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I turned my eyes to him and shook my head. “Definitely not.”
“And,” my father inhaled thoughtfully. “Are you?”
Fuck no, I wasn’t the same. I’d been away from her for all of four hours and I was fucking aching to see her again. Last night, everything had changed.
Completely. Forever.
“Definitely, definitely not the same as I was. I’ll never be the same again,” I said.
He spun his crystal glass of vodka slowly in his hand, serious again now, the smile replaced with a frown.
“I can’t honestly say I blame you. She reminded me very much of your mother when I first met her. All full of fire, but with the kindest heart. Not to mention beautiful.” He held his glass up, then took a sip.
To hell with beautiful. She was heaven-sent. A goddess on earth. “Tell me about it.”
“But you’ve gotten us in the shit now, son. Your brother is going to be furious. I should be furious. Truth is, I am furious, despite it all. You’ve interfered with my plans. Our family’s plans. I had plans for that girl. Things that are in motion. Do you know what having a royal title does for this family? It raises us. It brings us new clients and new opportunities. Had you come to me and told me what you were going to do, perhaps we could have made a compromise of some kind with your brother so he could save face, but now I’m going to have a damned hard job persuading him that he should still marry her and produce children, knowing…” He cleared his throat, then finished, “where she’s been and with whom. So then. What’s the plan, my boy? How do you make this right with us? Or didn’t you think that through, before you took her for yourself?”
His anger was always like this. Even when we were children, he didn’t beat us or shout or simmer. He asked us questions, made us think about what we’d done and what we’d do differently given the chance. Clearly I hadn’t thought about anything except getting my goddamned hands on her. But now that I had, the idea of letting her go was abhorrent to me. Setting my coffee down, I rubbed my face hard enough to see stars behind my eyelids.
“Short of sending Petre to Siberia, I’ve got no fucking clue. I barely slept. All I can think about is her. But if he so much as looks at her, Dad, I’ll fucking kill him. I swear to God. And I won’t be sorry about it.”
He carefully picked a piece of lint off of his woolen trousers and flicked it toward the fire.
“As plans go, my boy, that’s a pretty shitty one. So, just so that we’re clear, if your brother was willing to overlook her transgressions, you still wouldn’t allow this marriage to go ahead?”
“Fuck, no. No chance.”
“Then it seems to me that you’ll have to accept your fate. I may be the nominal head of this family, but even if I wanted to, I can’t protect you from your own stupidity.”
Even though I was well into my thirties, he could still make me feel like I was a little kid. Annoyed the hell out of me. But he had a point. We might be the most powerful crime family in Praque, but if I was allowed to get away with what I’d done, it would be easy to call us weak.
“There’s another option,” I said, ready to play my trump card, and raised my eyebrow. The twitch at the corner of his mouth said he understood.
He rose from his seat, and walked the length of the room to look out the window, onto the snow-tipped branches of the pine forest beyond.
“You know the old saying, son. If I scratch your back…” he said, and turned to face me, beaming.
He’d always wanted me back in the business with him, and he was about to get his wish.
“Exactly my thinking.”
“Welcome home,” my dad said, and raised his glass in a toast.
“Thank you, Father. But, now, I need you to do something for me…”
His eyes darkened but he threw back his drink and nodded.
“I need you to get a message to Valeria’s family. Let them know, there’s been a change of plans. We’ve already picked up Valeria, she is with the bridal party in preparation for the wedding. They will protest, but they will do as you ask, knowing the consequences otherwise. Tell them it’s what Petre and the family decided was necessary after her somewhat abrupt and impolite departure last night. Tell them something about making sure their collateral didn’t disappear…”
“Very well,” he agreed.
“I need some time,” I said.
“I’ll do what I can.”
“And, keep this from Petre. He has eyes and ears everywhere with his spies.” I cleared my throat, then finished. “I need one more thing…”
