Page 20 of Captivated

It was all true.

“Joe,” his mother said, “I miss you.”

“You, too, Ma.”

“New York is being nice to you, isn’t it?”

His mother didn’t even try to hide the underlying threat in her words. It was as if she would personally make her way over to the state if she thought someone was fucking with her son. Any of her kids, really.

His mother probably would, too.

“New York is treating me fine,” Joe assured.

“Better be. Try to have fun—bring me home something nice.”

“I will, Ma.”

“There, you talked to him, now give me the goddamn phone, Lily,” Damian muttered in the background.

“Love you, bye!”

That was all he heard from his mother before his father was back on the line once more. Joe rolled his eyes at the absurdity of it all, but that was just his family. That was his mother, and she was never going to change.

Her kids were everything to her. Even now that two of them—Joe and Cory—were grown men, and out on their own, none of that mattered to his mother. She liked to baby them, and keep them as close as she possibly could. Or, at least as much as the two would allow.

Frankly, Joe and Cory didn’t have much of a choice. Their father made sure of that—Lily complained about anything, and Damian fixed it. That included her sons when she thought they weren’t coming to visit her enough, or whatever the case may be.

It was what it was.

Joe learned not to fight it.

“Oh, good,” Damian said quietly, “Mon is distracting her for five minutes.”

Lily, he meant.

“Say hey to Monica for me,” Joe said.

“I will later.”

His little sister—and youngest sibling—was accustomed to Joe coming and going a lot of the time. He wasn’t even sure if she noticed he was gone, to be honest. She didn’t say much about it, but she always liked when he came back after a spell of being gone, and took her out to do whatever she wanted for an entire day.

Something else his father demanded.

Family was important.

Always.

“How’s it going there?” Damian asked. “Any news?”

“The Marcellos have me settled in now.”

“How so?”

“Phone; hotel; money. A car is on the way for me to use, too. Not sure how long they want me to be here, or how long this is going to take, rather, but they’re making sure I am comfortable for the duration. Have to respect that. Usually, it’s me figuring that shit out when I go underground for a while.”

Damian whistled low. “Taking care of you, then.”

“Too bad that doesn’t exactly make me feel any fucking better about this whole thing, though.”