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“So, she’s your little pet?” my father asks with a scowl.
“Maybe I’ll train her to be my assistant?” Maximo laughs darkly, and that seems to appease my father a little.
“And what about my money? What about that piece of shit who stole it?”
“We’ll find him,” I assure him.
“Just make sure you do,” he hisses. “Because it makes you look weak when you bring home strays instead of putting them down.”
“Weak?” I snarl at him. “Who are you to call anyone weak? The man who let his wife die alone in agony because he was too busy fucking his whore?”
“Watch your goddamn mouth. I should have known you wouldn’t be able to handle this responsibility. I should have let Lorenzo…” He shakes his head, and a whisper of regret flickers over his face.
I think that must be the only thing in his whole life he feels any regret over. He made me head of the Cosa Nostra to punish my older brother and to drive a wedge between us that could never be healed. Lorenzo and I were unbreakable when we stood together, and he hated that. He thought the threat of losing his legacy would be enough to bring my older brother back to his side.
But his plan backfired in every possible way and Lorenzo has barely spoken to him ever since. While I never wanted this legacy, it’s mine now. For the first few years after he retired, I was so desperate to prove myself that I killed and tortured anyone who even dared to look at me the wrong way. Maximo and I tore through Chicago, leaving a trail of bodies in our wake that would rival the bubonic plague. And that was the side of me that my father admired. A part of me craved his approval until I realized I no longer needed it. And now time and experience have taught me there’s a better way to do business than the one he showed me.
“Whatever you wish you’d done, Papá, it’s too late now. You made me the head of this family, so you will hold your tongue before you ever dare to call me weak again.”
He narrows his eyes at me, and his face softens a little. “You are so much like your mother. She was a good woman. But you can’t be both — a good man and the head of this family. Those two things are mutually exclusive. You cannot be one if you are the other.”
He has drilled this into me from the moment he handed over his mantel to me. “I am not trying to be a good man, Papá.”
“No, but it’s inside you anyway. You have to suppress that part of yourself to be the man you are. For Lorenzo, it comes easily to him. He got none of your mother’s compassion.”
I shake my head and sigh. “How can you be our father and yet know so little about either of us?”
He frowns like he has no idea what I’m talking about. And before the conversation can continue, Sophia walks into the room with dinner.
* * *
The atmosphere remainedawkward and we made limited, stilted conversation throughout dinner. My father eventually left and now I feel like I can breathe again as Maximo and I nurse a glass of Scotch in my study.
“You need to stop letting him get to you, D,” he says as he takes a sip of his whisky. “He rattles your cage like no one else can.”
I scowl at him. “Is that really surprising, Max?”
“No. But unless you’re ever going to confront him about everything you know, you need to find a way to not want to rip his head off every time you see him. It’s been six years.”
“I can’t confront him. You know I can’t,” I snap at him.
“Yeah,” he adds with a nod of his head.
“Anyway, it’s more than just that. It’s everything else,” I say with a heavy sigh. “He’s… a lot.”
“I get it, D. He’s the great Salvatore Moretti.” He smirks at me, and it breaks the tension.
My shoulders relax, and I sink back into my chair, letting my head fall back to ease the dull ache between my shoulder blades.
“You seen your guest since this afternoon?” he asks.
“No. I don’t think she’s left that room all day.”
“Maybe she’s plotting your demise?” He chuckles darkly.
“Maybe,” I laugh too, thankful for the change of subject. Kat Evanson is a much less frustrating subject to talk about. She makes my blood pressure spike for an entirely different reason.
“Any thoughts on what she’s gonna do around here?”
