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"I know he would," he replied with a shrug. "He never exactly held back on telling me. Even when I was working my ass off, it was never quite enough for him. He always wanted more from me."
"Shit, that sounds hard," I muttered, and he shook his head.
"No, it was a good thing," he replied, and it sounded more like he was trying to convince himself than me. "It meant that I couldn’t slack. He put all his effort into the business. He just wanted me to do the same. It’s how he was able to give me the life that I have. I wouldn’t have been able to live like this if he hadn’t."
He waved his hand around the room, and I followed his gaze around the house. Was this the kind of thing he meant? The life his father had left for him? Because it looked pretty damn lonely to me. He had no memories of his family here because they would have brought up too many issues inside his head and his heart. Just him, no family, no friends, nothing but the striking quiet of this place. It might have been beautiful, but it was empty and seemed to echo with the enormity of what his life lacked.
I locked eyes with him again. There was something I needed to know. Maybe it was just something I invented, this idea that he didn’t like all of this, but I had to find out if I just imagined it—or if he wanted more—craved more than what he had now.
"If you’d had the chance to live a different life," I began, slowly, trying to find the right way to frame this so I didn’t offend him or scare him. "Would you?”
He stood there for a moment, looking surprised. Staring off into space like he didn’t quite know what to say to that. I wondered if anyone had ever asked it before. Had he ever been offered the chance to consider what might have been if he hadn’t been born into the family he had, born from a father in the Mafia?
But before he could answer, another voice cut through the quiet between us. A voice I recognized.
"What the fuck is going on here?” Mark demanded.
Chapter Ten Scott
Thea had sprinted upstairs, pulled on her clothes, and gotten dressed before I could even work out what was happening. I was still holding my coffee like a defensive shield as Mark stormed toward me, his face flashing with fury as he closed in on me. I heard the front door shut as Thea made a break for it, leaving me to deal with the blowback of whatever was about to happen next.
"What the fuck was my sister doing here?" Mark demanded, barely even noticing the fact that she had just run out of here like her ass was on fire.
"Mark, I appreciate that you care about your sister, but it’s really none of your business," I told him, doing my best to keep my voice calm. His face was turning beet red, and he looked like he was about to blow a fucking vein right there in my kitchen. I didn’t even know what he was doing in here, why he had decided to storm into my house without knocking.
"None of my business?" He spat back.
I could hear the fury in his voice, and honestly, it kind of surprised me. In all the time I had worked with him, I had never seen this side of him. He had always been deferent to me, not wanting to piss me off or upset me—but now, it was like he wanted to tear my head from my shoulders.
"Yeah, what I do in my private life is—"
"Your private life matters when you’re pulling my sister into it," he spat. "Where did you meet her? At the opening of the casino?"
I decided to nod along. Better than telling him the truth. I was sure he would freak out even harder if he found out this had been going on longer than that.
"I can’t believe you would go anywhere near her," he snapped. "Thought your type would be—well, different than someone like her."
"Why?" I fired back. I figured he wouldn’t appreciate it if I pointed out how damn hot his sister was, but he couldn’t be that oblivious to it, could he? I couldn’t have been the first guy he knew who had hit on his sister.
"Because she’s innocent to all of this," he replied, shaking his head. "She doesn’t know anything about your world. And I don’t want her to."
"You’re the one working with me," I pointed out, cocking an eyebrow. I could see him growing angrier as he stood before me, clearly having a tough time controlling how much he wanted to go at me right now, but he knew better than to do anything like that. No matter how tempted he might have been, no matter how mad he was about what had happened between his sister and me, he still knew the power I had in this city, and he wasn’t going to invite more trouble than he needed to right in his lap.
"Yeah, working with, nothing else," he replied. "I didn’t want you getting anywhere near my family—she's the only fucking family I have left. I’m not letting her get pulled into your bullshit."
Irritation nagged at the back of my mind, hearing him talk about me that way, but I knew there was no point in arguing with him. He had made his mind up, decided I was nothing more than a problem to him, and he wasn’t going to let anything change his mind on that. Fine. If that was how he wanted to go about it—let him think he had the upper hand—that he was the better man out of the two of us, because he had decided to be ashamed of what he did with me.
But he wasn’t the man I had worked with, not now. No, Mark was someone else entirely. The anger behind his eyes was evident, the fury written all over his face. He was in big-brother mode, and this version of him didn’t want me within a million miles of his sister. I was sure he was far from the first big brother to feel that way about me, but that didn’t mean I was just going to roll over and let him tell me how it worked.
"Stay away from her," he growled at me. "I never want to see you within a ten-foot radius of her again, alright? She doesn’t understand what kind of person you are. She doesn’t—she’s not ready for any of this."
I stared at him. Was I really going to let him talk to me like this? If he pulled out of the casino, it would leave me high and dry, and I couldn’t risk losing that laundering source.
"Fine," I replied, keeping my voice cool and calm. I wasn’t going to let him see he had gotten me. I wasn’t about to allow him to win this round, even if he needed to believe he had, even if I wished I could just turn around and tell him to get the fuck out of here, that what his sister did was none of his damn business and he would have been wise to forget he had seen what he had seen.
"Promise me," he told me, and I was certain I wasn’t going to get him to leave until I did. I sighed.
"We’re not fucking children, Mark," I snapped at him. "I’m not going to pinky-promise you or some shit—"
