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“Done! Who wants vodka?”
The Popescues were all over that plan, but I passed. The maid, Maria, brought me my coffee with a smile. I’d known her damned near my whole life. Yet another sign that my dad was a decent guy, at his core. His staff loved him and always had. As long as they were loyal.
Three quick rounds of vodka shots later, my father sent the Popescu brothers off with friendly slaps of their meaty backs. He said goodbye to them in Praquean and Russian, and the strange pidgin that gypsies like the Popescues’ ancestors spoke, and then closed the door behind them as they left, turning to me with an even bigger smile.
I eased myself down into one of the leather wingbacks that flanked the fireplace.
“So what did you pull off there, exactly?”
He eyed me, like he wasn’t sure if he should tell me.
“That would be family business. And I thought you wanted nothing to do with that? Or…” He raised his eyebrow. “Did you change your mind?”
Shrewd, like I said. “Out with it, Dad. What just happened?”
“Might have caught the father in a bit of a compromising position with one of his young manservants,” he said softly, with a snicker. “He begged me not to tell his wife, and I’m no monster, son, you know that, but I might have leaned on him to persuade the family that their quarry was running short on profitability, and to sell quickly to the next person who offered them a decent price. Which, of course, was me.” He leaned in conspiratorially.
I couldn’t help but laugh a bit, too. He was so overjoyed and his happiness was always contagious. “Those poor fuckers.”
“They just sold me the cheapest copper and gold mine in the history of the world.” He eyed me with a twinkle, holding the silence a beat longer than was necessary.
“What?” I asked, feeling an undercurrent of something else going on.
“Why do you think I would figure out, while you are back here, a way to buy a mine we’ve wanted for so long? Rich in precious metals…”
“Why?” I pretended to not catch on to his play.
“You’re not that dumb, Vasile. You know why. You probably even suspect I set up the father with the young boy servant. Now, I have a new mine, and need the expertise of someone that has thrived in that business.”
I left it hanging there, knowing full well what he meant. He set it all up. I’d returned home upon my parents request to attend Petre’s wedding. Now, all of the sudden, my father takes on a precious metals business. A business that was the height of my expertise…
He smiled, letting it go for the moment, knowing I knew what he was up to.
“Now, though. To other business. What brings you back, son? How can I help?”
The true scope of what Valeria and I had done together—to each other, with each other—began to take shape for the first time. My father had sought legitimacy in a title for as long as I could remember. In one wild night of passion, I had set that whole dream ablaze.
No regrets, though. Not a single fucking one.
“You might want to sit down for this, Dad,” I said.
“I’m alright,” he said, pouring himself another dash of vodka. “Not that old and weak yet!” He raised his glass.
I inhaled slowly and I ran my hand down my stubble.
“I’m serious. You better sit down.”
CHAPTER 19
Vasile
My father sat across from me in the pair of leather chairs that flanked the fire. He leaned forward, grabbed the poker from its hook on the hearth, and jabbed one of the logs. It broke in half and sent showers of sparks up the chimney.
I looked at my father and thought about how exactly to put this. But I’d never been one to mince words. And this was no fucking time to start.
“I wanted Valeria. So I took her for myself.”
He furrowed his massive salt-and-pepper eyebrows and blinked a few times. His cheeks were flushed with the vodka shots. Or, shit, he might actually be blushing. A lot of crime bosses were womanizers, but my father most definitely wasn’t one of them.
“Just to be clear. When you say took…” he said, trailing off.
I glanced at him briefly, then stared into the fire. Took her hard, took her long, took her deep. Took her because I needed her, wanted her, had to fucking have her.
“When I say took, I mean took,” I said.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw my father clearly trying to suppress a smile. Trying and failing. Failing badly. But he wasn’t being creepy about it. He seemed genuinely tickled by the situation.
He folded his hands over his stomach. “And her…” my father trailed off, searching for the word. I knew what he was looking for—virginity, chastity, purity. Some nonsense like that. I couldn’t imagine him saying any of them, and he didn’t, because finally he asked: “Is she like she was when last I saw her?”
