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All along, I’d known that I shouldn’t get close to her. But I’d been too weak to resist. Francesca was right: no one had touched me since the fire.
But it was more than that. No one had ever looked at me like Allie did. Before I’d been scarred, women had only seen Paul Ferrara’s heir, a dangerous and alluring conquest. Those who dared to approach me had been viciously beautiful and power-hungry. Even the women who wanted to be with me were a little bit scared of me.
I’d loved their respect, their awe and fear. I’d loved the hedonism of having no responsibilities but plenty of money to burn on whiskey and blow. While my father had been in prison, I’d been free to do whatever the fuck I wanted.
As soon as he came home, he’d made it clear that I was an entitled little shit. Unworthy of being his heir.
Now, my supposed friends had abandoned me. Family was all I had left, and I’d almost forsaken them for Allie.
We arrived at the house, and my stomach turned. I hadn’t crossed the threshold in nearly two years. As soon as I’d healed from the most debilitating burns, I’d moved out on my own. Anything to get away from the place where I’d been disciplined so harshly that I would bear the mark of my shame for the rest of my life.
“Fine,” Francesca sighed. “Don’t answer me. You can answer Father instead.” She shook her head at me. “Why won’t you let me help you, little brother? Do you always have to fuck up so bad?”
“You love when I fuck up,” I spat.
She let out a little hum of agreement. “How else would I ever get Father to take me seriously? I’m just a woman, after all. But it’s not my fault if his precious male heir is a failure.” She spoke flippantly, but the words were edged with years of resentment.
She had to fight to prove herself every day. If she fucked up even once, our father would marry her off, using her to secure an alliance or net a good payday for the family. Her ruthlessness and resourcefulness—and my failures—were the only things that protected her from that fate.
I would’ve felt sorry for her if she weren’t such a hateful bitch.
She opened her door, and I paused, jerking my chin in my cousins’ direction. “I’m not coming inside unless John and Paulie do too.”
Francesca released a derisive snort. “Don’t worry. They won’t go back and molest your girlfriend. No one wants that kind of conflict with Fitzgerald unless you force our hand. This meeting is for immediate family only.” A single dark brow rose. “Father is waiting.”
My gut twisted, and I barely suppressed a shudder.
Don’t show weakness.
Snakes writhed inside me as I got out of the car and walked up the front steps. Dread crept over my consciousness, as though I was walking to the gallows.
The cavernous entry hall was eerily dim, the only illumination coming from lights shaped like sconces on either side of the front door. The two additional stories of open air above faded into shadow, and only the first third of the curving double staircase was visible.
I assumed Francesca had orchestrated the dramatic lighting. She knew how to suffocate someone’s psyche before they even approached our father.
Even though I was familiar with her psychological warfare, the creeping darkness was still unnerving. Ghostly screams seemed to echo through the gloom, the memory of my own agony layering over my mother’s cries for mercy. She’d begged for my worthless life, even as they’d brutalized her.
I managed to keep my shoulders relaxed until Francesca turned down the hallway leading to our father’s study. My feet stalled out, concrete weights on the crimson carpet.
She shot me a smirk over her shoulder. She knew how that place decimated me.
Father knew it too.
My ruined face twisted with remembered agony, and for a moment, I smelled the sickly scent of burning flesh.
“Come on, little brother,” Francesca urged in that terribly delighted, melodic tone. “You’ve already kept him waiting long enough.”
I’d barely spoken a dozen words to my father since the incident. I only replied when he deigned to speak to me, and even then, there was only one acceptable response: “Yes, sir.”
He’d made it clear that I had to earn his respect. It was the entire reason I’d come up with my plan to blackmail Fitzgerald.
Now all of that was ruined, and I was forced to face my worst nightmare.
My legs were leaden, but somehow, I managed to walk in Francesca’s wake. It seemed to take an eternity to reach the study, but at the same time, we arrived far too quickly. She knocked on the dark wood door, and my father commanded us to enter. That single, clipped word shuddered through my system like a thunderclap.
