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Chapter Two – Giselle
The dinner sitting between my father and I smelled okay. It was just another night in the Santos household. Night had fallen an hour ago, and my father had arrived home shortly after. He had his own set of bodyguards who took turns guarding the front of the house at night. Zander had gone home when he returned, so at least there was that.
Me? I’d spent a long time on my phone, looking up the clubs I’d passed earlier in the day, researching all the happening spots in Cypress. There was a lot. Who knew the wealthy of this city all wanted places to let loose and have fun? It wasn’t surprising; the ones with money always wanted everything. Dancing, drinking, drugs, and sex… this city was full of places like that.
I just had to find the right one, and I’d start tonight, after my father went to sleep and I could sneak out.Getting around his guards wouldn’t be too hard.
I didn’t wear gloves when it was dinner time, and I stared down into the soup before me, not having the appetite I should. My father had moved on to the second course, the meat of the meal. He was currently using his knife to cut into it, sawing away.
My eyes lifted, and I watched my father for a few moments. My father was a man who didn’t speak unless there was a point. In his early forties, he had not yet a wrinkle, nor a single grey strand in his black-haired head. His eyes matched his hair, a certain, soulless kind of pitch-black you saw in your nightmares. A good-looking man, objectively, but his appearance could morph and switch to that of a devil in a matter of seconds.
I knew him. I knew him better than anyone else did. He was my father, and I didn’t trust a single bone in his body.
I hated him… and yet I was here. With all that rage and hatred in my heart, I still couldn’t leave. I was his heir, his daughter, his only child. I would be stuck to his side until he chose a husband for me. Needless to say, I wasn’t looking forward to that day.
“Have you looked into the local college?” My father’s voice cut through the silence of the dinner, and his stare rose to meet mine. “I hear it’s a decent school.”
I’d graduated high school a few months back, so that meant I’d missed any enrollment deadlines. My father really thought he had this position already, for what would be the point in checking out Cypress University?
“I can check it out,” I remarked, not really wanting to. But, at the same time, I knew my father had suggested it for a reason. Did some of the other heirs go to it as well? I couldn’t remember. Father had spoken of them enough—Slade Palmer, Piper Lipman, Shay Arrowwood, Dex and Jett Jameson, and Nixon Hawke.
Yes, I know what you’re thinking. There were already five heirs, so why were a bunch of criminal masterminds vying for a position? A hand, usually, only had five fingers; wouldn’t a new member make six? No, because Piper wanted to leave the Black Hand. Something about her family having been murdered not too long ago.
I didn’t know the specifics, and I didn’t care to. Father was the one who wanted on the Black Hand, not me. If given the choice, I think I’d walk away from all of this, and unlike Piper, I didn’t need a family tragedy to have those feelings. My life had already been bad enough.
“I think this city could be good for us,” he went on. His body wore a dark suit; I hardly ever saw him in clothes other than button-up shirts and suits. He was not the kind of man who ever wore t-shirts and jeans. A good businessman was always ready for business.
Resisting the urge to remind him he wasn’t on the Black Hand yet, that there were still hurdles he needed to cross before we could officially call this city our home, I swallowed down some soup. “I’m glad you think so, Daddy.” I’d tried calling him Dad before, but the word didn’t taste right. I preferred using either his name or simply calling him father, but he liked the word daddy.
I think because it infantilized me, because, even though I was eighteen years old, I would always be his little girl. The light in his eye… a puppet, a piece on the chessboard he could move wherever he wanted.
God, I hated being a Santos.
“I trust you’ve been having no problems with Zander,” he said.
“Zander has been fine.”
My father set down his fork, staring at me. “What’s wrong, Giselle? Are you not happy here? I thought this place would be a nice change for you, especially after what happened to Father Charlie—that was the priest’s name, wasn’t it?”
I nodded, biting my tongue. My father knew damn well that was the priest’s name. He’d hated the fact that I’d found some type of solace with Father Charlie, and it made me wonder if he regretted telling me how religious my mother was before she’d died. Only a fool believed in a higher power; this world was yours for the taking, as long as you were willing to get your hands covered in blood.
Blood. It always came down to blood.
“It is a shame what happened to him,” my father went on, something in his jaw clenching as he picked up his fork once again. “I heard the Greenback Serpents who killed him met their end soon after. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”
I stared. This was the closest he’d gotten to accusing me of anything. He saw the cross I’d taken to wearing, so he had to know. My father was not a stupid man, so I didn’t doubt he knew what I’d done. Killing any Greenback was liable to send their boss, Atlas, after us—and that was something my father didn’t want to deal with right now.
Atlas was the king of the thugs, while my father was the king of white-collar crime. Two very different men, although my father was more like Atlas than he wanted to be. You see, my father might’ve built his empire, but he was not afraid of enacting some violence. What was a dead body or two when your bottom line was met?
“No,” I finally said, though I knew immediately I’d waited too long.
My father took another bite of his dinner. He didn’t smile at me. He never smiled. “Good. Let’s hope it stays that way. If, say, my daughter did get mixed up with the Greenbacks… there would be a war, and all that blood would be on your hands.”
Mine. Not his. My father was good at pushing blame onto someone else’s shoulders. Anyone’s shoulders but his own, really.
He knew. He knew, but he would pretend he didn’t. It was a part of the lie we lived every single day. The lies we told ourselves and everyone around us. The lies that kept our money in the bank and the skeletons in our closets. The lies that gave us our empire and brought us here, to Cypress.
“I know better than to get mixed up with that gang,” I muttered.
