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“Touch it and I will make dealing with Coraline look like a cake walk.” I was so sick of people looking at me like a victim. I’d gotten shot, it happened. It was time to get back to work, the stupid pricks.
“Mel, you should…”
“Remember the last time you thought I should rest?” Right after I lost our last child.
He sighed. “The deal didn’t go as planned. We settled on twenty mil. They wanted thirty mil. Liam was about to, well, be Liam and start cutting them down, he was talking to you, and then the accident. He settled on thirty and we left.”
I could feel the headache coming on. My teeth clenched and my fists tightened.
“Liam paid those motherfuckers thirty million dollars? Was this weed laced with cocaine as well?”
The idiot!
“Mel, he wasn’t thinking straight. He didn’t want—”
“Shut up and get me a phone!”
“You know we will make double that. We were underpaying them anyway. It—”
Pulling the IV from my arm, I slid off the bed, causing him to rush towards me with his eyes wide. Balancing on one foot, I hopped over to him.
“Declan, call them and tell them I want my money back.” I glared into his eyes.
“This isn’t Bergdorfs, Mel you can’t—”
Grabbing his jacket, I pulled him to my face. “Call them back, or you’re going to pay me that extra ten.”
“How the fuck am I supposed to do that?” He was panicking.
“Not my problem. Get it done or you will never be a father.” I smiled, slapping his cheek softly before letting go and hopping back over to the bed.
LIAM
I sat in Fedel’s room, eating his Jell-O as he lay in bed. Checking my watch again, I looked at his cut-up face. Glass was a bitch.
“He’s late,” I told him as I took another bite.
“He’s in a wheelchair and my mother is gone. It will take him a moment to get here,” Fedel whispered, flipping on the television.
Yes, Gino was in a wheelchair only because my father put him there.
“You do know that I will kill you in front of him if he doesn’t tell me what I want to hear?” I told him honestly, watching the game.
From the corner of my eye, I saw no fear in his eyes, and I wasn’t sure if that was because he didn’t believe me or because he’d already accepted his fate.
“If I’m going to die, can I please have my last meal back?” he asked, glancing at the food I was stealing.
“It’s shit,” I told him, handing back everything but the Jell-O.
“The Jell-O too,” he said.
“Seriously?” I snickered, looking at the cup of half eaten Jell-O.
He nodded.
“You’d better hope it’s not your last meal.” I handed him the cup as the door opened.
“Gino!” I stood. The blonde nurse wheeled him in. Walking over to her, I grabbed the handles of his chair and pushed him to Fedel’s bedside.
“Do you need—” the nurse said.
“No, you may leave,” I told her. After she did, the room was silent.
Gino eyed Fedel with anger and worry, but in return, Fedel ignored him, eating his Jell-O as if he didn’t even notice he was here.
Gino didn’t look old, he looked ancient. Like he had gone to hell and back, and now he was just waiting to go back again. His face was melting, his once long hair was gone and only a few stands of grey hair covered his head. I could see the scars that were marked all over his arms. He was proud of them; they were his battle scars.
“Mr. Morris…”
“Cut the shit, Callahan,” he spat out in disgust. “What do you want from me?”
Taking a deep breath, I tried to control myself, but I was done with control. Grabbing him by the neck, I all but lifted the old man out of his seat.
“I was trying to be civil. We were enemies once upon a time, but because of my wife, you became part of the package. It’s for that reason that I’m not going to break your arm. You will tell me what you know about Aviela DeRosa. If your loyalty lies with the Giovanni family, then it lies with me, and this is an order.”
When his face turned blue, I dropped him in his chair, and took a step back, trying to regain my composure.
Gino coughed and sucked in a breath of air while holding onto his throat like he was trying to expand his airway with his own hands.
“Aviela DeRosa is dead,” he said, and I pinched the bridge of my nose.
I was going to kill this man.
“You’re lying to me, Gino,” I whispered taking out my brass knuckles. “Gino, I don’t have the time nor the patience for wasted words. Aviela DeRosa is alive. I know this because she shot my wife three times. Your son, who I am about to kill right in front of you, is in this room because of her. So tell the truth or else your son will die, and you will spend your life as vegetable.”
“I…I can’t.” He shook his head as he stared at Fedel.
Fedel begged him with his eyes. “Pop, we’re on the same team. Melody is Orlando’s daughter. She’s a Giovanni, and we’re loyal to Giovannis.”
Gino leaned forward, his body now ridged. “That’s why I can’t. I swore to Orlando I would—”
“I killed Orlando. He’s dead, so swear to me and then deal with his shit in heaven or hell, Gino. I doubt he wanted this, so be smart for the first time in your life.”
I really wanted this and he was my only lead. Everything else, Aviela was slowly destroying.
“Pop. If not for me, if not for Liam, then for Orlando’s baby girl,” Fedel said, and I had to hold back an eye roll. Mel was not a baby girl. He knew that. But hey, whatever got the job done.
“Orlando always had a thing for the feisty ones.” He sighed, staring at his hands. “We were in southern Italy, and there she was, Aviela Costa, she called herself. She had everyone eating out of the palm of her hands, and Orlando wanted her. She looked like she wanted him too. The whole night, they were in the back of the club, just dancing and talking. The talking became more, and the next thing I know, I’m driving her to and from Orlando’s home when we got back to the US. He was so smitten that he just couldn’t leave her. I didn’t trust her; her eyes held no real emotions. I ran a background check, but everything came out fine. She was Aviela Costa, but I still had this feeling…
“I asked around and no one knew much about her. But her family was dead. So I had the boys double-check for paper trails. They found out almost all of our files—both digital and physical —had been tampered with.”
“You told Orlando?” I asked, walking in front of him.
Gino just snickered. “Iron hands was more like an iron head—and not his cock either. The fool was in too deep. He had no idea she was playing him. We were bleeding money, losing connections, and we were about to lose everything else, and she had only been in our lives for three months. He thought it was us. That we were stealing from him. I think he was losing it. Part of him knew, and the other part of him was in love. He set a trap. To this day, I still don’t know how he figured out it was her. But I saw him the moment after. He held her neck, ready to snap it and the bitch just said, ‘Go ahead, kill your kid too and save me the trouble.’”
