He gave a slight shake of his head. “You’re the most arrogant son of a bitch I’ve ever met.” He pushed off the desk and straightened, but no amount of elongating his spine could makehim reach my height. “You disrespected me. I don’t like you—and I don’t like you for my daughter.”
“With all due respect, our relationship has nothing to do with you.”
“My daughter will never choose a man I disapprove of?—”
“Well, you’re in for a big surprise, then.”
A flash of anger moved across his face.
“I don’t want it to be this way. I want to reconcile and find middle ground, but you seem more interested in drawing a line in the sand and forcing your daughter to cross it. You seem more interested in burning what remains instead of restoring it.”
The look of hatred continued. “If you had come to me first, this would have been a lot different. If you’d come to me at any point during this relationship and faced me like a man, it would be different. But you decided to sneak around behind my back like a coward. You decided to make this into a game.”
“Francesca isnota game. I had every intention of telling you. There were multiple instances when I wanted to, but Francesca convinced me not to. Said it wasn’t the right time or you weren’t in the right mood. I wish I’d disregarded her wishes, because this isn’t how I wanted it to unfold. I’m not making excuses, because at the end of the day, I should have just done whatever the hell I wanted. But I don’t want you to think this is how I wanted to handle it. I don’t want this situation to undermine your relationship with Francesca. The last thing I want is to adversely affect her relationship with you and Leo.”
“Then leave and let her find a man who wouldn’t make your mistakes.”
I couldn’t control the scoff that escaped my lips. “But be a disappointment in every other way.”
He hadn’t moved at all. Still as a statue, unaffected by my rising ire.
“You don’t want me to disrespect you? Then don’t disrespect me. Because let’s not forget she’s alive right now because I was there. Let’s not pretend that no one in their right fucking mind would cross Francesca Mancini if they knew she was my woman. Let’s not pretend I didn’t eviscerate her enemies as they hung from your tree, that I didn’t ground all the planes at the airport so I could kill Umberto with my bare hands. Let’s not pretend I didn’t walk straight into gunfire to get to Francesca in this house when they had her cornered in her office. Alessandro would have been a good little boy and asked your permission to date her, but do you want some pussy-ass bitch for your daughter? Or do you want a man who knows he deserves her without someone else’s approval? A man who cares only about her opinion and no one else’s? I don’t need to tell you that I would burn the world for her because you’ve seen me do it. This isn’t about my worthiness. This is about your ego.”
“This is about respect. I made you family?—”
“Because I’ve busted my ass for it. Because I’ve earned my place here. And I’ve earned Francesca too—no questions fucking asked.”
His face was tinted red like he was going to be pissed no matter what I said.
“I wish I’d come to you before. I mean that, Don. But if I had, what would you have said?”
He stared at me.
“Would you have approved?”
He said nothing.
I was actually wounded by that. “So it sounds like no matter how I moved, your answer was going to be the same.” For whatever goddamn reason, I wasn’t good enough for Francesca. I’d die for this woman, but even that wasn’t enough. “You say that Francesca needs a man who can help her run the show, needs muscle to get shit done on her behalf, someone no one will fuck with, and you don’t even consider me an option.”
He worked his jaw a little bit, like there was something he wanted to say but decided not to.
“And I’m theonlyoption.” There was no man on this earth who deserved her more than me. Who would bust their ass harder. Who would love her more than I did.
The longer the silence continued, the more I realized how pointless this discussion was. “I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree for the time being.” I was not a negotiator, only an enforcer. I was unsuited to resolving disputes among different parties. I just found another way around the problem, but there was no other way around this problem. “We need to finish Warren. We’ll put a pin in this and revisit it later.”
“There is no later, Wolfe. You’re out.”
I cocked my head slightly because I must have misheard him. “What the fuck did you just say?”
“You heard me.”
“We kill Warren first. You can fire me later.”
His eyes were hard as steel and impenetrable. “You’re out—now.”
“That is a very stupid move, Don.”
“Vincenzo.”
