I should have realized Rocco wouldn’t fall for my tricks. He knows me too well to lap up my bullshit excuses. “Do you really think that will cut it?” Although he’s asking a question, he continues talking, stealing my chance to reply. “Hiding her away won’t fix shit, Dimi. Acting as if she means nothing to you won’t fix shit.” He slants his head to the side before arching his brow. “Holding her when she cries won’t fix shit… especially when you’re the reason she’s crying.”
Smith’s silence reveals he knew Rocco’s plan to throw him into the deep end without a life jacket. If he weren’t aware, he would have defended himself by now.
I’ve avoided Rocco’s emotional jabs for the past two decades, but I can’t do it anymore. “What do you suggest I do, Rocco? Feed her to the wolves?”
I’m anticipating for him to come back with the loved-up shit his mother used to excuse his father for beating her to a pulp, so you can imagine my surprise when he takes our conversation in a direction I never saw coming. “Stop taking it up the ass as if you enjoy it.”
My laugh belongs to a maniac. It rolls up my chest as quickly as my fists ball, but it does little to weaken Rocco’s campaign. “When we were kids, every fucking game without fail, you played the character less likely to win all because you were determined to prove Princess Peach wasn’t a damsel in distress. You didn’t give a fuck that you lost time and time again ‘cause it wasn’t about winning, it was about being the better person.” He points to my door as if Roxanne is on the other side. “You finally won, but instead of giving Princess P her time to shine, you locked her away in another fucked-up kingdom.”
“To protect her.” My words seethe out of my mouth like venom.
Rocco scoffs at me like I’m not seconds from pressing my gun to his temple and blowing his brains out. “You’re not protecting her. You are bending over and taking it up the ass like you have the past two years.” His words shift to a chuckle when I dive over my desk, remove my gun from the back of my trousers, and use the barrel to smooth the crinkle between his dark brows. “You can’t kill me, Dimi. Your enemies haven’t ordered you to, and we both know you don’t do anything until they tell you to.”
Too pissed to think clearly, I flick off the safety on my gun before inching back the trigger. “I’m Dimitri fucking Petretti. I don’t answer to anyone.”
“Prove it,” Rocco mocks, staring straight at me. “Kill me.”
His suggestion both shocks and pisses me off, but I play it cool. “You’re willing to die for Roxanne?”
He shakes his head, his smile picking up. “Nah, D. This has nothing to do with Roxie. You, on the other hand, this has everything to do withyou. If you need to kill me to get your balls back, I’m willing. As you said, you’re Dimitri fucking Petretti, so how about you start acting like it? We play to play, we kill to kill, and we—”
“Take down any fucker stupid enough to get in our way.”
His smile is smug now instead of mocking. “I can’t imagine what’s going through your head. I assume it’s some fucked-up shit, but you’ll never win the war if you’re not willing to fire at the opposition.”
Although I agree with him, there’s one thing I can’t discount. “Fien—”
“Is a weakness they’re exploiting because they assume you won’t fight back.” He frees himself from my vicious clutch before scooting to the back of his chair, bringing himself closer to me. “Roxanne is a way of showing them you’re not to be messed with. Bring back the fear, Dimi. Bring back the respect.” He nudges his head to the monitor I switched off when he arrived. “Bring back the woman willing to die for a little girl she’s never met. If you bring those things back, Fien will soon follow. I guarantee you that.”
Rocco doesn’t make pledges he can’t keep. Everyone he has made, he’s upheld—including his promise that he’d walk away from our friendship if I married Audrey. He knew it would cause a heap of trouble, though I doubt he ever guessed it would be this bad.
That’s why I sent Clover to do Audrey’s ransom drop instead of Rocco. We had been out of contact for months. Something about Audrey rubbed him the wrong way. He never told me what, but it was as obvious as the sun hanging in the sky.
Taking my silence as the end of our conversation, Rocco stands to his feet, flips his chair back around, then makes a beeline to the door.
He halts opening it when I ask, “What was it about Audrey that you hated.”
He cranks his neck my way. “I didn’t hate her, D. She just had nothing in her eyes that proved she deserved you.”
“And Roxanne does?”
His lips curl into the corner. “Fuckin’ oath she does.” He pivots around to face me front on. “The first time I saw her, the thoughts I had when you showed me a photo of Fien rolled through my head. Born in the wrong era, to the wrong family, but so fucking full of life, she’d survive the shittiest of circumstances.”
I try to hold back my nod, but my chin bobs before I can. That’s almost spot on to what I thought when I saw Roxanne with black smudges smeared on her cheeks. The beauty she tried to hide with goth clothing and black makeup captured my attention but knowing she could leap over the grief holding her down utterly sealed my devotion. She had strength I’d never seen in a woman—not even my mother.
Strength she could have again if I’m willing to loosen the reins.
“Rocco…”
He takes a moment to wipe the hope from his face before answering, “Yeah.”
He shouldn’t have bothered. It comes back in abundance when I say, “Have Smith clear my schedule. Unless it directly corresponds with Fien, I don’t want to know about it.”
He hits me with a frisky wink. “It’ll be my pleasure.”
He isn’t glamouring up because he finally has the chance to run things around here. He’s had numerous opportunities to create his own sanction the past decade. It’s never been of interest to him. He’s just grateful we’re once again on the same team. That hasn’t been the case the past four days. Roxanne’s silence wasn’t the only one I was dealing with. Rocco had kept his distance as well.
That’s done with now. Rocco is right. I can’t be fucked in the ass unless I’m willing to lay down and take it. For too long, I’ve allowed others to write my story. This is my life and my mistakes, so I refuse to let anyone edit out the parts that need to be shared—even the brutal bits. This is my story, and I’m going to tell it how it’s supposed to be told.
