He glared.
I glared right back and then forced a smile. “My apologies. Did you want me to cry?”
“No.”
“I might be able to conjure up a tear if one of your guards gets a feather and starts tickling me, but I think that would be frowned upon.”
“Your mouth will be the death of you.”
“Funny, that’s exactly what that guy’s mom said when I screwed her last night, though I think it was the other way around. Something like my mouth will be the death of her.”
The guard I’d pointed at just glared then rolled his eyes. “Thinks he’s funny.”
“I know I’m funny.” I winked. “Thinking has nothing to do with it. I’m freaking hilarious, and the longer you listen to me talk, the shorter the time is before you die.”
“Me?” My father laughed. “Who’s going to kill me? You? Your little friends?”
“My little friends. It almost sounds like a play date, only with guns, and knives, and well… Chase does have this weird bomb fantasy, but whatever.”
“They will come for you,” my dad said coldly. “And I will end what I should have ended years go.”
“Just out of curiosity…” I leaned forward. “What would that be?”
“The list is quite long.” He scratched his face and took a step forward into the light.
He was a large man, and by large, I meant large. Over three-hundred pounds and at least six-and-a-half-feet tall. His dark hair was thinning around the crown of his head, and I could tell he hadn’t shaved for a few days.
“Been running, Pops? Or have you just let yourself go now that Mom’s finally left you.”
“Your mother is dead.” He said it so matter-of-fact that my first reaction was to laugh, and then I wanted to cry because I’d never met her, and I’d been so freaking close that it destroyed me to know I would never see her smile.
“So?” I shrugged, lying my ass off. “I didn’t know her.”
“You look like her.”
“She must have been very attractive.”
“She was a conniving bitch.”
“Ah well, I’m more of a conniving ass, so I guess I must have inherited that from your side. Can’t have it all, looks and smarts. How would that be fair?”
“Sir?” One of the guards rushed to my father’s side. “A car pulled up to the restaurant a few minutes ago. We think it’s them.”
“O-oh, them,” I mocked. “Tell me Nicolasi doesn’t make you want to shit your pants right here, right now, and I’ll let you shoot me.”
“Nicolasi?” My father’s eyes narrowed. “With an Alfero? And an Abandonato?” He chuckled. “The world is not big enough for those three to be in the same place at the same time, my son.”
“I have no father,” I said quietly. “And you have no son.”
“We’ll see.”
My response was to smile and pretend like what I’d said wasn’t something I’d recited over and over in my head since I’d been old enough to form an actual thought…
I said it in the mirror when I was four. Nixon overheard me and asked why I was so upset. I told him it was stupid that he and Chase looked so much like everyone else, while I had stormy blue eyes and weird-colored hair.
He said it was the Spanish in my Italian heritage.
I cried.
And told him I didn’t know what Spanish was, but was Spanish mean too? Did he not want me either?
Nixon hugged me like a brother.
Chase came in and did the same thing. We played Legos for a few hours afterward, and they promised that even though I didn’t look like them. I’d always be family…
So my real father?
He could rot for all I cared.
“Check it out, Marco.” Father nodded toward the door. “And keep eyes on the perimeter.”
“How many men?” I asked casually.
“Pardon?”
“How many men do you have here, protecting you? You’re a cocky son-of-a-bitch. I assume you can’t imagine a world where some of the families you helped build would turn on you.”
“It would never happen.” My father set his gun out on the metal table and took off his rings. “I am the Capo. To kill me would be like killing God.”
“Holy shit, I’m surprised you haven’t been struck by lightning yet, you blasphemous idiot.”
“He put me in this position.” My father closed his eyes and lifted his hands into the air. “He put me on this earth to create order, to make money, to make a better life for my family.”
“Question.” I winced. “Did His plan also include you buying a fourteen-year-old’s virginity so you could gain control over her family as well as buy silence for involving yourself in what’s been known as the sickest prostitution ring known to the underground?”
He slapped me so hard across the face that I fell to the ground. Blood dripped from my face onto the dirt floor causing a cementing mixture to attach to my face. I spat onto the ground and laughed. So violent, I wonder if he even realized how long I could withstand torture? He punched like a bitch and I craved to tell him that. I touched my lower lip. Great. Now I’d never be able to get a lip ring like Nixon. I’d look like a fool. Damn pipe dreams.
“Who told you that?”
“The girl you tried to kill.” I got up to my knees and made it to my metal chair. “The one you sent the De Langes to kill.”
“I helped the De Langes.” He popped his knuckles. “After all, they came to me, bitching and complaining that a mere woman had been named boss. The few that agreed to it were too terrified of Nicolasi to say no and too greedy about the money he used to buy them off. A few of the members approached one of my associates and asked if I could help.” He grinned. “After all, I am a very helpful man.”
“Oh I can see that.” I saluted him.
“I gave them the location of the girl. It was a win-win. She dies, they die, no loose ends.”
“Misjudged Chase a bit, you think?” I laughed. And got slapped. Again. Damn it.
But this time I got back into my chair I was more irritated than in pain over my throbbing cheek.
“I wasn’t informed of his skill set.”
I raised my hand. “It’s the same as mine. We kill people. We assassinate. What else is there to know?”
“So do the De Langes.” He cursed. “Clearly this Chase was better.”