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“I’ll come back up when he is gone. Are you hungry?” I didn’t know how long Dom would stay, but I hoped it wouldn’t be too long. I didn’t want to be around him any more than Natalie did.
“Not right now. Although I thought I might just have a salad for dinner.”
“We have some boneless, skinless breasts. I could barbecue them to add in,” I readily offered. I knew she had been trying to eat right, which wasn’t easy when she was constantly sick. I was more than happy to cook something that piqued her appetite.
“Ya, that sounds good. Chicken Caesar salad is one of my favorite meals,” she responded with a warm smile and I felt the warmth of it within my chest.
“We’ll do that then. I’ll be back shortly. He shouldn’t be here too long.” I hoped.
She gave me a nod and I closed the door, not bothering to lock it. I was trying to earn her trust and despite sleeping together, I knew I didn’t have it. Not locking her in was a small thing I could do to try and show her I meant no harm to her. Ironic, I know, given that she was expecting me to kidnap her baby and kill her within the next seven months. I headed back down the stairs and into the kitchen to see what ingredients we had and what items I would need Gab to pick up when he brought us some more groceries in the next couple of days.
It was busy work that I could do to get my nerves to calm back down. The longer I dealt with Dom, the harder it was for me to keep a level head. It wasn’t just the anger I felt toward him but the pain of the constant reminder of what I had lost.
The sound of the door opening brought me out of my thoughts, and I made my way toward the kitchen opening, so I would be able to see Dom. He immediately headed into the living room, and I knew he would grab a drink. That was something else I had noticed recently: he was drinking more. Drinking, smoking, and drugs were all acceptable and expected habits for someone in the mafia. I drank, didn’t smoke, and never touched a drug.
I also didn’t allow my guys to do any drugs. Having a drinking problem was sometimes bad enough, but once you factor in the volatility of drugs, shit always went south. The last thing I needed was the police or Feds banging on my door because they picked up one of my guys going through withdrawal, and he said whatever they wanted to hear just to get his next fix.
Dom didn’t seem to have that concern. I had seen him snorting blow with some of the guys and getting shitfaced almost every night. He was getting sloppy, and that would work in my favor.
“Dom,” I simply said as I leaned against the entrance to the living room.
“Armando, you have been very helpful and loyal to me since you joined my organization. I wanted to come by and give you a token of my appreciation,” he started.
He reached into his interior coat pocket and pulled out a stack of money. The paper band wrapped around told me it was ten grand. He held it out to me, and I went over and took it.
“You didn’t have to do that, boss,” I managed to say with an even tone.
“You have been a good worker for me. And this time around, you went above and beyond,” Dom said, with a dark smile as he went and sat down on the couch with his drink and continued. “I told you to kill Jake, but I didn’t expect you to slowly torture him. That house was a mess after you left it.”
I had a lot of regrets in my life, but what I had done to Natalie’s piece of shit father was not one of them. I had every intention of simply shooting him in the head and calling it a night. However, the way Jake acted, he genuinely seemed confused and surprised that I was even there. He actually thought he could hand over his pregnant daughter and would be able to go back to gambling in the many underground dens within the city.
It made my stomach turn just looking at him. Seeing him act like he had done nothing wrong by sacrificing his daughter and grandchild. I couldn’t keep my emotions in check, and I made sure he knew exactly what he was worth. I ensured his death was slow and agonizing because that was what he deserved.
“I didn’t like the back talk he was giving me. He was smug, acting like he was worth something and now had value to the organization. I wanted to make sure he knew that he was worthless,” I responded, taking a seat in the chair opposite him.
Dom held his arms open slightly as he spoke, “No judgment here. It’s a shame I didn’t get to see it. I bet it was beautiful work. I wasn’t sure about you at first, Armando, but you have shown me that I can trust and rely on you. There’s going to be a shake-up soon in the organization. Some other guys are becoming a liability, and I firmly believe in promoting from within. I think you would do very well in a senior management position.”
A senior manager was what we called the right-and left-hand man. A Don’s number two and three. If he was looking for me to move up, it meant he had a structure in his organization or was trying to create one. This surprised me because, to my knowledge, Leo and Alberto were the two men closest to him.
“I am happy to do whatever is required of me, boss,” I simply said. If I moved up, that might give me a better chance at getting a shot at him while he was alone. I didn’t care if it was Leo or Alberto who was about to be killed; it was irrelevant. They were both disgusting garbage that deserved to be killed.
“That’s what I like about you. I’ll be in touch,” he said as he stood, and I did as well. I walked towards the door with him and once he was gone, I let out a deep breath. I felt like I needed a shower just by being in his presence.
“You tortured my father.”
I shot my head behind me to see Natalie standing on the landing of the stairs. I had no idea how long she had been there, but the pain and hurt radiating off her told me she had been there long enough to hear most of the conversation. Including the one piece of information, I had hoped she would never discover. I felt my heart break in my chest at the look on her face. She now knew the whole truth; it was the last nail in my coffin.
Whatever good she had seen within me over the past few days was gone, and I knew it would never return. I had become the monster she suspected I was, and I could do nothing to change that now.
Chapter nineteen
Natalie
I knew Armando had told me to stay in my room, but I had no intention of doing that. I wasn’t going to allow myself to be seen, but I also wasn’t going to miss out on an opportunity to gather information. I needed to know more about Dominic; the best way I could do that was to listen in whenever he was here. I hoped he wouldn’t be here too often because I risked him catching me. It became hard to pretend Armando was just some hired thug when Dominic was here giving him orders like killing people.
I didn’t know what I had expected to hear, but it wasn’t Dominic gloating about how Armando tortured my father to death. A chill ran throughout my body. I knew Armando had killed my father. I knew it was going to happen the moment I was brought here. He was a loose end, and there was no way that Dominic was going to allow someone with a gambling problem to walk around and potentially get picked up by the police. Someone like my father was a detective’s wet dream. Someone who would be willing to do anything if it got them out of jail time.
I didn’t expect for him to be tortured to death. That had taken it to another level, one I was uncomfortable with. It made me sick to my stomach. All of this was making me sick. I had slept with the man that didn’t just kill my father but had tortured him to death. He had come back covered in my father’s blood, and he didn’t even seem bothered by it. Regardless of what happened between my father and me, he didn’t deserve to die like that. He didn’t deserve to die. I would have loved for him to spend the rest of his miserable life behind bars…to be trapped with criminals and have no say in what he did with his life. To have to spend the rest of his life looking over his shoulder and on edge because that’s exactly what was going to happen to me.
