want it, love it, obsess over it.

But I could never, ever possess it.

I took purposeful steps towards Mo and gently grabbed her hand, clenching it in mine.

Yes, her choices might be the reason we ended up in this position. But I'd started the chaos. It wasn't her fault she didn't know when to get off the train.

Because the thing about going over a hundred miles an hour all day every day? Eventually you forget you actually had a destination in the first place.

You forget to get off.

And that was all on me.

I'd put us there because of my job.

And I'd kept her there out of selfishness.

Never realizing I was d.a.m.ning us both to a marriage of something worse than convenience. Unrequited love- because I'd love her until my dying breath, but Mo? It was entirely possible by marrying her, I was keeping her from loving someone else, from being what she should have been, what she was good enough to be.

I was keeping her in the family.

The one place she swore to me she wanted to escape.

Welcome to the Mafia, blood in, well isn't that just s.h.i.tty part, there is no freaking out.

CHAPTER EIGHT.

Words bring both life and death.

Mo SHAKING, I PUSHED the wedding band that I hadn't even chosen onto Tex's finger and repeated the vows. My voice was hollow as I promised to spend the rest of my life with him, in sickness and in health. I wanted to collapse under the pressure, the weight, the fear.

When it was Tex's turn, I looked up.

I shouldn't have, because his eyes, those green eyes framed by perfect long, dark lashes gazed into mine and I was lost in a sea of desire. It hit me so hard it was difficult to breathe. Gasping was all I seemed to be doing, taking in huge gulps of air only to remind myself I had to actually exhale too.

He'd loved me once.

Would he ever love me again?

Forgive me?

Even though he was looking at me like he wanted me, I knew the truth, I'd driven a wall between us. I wasn't sure if Tex wanted to scale it-I wasn't sure I deserved to have him try.

Protect him. At all costs, protect those you love.

That was my mantra, the one my ma had taught me when I was little. And G.o.d, I was trying, trying so hard.

"...in sickness and in health, for as long as we both shall live." Tex finished, his voice cracking in the end as my fingers trembled in his hand.

"By the power vested in me, I now p.r.o.nounce you Mr. and Mrs. Vito Niscio Campisi Jr."

Tex visibly winced at the sound of his name-his real name, the one his father had given him, his very dead father. The one he'd shot not three weeks ago.

I gave him a rea.s.suring smile.

It did nothing but turn his eyes to ice.

"You may now kiss your bride!"

Everyone clapped awkwardly while Tex stepped closer to me, tugging my body against his. Slowly, he leaned down and kissed me briefly on the cheek before stepping back.

My body screamed with the injustice of it! Not even a real kiss on my wedding day? Not that I deserved it, but it was Tex. The final nail in the coffin had been smacked into the wood.

Tex never did things like that. He was the peacemaker, he was the one that made me feel like everything was going to be okay. He was my constant.

And I'd hurt him.

I would have fallen into hysterics right then, had I not turned around and seen his face.

Swaying, I stopped walking in time to gather myself, but it was too late, he was already walking towards us.

"I think congratulations are in order." He grinned then pumped Tex's hand. After a brief exchange he tilted his head in my direction and grinned that devastating grin. "And Mo, looking as beautiful as ever."

"Th-thanks." I stepped closer to Tex.