Filthy Marcellos: Legacy: A Legacy Prequel (2 page)

“You could say that.”

Oh, for fuck’s sake.

John could hear the hesitance in his uncle’s tone, which wouldn’t lead to anything good.

“What now?” he demanded.

Gio rapped his fingers to the leather-bound steering wheel. “Just to be sure that you’re not going to have a relapse the moment you’re out and free to do your own thing, Dante and Lucian decided that it would be better if you worked alongside Andino and Timothy with their crews for a while.”

Anger surged through John like he hadn’t felt in a long time. It was good. So fucking good. Like a shot of adrenaline straight to his bloodstream.

But that feeling was also addictive and bad for him. Bad for his mania and bad for the bipolar currents of his emotions that he fought with daily. He wasn’t that crazy, out of control, unmanageable person. He got that his behavior and issues had put his family and
la famiglia
through hell, but he was good.

Wasn’t he?

Now?

Did his family not trust him?

Christ.

It pissed him off even more.

“Just to be clear, I don’t get a say here, right?” John asked.

Gio shrugged. “No, you don’t.”

Because that’s how Cosa Nostra worked, and his family was knee-deep into that life and culture like nobody could possibly begin to understand. With his uncle being the head boss of the family, his other uncle acting as Dante’s consigliere, and John’s own father being the family underboss, there was no escaping who he was.

Mafia.

Made.

Cosa Nostra.

When it came to family decisions, especially ones made about him, John didn’t get a bone in the fight. His uncles pulled rank, as did his father.

Rules.

His life was dictated, surrounded, and determined by rules.

John stifled the familiar urge to push back against the walls closing in on him again. They were only in his own mind, after all.

“There’s something else I have to do this week,” John said, dropping the conversation. He didn't want to fight with his uncle about something that neither of them could do anything about at the moment. “I should do it tomorrow, but I need some contacts.”

Gio cocked a brow and passed John a look. “What is that?”

“I need a new therapist. One that my father doesn’t have on his payroll.”

“John—”

“I’ll follow his fucking rules and give him what he wants, but he’s not having control over that. Not now. It’s been three years since my last episode. Give me a fucking break here. I’ve earned that, Gio.”

“You were wrong,” Gio said quietly.

“About what?”

“Your father. He did give you a choice, John. You know he did.”

John forced back his irritation. “Leave it alone.”

“He gave you a choice. An institution to get yourself checked out and settled, or time behind bars. You made the choice, John, not Lucian.”

“I’m not crazy,” John said.

“No one ever said that.”

But they might as well have.

“Putting me in an institution would have labeled me exactly that.”

“We just wanted you healthy.”

“I am.”

Gio passed him another look. “Let’s hope you stay that way.”

“Thanks for that, asshole.”

“I’m just being real, John. We both know if you don’t keep managing this like you’ve been forced to for the last three years, you can easily relapse into another episode.”

John knew that, but it still made his anger rear its ugly head. His saving grace was being able to control it now, whereas he couldn't before.

“By the way,” Gio said as he pushed the gas pedal harder.

“What?”

“Happy birthday, John.”

Chapter Two

A drop of tension crawled down John’s spine as his uncle pulled up to the iron-wrought gate. A long, twisty driveway led up to a mansion with two wings, three floors, a pool, and a guest house out back. The estate rested on six acres of property in Tuxedo Park.

The Marcello family home was massive.

“Passcode, please,” a robotic voice commanded from the speaker Gio was talking into.

“Seven, two, six, nine, five, five,” his uncle replied.

“Please speak your name clearly for voice recognition.” 

“Giovanni David Marcello.”

The speaker buzzed for a split second before the gate shuddered and began to open automatically. Gio pulled the car through the opening the moment the vehicle could fit through. It never failed to amaze John how careful and protective their family was about keeping their private lives hidden from public view. He understood, of course, but it was still amusing.

“Voice recognition?” John asked. “When did Antony have that put in?”

“A year ago.”

“Why?”

Gio stilled in his seat. “Just because, I suppose.”

