AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I clear my throat and interlace my fingers on the desk in front of me. I want to look professional; I want to look like the adult that I am—the savvy businesswoman and cutthroat lawyer that IknowI’m capable of being. But every time that I’m around my father, that woman ceases to exist. Instead, I’m always reducedto a small child pleading to have something, to get something, to not be in trouble. Always the girl apologizing for her brother’s wicked ways… But Alessandro isn’t here anymore, I have to remind myself.
“Papa, perhaps you will be more comfortable if you leave your wet coat in the hallway.”
Something in my father’s eyes hardens at my suggestion. “If I wanted to leave my coat in the hallway,Mija, then I would have done so. Yet, I have not.”
My father’s condescension rolls over me like slime, leaving heavy residue all over my skin. I refuse to slouch under its weight. “I only meant that, with all of the rain coming down outside, you should be careful not to catch a cold.”
“It is not your place to worry about my health,Mija. I am more than capable of handling a little bit of water. Do you really think I’m weak?”
I can see the trap in his words. It is laid out in front of me, bare and glaring and I have no choice but to walk into it. “I just do not want you to become ill, Papa.”
He cracks the knuckles on his left hand one at a time. “I don’t have time to deal with your wants,Mija. I have been in this office for only a few moments and already you are wasting my time. If this is how you conduct all of your conversations, perhaps I ought to reconsider how much freedom you have withmy clients.” His voice remains flat, and accusation laces every accented syllable that he speaks.
Water from his coat sleeve is already starting to sink into the leather of the armchair. Leather isn’t supposed to get wet like this, or it will mess up the finish. I can’t tell him that. I can’t tell himanything. In his mind, women should not speak until they are spoken to. It doesn’t matter that I am a grown woman, it doesn’t matter that I can support myself and am only working for this firm because of my loyalty to my family—to him!
“Of course, Papa. I’m sorry.” The words are like acid on my tongue.
“You aresorry. Sorry that you have the nerve to speak to me like this. Do I not own this building? Do I not own everything in it? Every floor, every lightbulb, and every person in it. Thatincludesyou,Mija, and you should know your place well enough than to goad me about a little water.” He gives me a thorough once over. “How can you even speak to me about rain and coats when you are hardly presentable yourself? You left the house looking likethat?”
I can’t tell him that I haven’t slept. I can’t tell him that I’ve been here all night attempting to find a way to cover up for his guns deal that went sour. Five of his men are facing serious charges for having been caught. Even if it was their own carelessness that got them caught in the first place, it is my job to make sure that they never see the inside of a prison cell. The list of enemies that the Martinez Mafia has is lengthy, and among the names on that list are quite a few members of the present courthouse staff.Three judges are activelyfightingfor their chance to send any of our men to jail on any maximum sentence they can swing.
I bite down on my tongue.It’s not me that he’s angry with.I tell myself softly.He isn’t angry with you, Camila. He’s just angry at life, and you are within his firing line.It doesn’t make the words hurt any less.
“This ismyfirm, and I will do as I please,” he continues, pressing a finger into the armchair as he waits expectantly.
“Yes, Papa. I know! I’m sorry.”
Anger pulsates in his jaw, and he’s going to take things one of two ways. Either his temper is going to get the better of him, his rage is going to boil over and this will turn into a full-blown lecture… Or he’s going to sit back and his whole demeanor is going to frost over.
I shouldn’t fault him for the way that he handles things, but it gets harder and harder to not take his anger personally. He has so much on his plate, he handles so much—the task of running the Martinez Mafia is greater than I can fully comprehend. With that in mind, I stay quiet, and I wait.
Mercifully, his shoulders soften, and I can breathe again.
“Clearly, my nerves are fueling my temper,Mija. You will understand, I’m sure.”
It’s far from an apology, but it is the closest thing to one that I will ever get from my father.
“I come with bad news, Camila… Very bad tidings indeed.”
If he didn’t have my attention before, he does now. I push every other thought from my mind as my mouth dries up. I’m frozen in place, dread unfurling in my stomach because I know that he would not be here so early if it wasn’t important. It’s in these rare moments that I can really see him for the man he is inside. He’s more than just the Mafia boss, he’s a man capable of genuine emotion and affection for his children. Tension sets into his squared jawline, and he lifts a hand to pull at his neatly maintained, thick beard. He traces the grain of hair from under his chin, and back up again. Gray specks pepper the thick black hair of his beard and hair.
Alessandro would have looked just like him when he reached middle age.
It feels crazy to say that my father looks uncomfortable. He hardly moves but I can see the subtle change in his expression—the little rotation of his wrist and a change in his posture. He seems to focus on a spot on the wall behind my head, only for a lingering moment so as to compose himself. Whatever he’s about to tell me, it isn’t good.
“Nathaniel Angelo is alive.”
Molten lead burns hot in my belly. My hands flatten out over my desk as the oxygen leaves the room. I feel like a fish out of water, gasping for something,anything.
That man is a monster. I put him behind bars where he was supposed to rot for the rest of his days. He is the only man I’ve felt ever deserved to die, the man who had tormented me since childhood, who had made my life hell, who had stolen the one thing from me that I can’t ever get back. He broke me, fractured something so deep inside of me that I was happy when the news of his death reached my ears.
“He is alive and free.Mija,we have been betrayed.”
This is the worst thing he could have said.
I never would have been able to guess those words would leave his mouth in a thousand years. In a sudden burst of rage, hot angry tears slide down my cheeks as my fingers curl to make a fist. “That’s not possible,” I grind out between my teeth without thinking how the words might be taken.
“It is entirely possible. The snake that we were working with has betrayed us. He must have removed him from the hole he was buried in, all the while telling us that he haddiedin that cell we fought so hard to put him in.” Papa’s rage was an icy, lethal thing. “He lied to us… He lied tome.”
