Remy raised an eyebrow. “You seem surprised.”
“Surprised you guys kept him locked up this long?” I snapped. “Yeah. Color me fucking surprised. Whose bright idea was that?”
Max leaned forward. “The precinct held him without bail. Racketeering suspicion. But James is here now, pushing buttons we didn’t anticipate.”
Sebastian wasn’t going to play nice anymore. Hell, I wouldn’t if I’d been locked up for weeks over something like that. It made sense now, why James had shown up. Sebastian was probably pissed enough to have called him in personally—something I never would’ve thought he’d do. He liked to handle his problems himself—always had—but I guess being locked in a cell changed things. Changed people.
Honestly, I should’ve pushed Max harder to let Sebastian out. Keeping him overnight, fine. That was standard procedure, sending a message, a small power move to remind him who was boss. But weeks? Weeks were personal. Weeks gave a man time to think. To plan. To get angry enough to do something stupid—something like blow open the entire Castillo deal out of pure spite.
Sebastian knew about the Castillo Group. Of course he did. He always managed to know too much. Hell, he’d even asked me to work with him, and for a split second, I’d considered it. Not because I wanted his money or his deals—God knows I didn’t need more blood on my hands—but because working with Sebastian might keep him quiet. Might keep him away from Valentina.
Valentina.
My gut twisted at the thought. Sebastian had made it clear he knew exactly what would hurt me the most, and he wouldn’t hesitate to pull that trigger—to tell her everything about who I really was, what I’d really done. The kind of things you couldn’t explain away, no matter how good your intentions.
But I’d turned him down. I’d chosen to side with Max, thinking I was playing it safe. Thinking I was choosing the lesser of two evils.
Now it felt like I’d chosen wrong. Like maybe my loyalty was misplaced—or worse, selfish.
I should’ve just taken the damn deal, kept Sebastian quiet, and protected Valentina. But I hadn’t. I’d rolled the dice, and now the odds felt stacked against me.
Sebastian on his own was manageable. Dangerous, sure, but predictable in his own twisted way. James, though? James didn’t bluff. Didn’t fuck around either. He dealt in facts and consequences, and if he was in town, it was because he was here to clean up Sebastian’s mess. That meant trouble. The kind that had me seriously considering all my worst options.
For a brief, fucked-up second, I considered pulling a Max—just putting a bullet in Sebastian’s head and calling it done. But then what? James would know immediately. Cade, the other Callahan brother, would follow. One murder would quicklyspiral into three, and bodies piling up wasn’t exactly subtle. Besides, I wasn’t Max. I wasn’t going to solve my problems with a gun and call it justice. I had enough blood on my hands without adding Sebastian Callahan’s to the mix, no matter how tempting it sounded.
Then there was Mikhail’s yacht. I’d thought about that too—more than once. He’d hidden Sloane away from Giovanni, kept her safe and out of sight, out of reach. It had worked for him, but I knew it wouldn’t work for me. Valentina didn’t do well with orders, with being handled. She’d fight back—hard. She’d demand answers—ones I couldn’t give without losing her entirely. Because there was no explanation good enough to justify the lies I’d fed her.
Not one.
Fuck.It was a mess.
The Castillo deal was bad enough. Sebastian sniffing around it was inevitable but manageable if we played it smart. But we hadn’t. Instead we’d locked him up, given him weeks to stew, and practically invited James into our back yard. And now the whole thing was falling apart piece by goddamn piece, with me stuck in the center holding the bag.
Max and Remy stared at me, waiting. They always waited. Always looked at me to clean up their shit, fix their mistakes. And usually, I didn’t mind. Hell, usually I welcomed it. Solving problems was my thing—had been since I was seventeen and learned the only way to survive was to stay two steps ahead of everyone else.
But now it was personal. Now Valentina was involved, and suddenly, every risk felt like it had doubled overnight. Keeping her safe was one thing. Keeping her ignorant of what kind of man she’d married—what kind of monster I could be when backed into a corner—was another thing entirely.
Max explained the rest of the situation to me. How James was pulling strings. How Sebastian could flip this around entirely.
I listened silently, my jaw so tight it felt like it might crack from the pressure. Every word he spoke made my blood boil just a little bit hotter. They’d sat on this for weeks—weeks—and never once thought it might be worth mentioning before James Callahan touched down and made himself everyone’s problem. They’d thought they had it handled. Thought they had Sebastian cornered.
Fucking idiots.
“You realize this is exactly what I warned you about,” I finally said, trying to hold onto whatever remained of my rapidly fraying patience. “I told you to let him out. I told you holding him would only make this worse.”
Remy looked away, his usual confidence nowhere to be found. He was probably already running through a dozen contingency plans in his head. Mikhail just watched me silently, not saying a word, but I could see he understood. He’d been here before, weighing the same choices, deciding how far he’d go to protect Sloane.
I thought I’d prepared for everything. Every scenario. Every possible complication. But somehow I’d underestimated how quickly this could spiral. And I fucking hated it—hated myself for not seeing it coming. Hated them even more for pushing us here.
“We don’t have time for this,” Remy said eagerly. “We need solutions, Marco, not?—”
“I gave you solutions,” I interrupted angrily. “Weeks ago. You ignored them.” I stood abruptly, my chair scraping loudly across the floor. Everyone’s attention snapped to me instantly.
“Where the hell are you going?” Remy demanded as if I owed him some kind of explanation. As if the past few weeks hadn’tbeen one long, endless shit show caused entirely by his inability to listen the first time around.
“To fix the fucking mess you’ve created,” I argued. “I’m going to get Sebastian Callahan out of jail and pray he’s feeling charitable enough not to hold this against us.”
Remy opened his mouth ready to argue—probably to tell me I was overreacting, that we had options, some bullshit excuse to justify weeks of sitting around doing nothing—but I wasn’t interested. Not anymore.
