“NSYNC,” Declan yells over the chords. “Don’t you just love them?”
Chapter fifty-one
Murder & Mother Wounds
Declan
The call with my brother is quick, efficient, the way it always is. He talks, I listen. He doesn’t mince words, never has. When I got really serious about soccer, he used to say I wasted my charm on the pitch when I should’ve been using it at the table. I told him I’d rather kick a ball than kneecaps. We still argue about it.
When he finishes telling me what I need to know, I exhale slowly and slip into the tongue that still feels like home, even after all these years.
“Grazie per averlo gestito. Ciao.”Thank you for handling it. Bye.
I hang up and turn to Marlow, who is perched on the edge of the sofa, eyes wide like she’s bracing herself for some great revelation.
“Shaun Kennedy,” I begin, “wasn’t working alone. My brother found out he’d partnered with a hacker. A very good one. This man was tracking celebrity phones, pulling data, texts, even locations. But Niko sniffed him out.” I allow a smirk. “Threatened him within an inch of his life. And suddenly, the man remembered how to sing.”
Marlow blinks, slow. “That doesn’t sound scary…or illegal… at all.” The sarcasm drips like honey.
I shrug, leaning back. “Niko made sure to wipe all of the evidence he had against us and in the next forty-eight hours, Kennedy will be reassigned to Europe. Season-long coverage. Far, far away.”
Her jaw drops. “How did you pull that off? Who are you people? And more importantly—who are my in-laws? Because, Declan Agassi, you all sound… pretty badass.”
I can’t help the laugh that escapes me. If only she knew.
So I tell her.
The version I’ve never put into words for anyone else, but for her, for my wife, I will. “I told Coach Saunders once about my mother. About how she left in the middle of the night, how we had to run. But what I didn’t say—what I never say—is why. My father…” I pause, grounding myself, “…was the right hand to my uncle. The head of the Agassi Crime Syndicate.”
She gasps, clutching her chest like I just confessed to burying bodies in the backyard. “Your family murders people?”
“That isnot even remotelywhat I said,” I reply, my tone flat.
She narrows her eyes. “Declan, when you put the wordscrimeandsyndicatein the same sentence, murder is always implied!”
I glance around like the walls might have ears. “Would you lower your voice? You want the neighbors thinking I’m hosting a Sopranos reunion in here?”
Her eyes widen, but there’s a smirk tugging at her lips. “Fine. I’ll whisper. Please,Don Declan, continue.”
I shoot her a look but press on, pushing up from the couch. “Someone betrayed my uncle,” I say, heading toward the kitchen like I need the movement to work this out of me. “And that someone was my mother.”
She joins me in the kitchen, arms folded, perched against the counter as I pull the tray of dough I’d rolled out earlier. The motion of dusting flour on the board steadies me.
“Initially, everyone thought it was my father. That he’d staged the perfect power move—kill his own brother to take control of the Syndicate. It made sense. He was my uncle’s right hand, his shadow, the one everyone feared he’d become if he ever got a taste of power. So when my uncle ended up dead, all fingers pointed to him.”
I press the heel of my palm into the dough, stretching it, folding it over itself again. “But the truth was even more brutal. Because it was my mother. She slit the throat of the most dangerous man in Italy—and vanished before anyone could prove it. She left us there, in the wreckage, with a whole world of enemies convinced it was my father’s doing. And when the whispers grew too loud, when revenge started circling our doorsteps, we had to run. Argentina…anywhere but home.”
I glance at Marlow, her face a mix of horror and disbelief, and reach for the ricotta filling, spooning it into the dough. “Now, my mother runs the Syndicate. With Niko at her side. My brother may be charming, but don’t let him fool you—he’s sharper than anyone gives him credit for. Ruthless, when he has to be.”
My hands still for a moment, pinching the dough into neat little pillows. “She and I…my mother,” I let out a breath, shaking my head. “…we still don’t speak. Haven’t since the day she left. Niko was more forgiving.”
The kitchen goes quiet except for the soft sound of my knife slicing the ravioli apart. A domestic picture, if not for the fact that I’ve just laid the truth of a crime dynasty at my wife’s feet.
Marlow’s voice softens, breaking through the silence. “And here I thought you were just being dramatic when you said you couldn’t handle me leaving. But now I see. You’ve got a crime-boss sized mother wound and I’m sure that’s not easy to mend.”
I bark out a laugh. “That’s one way of putting it.”
She says it so easily—like naming my pain makes it smaller. A wound the size of a crime-boss mother. I laugh, but inside, the truth rolls heavier than I ever let on.