“If you were a man, you wouldn’t be my daughter,” he says. “It was over a year ago that Nico was jumped at that warehouse. Over a year ago that I walked into his house and saw the damage that was done to him. And I still remember it clear as day.”
I remember it like it was yesterday, too. Nico, bruised and cut, limping. His jaw still tight. His eye swollen. While he sat there, barely moving at all because every part of him was hurting.
How we learned that he almost died that night, and it was instinct and reflex that saved him from a killing blow.
I’m not an idiot. I know I’ll never be able to do something like that. I know I won’t be able to hold off five men long enough to survive. I’m not naïve, but I’m also not helpless.
“Mia tesoro,” he says quietly. My treasure. “If that were you…”
He shakes his head, unable to finish.
I hate the way my throat tightens at that. Hate that some part of me still responds to it. Not because it makes me want to obey, but because it reminds me that underneath all of this iron and force and command, there is something else.
Love. Fierce and real.
But sometimes incredibly suffocating.
“So this is just about me.”
“This is about all of you.”
“So what about Erica? She’s pregnant again. And Emma?” I say, referring to Nico’s wife and the daughter they share. “And how about Teresa? Cristiano? He’s Vito’s heir. Why isn’t her cousin protecting her?”
“They are being protected. Vito and Nico are taking care of that personally.”
“Oh great,” I say, throwing my hands out and dropping them back to my sides. “So they get to cozy up with their spouses for the next few weeks, and I get a complete stranger in my space.”
“Yes,” he says simply.
I close my eyes for one second.
When I open them, he is still standing there, immovable.
I know this posture. I know this tone. I know when he has shifted from discussion into decree. But I am not done fighting.
I realize that I am being difficult about this. I realize that everybody else has already accepted it. That I am the one making this a war.
That realization does nothing to improve my mood.
“And what about Lucia?” I ask, referring to my older sister, who lives in Las Vegas most of the time with her husband and their three children.
“Nick Dixon’s security is separate from ours. He has no reason to suspect a breach on his end. They’ll be staying out of Atlantic City for the time being.”
I press my lips together.
My father sees the crack in me and goes for it.
“This is not an inconvenience,” he says. “This is not me being overprotective. Someone sent a message to me naming my children. There is uncertainty inside our own ranks. Until I know exactly who is involved and who they have spoken to, I am not trusting the usual channels with your safety.”
I look at him across the room and say the only thing left, even though I know it won’t change anything.
Nothing I said was ever going to change anything.
“So you trust Teresa’s cousin more than your own men.”
“For the time being.”
I walk back toward the desk slowly this time, not pacing now, just thinking. My mind catches on all the practical horrors of it.
