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Avalone nodded, seemingly satisfied, then turned to the lackey on his left. “Riccardo, giveSignorCostathe file,per favore.”
Riccardo pulled a file folder from inside his jacket and placed it down on the table.
I opened the thin folder. It couldn’t have had more than a few pages in it. The first of them were pictures of a dead Aunt Isabella and Abruzzo’s family, all murdered, but before the fire had been set to his house. The other pages in the file folder were a paternity test, an old grainy photograph of a man in his early twenties—dark hair and average build.
The last page was a note that read,“One family at a time. How long do you think it will take me to get to you?”
I looked up at Avalone, waiting for an explanation.
“The man responsible for the murders is my son… apparently,” he said with a sneer and the same twisted sour expression.
Yet another reason to avoid procreation for as long as possible.
“Your son?”
I ran through the man’s family tree in my head. He technically had a wife—a moderately attractive woman he kept locked up in his mansion who had produced a son for him five years ago. Like my own father, the man had waited until his late forties to sire an heir. Somehow though, I didn’t think it was the five-year-old putting out hits. I cocked an eyebrow, waiting for him to explain further.
“Some dirtytroiatried to cuckhold me thirty years ago.” He chuckled. “The stupid cunt spread her legs more often than a whore. I thought for sure she was lying—she was lucky I didn’t kill her and her unborn spawn right then and there.” His face grew serious again, and anger pinkened his ears and cheeks. “It turns out, theputtanawasn’t lying. I never figured out how she’d known the bastard was mine.Non lo so,” he said, shaking his head. “Ten years ago, the bastard showed up at the front door of myhome.” He wrinkled his nose like something smelled foul. “He wanted to play his part in my empire—collect the fruits of my labor, essentially,si?I had my men turn him away. The photo is from a security camera outside my home.” He motioned to the grainy photo. “I lament not employing better equipment at the time,” he said, clearly irritated by having to make the admission.
He had a grainy photo to go on, and that was it. But chances were, a decade ago, someone had been making a lot of inquiries into Fiorenzo Avalone—that was somewhere to start. And if all he wanted in return was the man dead, then there was little risk on my part.
“I wonder if all of this could have been avoided had you dealt with your bastard when he showed up at your door rather than ignoring him,” I mused aloud.
“Yes, well, I can’t argue with you there, but I assure you I’m much more careful with my whores these days,” he said with a grin.
If a snake could smile, this is what it would look like.
Something about the beady glint in his eyes sent a shiver down my spine. There wasn’t much that could do that. I pitied Avalone’s whores, glad I’d insisted that the girls employed by the Costas were treated better. Lorenzo hadn’t seen the point—they were whores, after all, he’d said—but I’d insisted on it. Though, it had been no simple task to convince Lorenzo that doing things my way meant our girls would be of better quality, they would work harder to please their clientele, and we wouldn’t have to worry about a constant turnover from the girls dying.
Ultimately, I wouldn’t have waivered no matter the consequences. I would never become the man who used women that way, no matter what I’d been accused of or what the world believed of me. It was that thread of humanity I clung to like a lifeline, using it as the defining characteristic that separated me from Lorenzo.
Maybe Lorenzo had made me a monster, but I was born of two people, not one.
I had to believe my mother’s blood in my veins kept the monster from devouring me entirely.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Raven
The moment I stepped inside the dark booming interior of Onyx, I looked around, searching for Nico despite my best efforts. But he wasn’t here, and while my insides crumpled a little in disappointment, it was for the best. If he was here, he’d be prowling for his next lay.
I didn’t want to see that, no matter how much I tried to tell myself I was fine with it.
Two days had passed. I’d heard no more from him. Two nights of tossing and turning, waking up to the feel of his lips and teeth on my body or his cock buried deep inside me, only to find myself alone and sopping wet in the dark. I’d pressed my fingers to my engorged clit, rubbing fast as memories of him hurtled me over the brink again and again. But it wasn’t the same.
All my life, I’d been satisfied with the pleasure I could give myself, but not now. It was a poor second in comparison to the cataclysmic orgasms he’d drawn from my body.
I made my way through the gyrating bodies to the bar where I’d sat next to him. The same bartender was there—Tommaso. I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw him. By the intuitiveness I’d seen in his eyes, I had a feeling that Tommaso was aware of everything that went on here.
Tommaso was the reason why I was here after all—not Nico.
Seeing Dominic alive and in the flesh for the first time the other night had thrown me for a loop, but once the shock had worn off, I couldn’t help but wonder what his presence at Onyx had meant. Were he and Nico nothing more than casual acquaintances? Or was there a deeper relationship between the Lucas and Costas that I hadn’t discovered in all my research?
I needed to know the answer because if the two families were already connected in some way, that meant my plan had been doomed from the beginning.
“Buona sera, signorina,”Tommaso said with a wide smile when he spied me.
I watched Tommaso in fascination as he fixed me a drink.Huh, he’s left-handed.
