Page 60 of The Air You Breathe

“Ok,” she said, as she watched the bacon.

I knew this couldn’t be easy for her, but I was glad that she was taking this all so well. We stayed in a comfortable silence while she finished up the bacon. Every now and then, I would catch a frown on her face like she kept thinking of shit she wasn’t happy with.

“Breakfast is almost ready, should we take Evan some?” She took the bacon off the pan.

“Let me go ask him what he wants to do,” I said, getting up and walking down the hall to the room we had all stayed in. When Darcy had wanted to sleep in the same bed as Evan, I was nervous that I was going to hate it, or I was going to get jealous.

I meant what I had said to her last night. I was ok with sharing her, even though I felt like I was way out of my element. It felt like she was testing me. What she didn’t know is that I had shared a bed with Evan and my brother before, so I guess it wasn’t that weird.

When she scooted close enough to touch him, she looked over at me like she was gauging my reaction. I took my boots off, scooting over to her and spooned her. I placed my hand on her stomach and Darcy wrapped her hand around mine. I fell asleep instantly, waking only to make sure everyone was ok before I went back to sleep.

I walked into the bedroom noticing that Evan wasn’t on the bed anymore. The bathroom door was closed so I knocked on it.

“Food’s done, you want us to bring you a plate?’ I asked. There was no answer for a moment and I knocked again. “You ok in there?”

“I’ll be right out,” Evan yelled out.

“Do you need anything?” I wondered if something had happened or if my brother told him some really bad news.

“I’m fine,” he snapped.

Shit.

I leaned against the door listening for anything that could give me a clue as to what had happened. It didn’t sound good. I hated being in the dark, because I was always a man with a plan. Well, I planned as much as I could because with Lucio around, even the most predictable things weren’t predictable.

When all I heard was silence, I turned around checking to see if he had left his phone on the charger. Seeing the cord free, I took my phone out of my pocket and plugged it in. I left it on the nightstand and walked back to the kitchen because that bacon was calling my name.

“He said he will be right out,” I said, sitting down on the stool seeing Darcy split the oatmeal between three bowls.

“Ok,” she said, passing me a bowl and the sugar too. She looked to be deep in thought but I was glad she was taking all of this in stride.

I grabbed a piece of bacon and put it in my mouth while I mixed a little sugar into my oatmeal. The door to the bedroom opened before Evan came walking down the hall with his head down. Immediately I knew something was wrong and his face confirmed it when he looked up at me. His eyes were red like he had been crying.

We stared at each other because he couldn’t even spare a glance at Darcy. I braced myself for him to tell us that Lucio put a hit on him and what that would do to Darcy. Evan clenched his jaw, his nostrils flared, and he looked gutted. He looked up at the ceiling, Darcy looked like she wanted to cry.

“Dev.” Evan’s voice made me look at him as a tear rolled down the side of his face.

“Evan it's going to be ok, look we can—” Evan shook his head stopping me from telling him the plan I had come up with.

“Giovanni is dead,” he choked out before he looked away from me.

The hairs on the back of my neck stood up, a chill rolled down my spine, and the world stopped.

“Excuse me?” I snapped. “This better not be a fucking joke, Evan.”

“I just talked to Saul, one of the guys confirmed it.” Evan’s voice broke as another tear fell down his face.

“No,” I growled out because Giovanni wasn’t supposed to die. “He fed you the wrong information.”

“I don’t think Saul would do that. You know he was one of the most trusted men that Giovanni relied on.” Evan’s composure was slowly returning. “Look, I need to go assess the situation because Saul doesn’t know what the hell happened, only that he saw him get shot.”

“No,” I growled out again, refusing to believe that the brother I lost so much time with was taken from me. My breathing quickened. Everything was silent like I was in a bubble, and my vision was starting to blur.

“I’m sorry Dev.” I finally heard Evan’s voice. A hand touched my shoulder, making me look over at a blurry Darcy. Tears fell from my eyes letting me see her just a little bit clearer. She also had tears in her eyes, looking so beautiful even though her face was so sad. I clenched my jaw so hard, ground my teeth, and looked over at Evan again who was wiping his face from the tears he was shedding.

“I have to go, but I think it's best if you guys stay here,” he said, looking down at his phone. “I need to find out what happened and pay a visit to Vittoria. No one has told her anything.”

“I’ll tell her,” I said, feeling Darcy put her hand in mine, hugging my arm and all I wanted was to hold her close and let the storm of emotions let go.

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