“Are you being purposely difficult, or what?”

Quickly, Gio put the car into park at the mid-way point on the driveway between the gate and the house.

“He put it in because he’s not young, John. He’s eighty-seven and he doesn’t like to be reminded of the things he’s not capable of doing at his age. He’s not quick on his feet, his eyesight is terrible, and he wants his wife to feel safe.”

“What happened to the guard he had?”

“You’ll see,” Gio muttered as he put the car in drive again. “Just don’t say anything to him about his age or the changes. It bothers him and then Cecelia gets pissy.”

“I got it.”

“Good.”

John found the guard in question the moment the front entrance to the Marcello home was in full view. Dressed in all black, the man rested beside a dark sedan with a cigarette in one hand and a gun at his waist. John knew the man had to be the guard because no one else was permitted to smoke in front of the Marcello home. They had areas designated for that sort of thing.

“He’s keeping him closer,” John noted.

“Yeah.”

“Any particular reason why?”

Gio shrugged. “You can never be too safe.”

Why didn’t John believe that?

“Hey,” Gio said quietly.

John gave his uncle a look. “Hmm?”

“You good?”

“Yeah.”

His tension was still there, dancing hand in hand with his anxiety. Three years in lock-up was a long time to be gone. How many things had changed since he’d went to prison? How much more distance had he forced between him and his family in that time?

Gio turned the car off and put his hand on the door handle. “For the record, John …”

“What about it?”

“I thought you made the right choice three years ago.”

John’s brow furrowed. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“When your father bribed the judge with the option of an institution or jail time. I thought you made the right choice.”

Well, that was not what John expected to hear.

“Why is that?”

“Because despite how irrational everything you were doing seemed to be, I don’t believe for a second that any hospital in the country would have sorted you out like prison did. Thirty days in an institution with a couple of therapists, new meds, and little else wasn’t what you needed. Time was what you needed, John. You still got the doctors, you got the meds, but you also got the break. You made the right choice.”

John let out a slow breath. “Who else feels that way?”

Gio laughed. “I know what you’re asking without outright asking it.”

“So?”

“Your mother is probably at the front door about ready to blow it down and come out here.”

John nodded, knowing his uncle wasn’t going to answer his question. “I better get my ass into the house before she comes out.”

“Yeah, probably. I bet your father is waiting, too.”

“We haven’t talked a lot since I went in.”

“All you had to do was pick up the phone, John.”

John glanced at the mansion. “I know.”

“Lucian thinks you made the right choice for you. In case you were wondering.”

“I wasn’t.”

“Lying is a terrible habit, Johnathan.”

It was.

But John was too damned good at it.

Chapter Three

“Oh
, il mio ragazzo
!”

John barely heard the words come out of his mother’s mouth before he was engulfed in tiny arms that squeezed him nearly to death. For such a tiny thing, his mother was strong as hell. She literally knocked him off balance, forcing them both to spin in a half circle so they were facing the front door and not the large entryway like before.

“Hey, Ma,” John said, letting her crush him for all she was worth.

Gio grinned as he strolled on past.

Asshole
.

He could have helped John a little. Physical expressions of emotions and John had never mixed well together. Not unless he was the one doing the expressing. And when he physically expressed emotions, it usually never ended well for anyone involved. Mushy, lovey nonsense didn’t do very damned much for him, either.

Jordyn squeezed her son harder. “I missed you.”

“You saw me a few months ago, Ma.”

“So?”

John bent down when Jordyn finally loosened her grip around his chest and gave his mother a quick kiss to the cheek. “So nothing, Ma. I missed you, too.”

Jordyn’s face lit up with happiness.

Guilt stabbed at John’s insides.

He didn’t verbally express his feelings very well, either. He felt a lot of shit, and that was just the by-product of his disorder, but processing, understanding, and communicating his inner thoughts and emotions was difficult. It had clearly been too long since he’d given any affection to his mother if her joy over a simple admission was any indication.

