Page 129 of Unlock My Heart

My hands attempt to catch the blood streaming down my face. “Am I dismissed?”

He eyes me with contempt. “You’re weak as an old man’s piss stream. Out of my sight before I break your nose again.”

Rage bubbles inside me, but I silently rise, walking to the door.

“Oh, and Fabien?”

Turning around, I keep my cool. “Yes, Papà?”

“This ice business, I expect to start seeing the family’s cut.”

Rage bubbles inside my chest. “Of course, Papà.”

“You’d better think bigger in the future, my boy. Your brother’s been accepted to every Ivy League school on the East Coast. If you don’t watch it, he’ll run business circles around you.”

“So you want me to go to college now?” I swear, I cannot keep up with this man. Not a week ago, he was mocking Angelo for being a bookworm.

He snorts. “You couldn’t get into clown school.”

“Am I excused?” I grit.

“Go,” he says with a long-suffering sigh.

I storm out of his office and to my bedroom, slamming and locking the door. My nose needs ice, and isn’t that the shittiest of ironies?

It takes about twenty minutes to stem the bleeding, and needing someone else to bleed, I settle on the training dummy in the corner. My old man’s face is envisioned with every strike.

Vitto.

Strike.

Fucking.

Strike.

Calvani.

Strike.

The.

Strike.

Fucking.

Strike.

Devil.

Strike.

There’s a pounding on the wall from the next room, and my brother shouts, “I’m trying to study.”

With a growl, I turn up the volume for Mr. Ivy League.

His door slams, rattling my wall, and I hustle out into the hallway, bumping into him on purpose. “What was that?” I get in Angelo’s face.

Not as cocky now that we’re face to face, he clears his throat. “I said I’m trying to study.”