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EIGHTEEN
ANTHONY
“What do you mean Giovanniis gone?” my father asked me from behind his desk. “No one that powerful just vanishes.” At eighty, his old-school suspenders nearly slipped off his frail-looking shoulders.
I made it my mission to make him look strong. Rounding his desk and lifting the strap back on his shoulder, I squeezed it, feeling nothing but bones. All his muscle mass was gone. I shuddered to think one day I’d be that weak.
“We had a meeting with Rebecca.” Saying her name put a lump in my throat. “She’s assumed control.”
“What do you mean, we?” He looked around. “I wasn’t at that meeting.”
I froze, wondering if my father would throw anger my way for banding with Bastien and Gian before telling him what I knew about Sunrise and Becca’s threats.
“Papa, you’re busy here. She knew I’d tell you.”
“You didn’t tell me who we were.” The guy looked like a broken-down mule, but his mean streak still ran on all cylinders.
“Sebastien Daria and Giancarlo Byrne.”
“Byrne,” my father mumbled, staring out his window at the blue sky. “Back in the day when the Biancos held the throne, Angelo Bianco had every boss’s son lined up to marry his only daughter.” My father mused over the story I’d heard hundreds of times.
“I know, Papa.”
“Francesca turned everyone down, ran off to Boston, and married for love.” Papa shook his head. “Stupid girl. Angelo disinherited her out of pride.”
“And we know what pride can do, so—”
“The day Angelo and Maria were gunned down... You could hear a pin drop in this city. Patrick Byrne, who I always suspected pulled the hit off himself, hired the best lawyers to get Francesca’s inheritance back. It worked, but took years. All while his Boston hitmen slowly wiped out the men who remained fiercely loyal to Angelo. Patrick got lucky. Many surrendered to Byrne in exchange for their life.”
My father told this thirty-year-old story like it happened yesterday. If I asked him what he had for breakfast, I’d get an empty stare followed by a dozen wrong guesses. “We have to make sure history doesn’t repeat itself, Papa.”
He stood from his desk, fury settling into his old eyes. “That’s why we need that girl. While Patrick Byrne was in court, other families tore apart Angelo’s businesses, grabbing every nibble they could to advance their own standings. Domenico seized the biggest pieces. We can’t let Byrne or Daria move in and take what is rightfully ours.”
I wasn’t worried about the Darias, but the rumor of an entire army of Bianco turncoats now loyal to Patrick Byrne waiting in the shadows weighed heavily on our minds. Despite Patrick’s passive behavior all these years, we were all waiting for him to give the signal to start a war. Wondering what the trigger would be.
Giovanni Domenico disappearing was the perfect trigger in my mind. I had to keep Giancarlo on my side.
How ironic that Old Man Domenico found himself in the same situation that helped him rise to power. No son to take over his world and a daughter who might very well marry for love.
“We are next in line after Domenico Holdings,” Papa said, then pointed at me. “You, Anthony, are to marry his daughter. She should have come to me.”
Yeah, well, she wants to put us all in jail, Papa. So no, she wouldn’t come to you.
“She seemed really upset at her father disappearing. She wasn’t herself.”
“You bring her to me at once.” He rounded the desk, the strap falling off his shoulder again.
I exhaled. “And say what?”
He shook his head at me. “You propose. Right now. With Nathaniel out of consideration, you are now the heir apparent to the Domenico kingdom. Once you and Rebecca are married, that is.”
The day my father sat me down in this office and told me I had to marry Rebecca flashed through my memory. That piece of news hit me in two completely different ways. Sheer elation at the thought of all that power at my feet, but also dread. Dread because I wasn’t ready to give up my lifestyle. I slept with a different woman every night. Every night in my penthouse. In my bed. In the shower. In the kitchen. On the living room floor. On the balcony. Having a wife move in would make fucking someone on the kitchen counter awkward, to say the least.
Then there were my other activities...
Further complicating matters, Rebecca wasn’t a trophy wife to be shipped off to live in my house in the Hamptons where she could throw parties and raise kids. My kids.
Giovanni Domenico had planned to hand over his kingdom to his son Nate. Only Nate Domenico started recording music instead. Meanwhile, Becca must have read the writing on the wall. With her older sisters married and Nate and her father at odds for years, she’d dug in and took more and more control of the business. Surely using that sweet-as-honey voice of hers.
Dad, I’ll take care of that.
Dad, don’t worry about that. I got it.
Dad, don’t you have a tee-time to get to?
Staring out at New York Harbor, I scoffed to myself. Becca was smarter than me. I let my father sit at his desk and keep working like he used to. My father actually thought he was still in charge. That only seemed apparent to others because of Vito. His hitman. A man so ruthless, he made my balls shrink. Vito could never be bought off or swayed to work for me. He’d go to the grave with my father. With blood on his hands, not caring if that blood was mine.
If my father came across an enemy, Vito would take care of it. So I let my father think he was still in control. Meanwhile, I handled everything.
A gangster as powerful as Giovanni Domenico going off the grid left us all confused. There literally was no playbook on how to handle it. All we had were the guy’s intentions for me to marry Rebecca. Then, with our influences, Papa planned to dissolve the tribunal and crush Daria and Byrne.
Rebecca didn’t want to marry me. That was clear. She loved Bastien. Lucky fucker.
“Papa, I’ll take care of it.” I had to make Becca look like a desperate slut to survive, not exactly upping my chances with her.
My father narrowed his eyes at me. Shaking his head, he took out his phone.
“Whoa, Papa, who are you calling?”
“Vito.”
I froze. “W... Why?”
“He’ll find Giovanni.”
I found her father...Gian’s words sat on the tip of my tongue. I couldn’t tell my father what was going on as far as Becca’s threat. The game she was playing with us. Or that I was working closely with Gian and Sebastien instead of standing with my father to take apart Domenico Holdings right now.
Gently, I slipped his phone away from him. “With all due respect to Vito, that’s not his forte. He...eliminates problems for you, Papa. He’s not a tracker.”
“He’ll hire a tracker.”
“Who?” I spun around, holding my arms out. “I oversee that part of our operation. You need that, you come to me.” I let strength and edginess seep into my voice to prove my point.
My father cocked his head to the side and nodded. “You find him. I want to speak to Giovanni within a week.”
Interesting how Becca being sweet and sugary with her father got him to back down and for me, I had to show grit and balls. “I can’t promise you a week. I just found all this out.”
“I still want you to announce your engagement to Rebecca.” His eyes looked clearer than they had in years. “You listen to me on this, Anthony. Once word gets out Giovanni is gone, the vultures will hover. Giovanni did not let me make any formal announcements about our deal. And with you fucking around and not putting a ring on Rebecca’s hand, those ruffians will circle the Domenico kingdom and attack.”
“I won’t let that happen, Papa. Trust me.” I left his office, knowing he was right.
The old-school way we did business never died. Fighting for control operated on pure gut instinct.
I texted Bastien and Gian:
It’s a go.
I just agreed to let all of Manhattan know I was officially dating Rebecca and that she was also cheating on me with two other men.
The Darias were gonna make a fortune taking bets who’d get a bullet between the eyes first.