“Liliana couldn’t make it down from Chicago with Joseph,” Jordyn said as she fiddled with John’s crooked tie. “She tried, but she couldn’t get out of the shifts at the hospital.”

Liliana, John’s younger sister, had married a man involved with the Chicago Outfit. John barely remembered the wedding, as he’d been right in the thick of his manic episode.

“But she’s coming down next month,” Jordyn added.

“Lucia?” John asked.

“She’s here,” his mother said about his youngest sister.

“And Cella?”

John’s other sister, also married but to a man who was unaffiliated to the mob, had never been very close to him. He wouldn’t be surprised if she hadn’t shown up for his welcome-home-slash-birthday party.

“She’s here, sneaking food while everyone else waits to eat,” came a darker, familiar voice from behind John.

Jordyn took a step back from her son. John spun on his heel only to come face to face with his father.

For John, it was like looking into an aging mirror. As he grew up, almost everyone he knew felt the need to point out how much he resembled his father. A twin, they said. Hazel eyes that matched John’s looked him up and down. His father smiled a little, making the sharp lines of his features soften briefly. Even at sixty, Lucian Marcello stood tall and straight, matching John’s height at six feet, three inches tall. Lucian commanded a room with his no-nonsense demeanor and his blunt attitude. He could also be intimidating with his quietness and watchful eye.

“Son,” Lucian greeted.

“Hey,” John replied.

“You look good.”

“I hope so.”

“Seems prison has its benefits, hmm?”

John let the comment roll off his shoulders, knowing his father hadn’t meant it as an insult. “I think it did for me.”

“How was the drive?”

“Long,” John answered.

Lucian chuckled. “With Gio, any drive is long.”

“He talks a lot.”

“That he does.” Lucian jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “As I said, Cella is here and sneaking food. We’re letting it go what with the pregnancy and all. She has to feed the baby.”

John cleared his throat. “I hadn’t known she was pregnant.”

“Phones work, John, even in prison.”

Ouch.

That comment didn’t roll off like the first one did.

“Lucian,” Jordyn said, coming to stand beside her son. “Don’t.”

Lucian’s jaw tightened before he frowned. “
Mi scusi
, I’m sorry. That was out of line, son. I’m happy you’re home. We all are.”

John wished he could say the same, but for a split second, he was back to feeling like the outsider in his family again. No one in particular made him feel that way directly, but the disconnect he experienced with his own father made everyone else seem distant, too.

“John!”

The shout of his name drew John’s attention away from Lucian.

John stiffened when his cousin, Andino, moved past his uncle with a wide grin. Andino stood toe to toe with John. Before the incident that landed John in prison and nearly took Andino’s life, the two cousins had been inseparable.

Ride or die
, their family said. Because the two cousins always found trouble together. They had always been close, best friends even, and one mistake ruined it all.

At twenty-eight, Andino was the closest cousin in relation to his own age that John had.

“Jordyn,” Lucian said with a pointed look in his wife’s direction, “… why don’t we go let everyone know that the man of the hour has arrived.”

“Sure,” Jordyn replied.

With a squeeze of her hand on John’s arm, his parents disappeared.

“It’s good to see you, man,” Andino said.

John smirked. “And you,
cugino
.”

Andino grinned at the Italian word for cousin. “I would have made the trip up to see you, but I wasn’t sure if that was good for you.”

“I wouldn’t have turned you away, Andi.”

Andino held out a hand.

John passed it a wary glance.

“John?” Andino asked.

“Yeah?”

“We’re good, man.”

Just like that, three words ripped away the concern John had about his friendship with Andino.

“Are we?” John asked.

Andino didn’t drop his hand. “Family first, John.”

John shook his cousin’s hand. Home started to feel a little more real. The distance keeping John and his emotional attachments to his family at bay began to close.

“I hope you don’t mind a crowd,” Andino said.

John cocked a brow. “I never do.”

“Good, because the whole damn city might as well be here to welcome you home.”

“Seriously?”

“Open invitation to anyone in
la famiglia
, man,” Andino said, chuckling. “I don’t think anyone refused it.”

Huh.