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At that moment, Flora's phone vibrated next to me and I picked it up quickly. Opening the message from Panther, my heart fluttered and I smiled when I read,
Call later?
I looked up, immediately worried they would notice my silly smile, but the three of them were deep in conversation. I slipped out of the room, excusing myself but none of them noticed and I made my way to my bedroom. I felt suddenly drained by the mix of emotions I had felt in such a short time. I would admit that I was feeling extremely anxious and worried about the situation, but just seeing Panther’s text had calmed me and made me feel giddy with excitement again. I knew he shouldn’t be affecting me like this. But he was like an addiction. Fuck, I was in so much trouble already.
What was I doing? I had never been this man. The one who waits for a woman’s text message. Yet here I am, sitting in the back of my Rolls Royce Phantom staring at the screen where I had just sent a text asking if we can call later. Why the fuck am I asking? That’s new too. Everything about this girl has my head fucking spinning and I’m not sure I like it. The three dots appeared on the screen to show she was replying and I eagerly stared at my phone until her message popped up. Yeah, that’s a lie. I fucking loved the torture.
Sure. What time?
How does that simple message make me smile? What the fuck is happening to me?
Two hours?
She replied with a thumbs up emoji and I closed my phone. Finally, I could relax. I needed to be focused for this. Diego Barbieri could sense distraction and a lie a mile away. I couldn’t risk being in a fucking situation where he was probing me for information because my head wasn’t screwed on properly. I opened the back door, my men stepping out of the car behind to follow me up the ridiculous amount of steps leading to the front door of my papi’s estate. One day, very soon, this grand mansion would be mine. Though I wasn’t sure I would live here, in all honesty. I liked my land, my house and my vineyard in Catania. Moving to Diego’s estate and taking his place felt like I was walking in his shadow when all my life I had tried to prove my worth as an individual.
I nodded to his men as they opened the doors for me to enter and made my way through the grand hallway to the old living room that had now turned into his bedroom. It was easier to have him down here on the ground floor with all the medication and support he needed. He could barely walk two steps nowadays without having a coughing fit and collapsing.
I stopped by the door and inhaled a deep breath to prepare myself for whatever I was about to see. His condition seemed to have worsened each time I saw him, but the shock never got easier. To see the strongest man I have ever known disintegrating before my very eyes. He was living proof that cancer gets even the most invincible of men.
I stepped inside and forced a small smile in his direction as he tried to rise from his chair. His skin was pale and he looked even thinner than he was last week. He was still a handsome man with his dark eyes and was lucky enough to still have a full head of black hair, but his sickly appearance was hard to ignore. He was frail though he would never allow anyone to believe it. He sat in his expensive, tailor-made, grey, three-piece suit though it hung from his frame compared to his once muscular body filling it out. He still dressed everyday as though he was attending meetings rather than having chemotherapy, but I supposed that was his way of fighting something he couldn’t see. It gave him the power he needed to maintain control. He swatted away the nurse who had been attending him and some of his loyal men, leaving us alone.
“Papi,” I quickly took his bony arms to steady him as he stood and hid the pain and effort that simple action caused him.
“Alessio, my boy,” he grinned back. “Drink?”
I nodded once as he made his way unsteadily towards the portable bar. Another thing he would not hear of was that he could no longer have his whiskey and cigars. The way he saw it was that he was dying anyway, why would he take away his life’s pleasures?
He poured out two glasses and I had to fight the urge not to intervene when I saw how shaky his hands were. He would berate me for the implication that he couldn’t do something as simple as pour a drink for his son if I tried.
When we finally had our drinks in hand and he had settled back down into his armchair, I felt the tension in my body relax a little.
“So. Tell me. What of the North?” His brown eyes were steady and still full of that power that always demanded respect.
“Lorenzo is an asswipe,” I replied honestly which caused him to chuckle. “But the new investment is solid. The club is running smoothly and I managed to secure us with a deal that will make you a very happy man, Boss.”
His bushy eyebrow raised in mild interest and he nodded, encouraging me to continue. “I figured out how Giovanni Buccini was gaining so much power in Venice and other places so quickly. He had been in talks with Veril, the North’s biggest drug-”
“Yes, I know who Veril is!” Diego snapped, his patience suddenly wearing thin. I kept tight-lipped when I recognised the twinge of pain across his features and realised it wasn’t me he was frustrated with.
“I stole the contract from under Giovanni’s nose. The Leones now own 35% profit of all Veril’s channels through Venice.”
His hard eyes regarded me with disturbing silence. I held my own breath, keeping my back straight and never looking away.
“You broke the treaty?”
“We broke the treaty when we married Isabelle to Lorenzo. And again, when we invested in Leone’s business. This was just insurance necessary to ensure our plans to take over the North happened sooner rather than later.”
A slow smile crept up his gaunt face and I exhaled a small breath.
“You did well, my boy. Bravo. You covered our tracks?”
“Of course. Silent investors. Our name is untraceable.”
He clapped his hands together once and chuckled which quickly turned into a coughing fit. Removing his cloth from his suit jacket and covering his mouth as his lungs struggled to expand for a breath. I offered him the glass of water on the table, but he shook his head and pointed to the whiskey. Stubborn, old man.
“You know,” he wheezed once he had recovered. “My days are numbered. This fucking bastard of a disease may take me before the month is out or I just might get Theo to shoot me and put me out of my fucking misery. Don’t let the cancer win, no? One last fuck you.”
I rubbed my chin and sat back in the chair, looking out of the window into his perfectly sculpted bushes of the garden. What the fuck do you say to that? I knew he would want to be in control, even in his own death. I had half expected him to ask me to be the one to end him. I would do it if he ordered me to do it, but I was glad he wasn’t going to subject me to that. I was fucked up enough as it was without that on my conscience.
