CHAPTER 3
Alejandro.
Gonzalo Mariano had barged into my house unannounced. I do my best to forget and avoid anything related to my father but it seems he thought otherwise, considering how he came to my house without informing me first.
My father's incredibly loud voice reverberates around the room. With an inward groan, I brace myself for an evening in his company. When he walks into the room, he opens his arms as he approaches me.
" Mio figlio" he smiles widely.
I fake one also and accept his embrace. He pats me on the back. " I think you lost a little weight son" he says as he steps back, his eyes full of mock concern.
He has done this all my life. Preys on what he thinks are my insecurities. I was a scrawny kid until I hit sixteen and he never forgot to remind me of that every goddamn day of my life. But I'm not that kid anymore. I'm six foot five and I go to the gym everyday. My suits are custom made and they still fit me exactly the way they always have, but I seem to have lost weight. Right?
" Pretty sure my weight's the same pop" I reply .
" Hmm" he answers as though he doesn't believe me. " And santino. I didn't expect to see you here" he says with a smile in his face, but his tone drips with disdain.
" You know me, I could never resist good food zaly" santino replies with a well practiced smile.
My father's eyes twitches as santino uses his name informally. He prefers his full title Gonzalo or Mr. Mariano, especially from the orphan he brought into his home, and who he believes owes him a debt. But even my father knows better than to challenge the hot head who is my right hand man.
" Shall we" I pull out a chair for him and we all sit at the table.
Santino pours us a wine.
" How is buisness?" My father finally asks.
" Good" my standard reply.
" You've dealt with the buisness at the warehouse right?"
"Yes" there was always buisness at the warehouse
" And what about Liam Sanders? You got the money he stole from me?"
My insides twisted. Liam Sanders fucked up when he decided to enter the most lucrative high stakes roulette game in California. The game featured a high risk betting system, where players could win or lose enormous sums on a single spin. Not only did he cheat and walked away with half a million dollars that he didn't earn but my father's old friend James was at the table.
James has been a gambling man for as long as I've known him. He is one of the best roulette player there is, however his taste for women half his age with expensive taste in clothes, shoes and drugs means he spends it faster than he can win it. So when the big games happen in our club, my father bankrolls him and take half of his winnings so the money he stole, really belongs to my father.
My father doesn't need the money, but he doesn't need his buddy thinking that he is incapable of getting their money from a street boy like Liam Sanders.
The whole arrangement was under the table until now. Now everyone knows that Liam stole from the Mariano's and he is running for his life.
" Liam took off . No one knows where he is"
" What about the sister you looked into?"
I sense santino's eyes on me.
" Yeah he was staying with her, but he bailed. Took her money too."
" So, does she know where he is?"
I sip my wine " she didn't know anything"
My father frowns at me. " Maybe you didn't use enough force"
" She didn't know" I said firmly, trying to keep the annoyance from my tone.
" How hard did you push her to talk?" He looks at santino now because that is his area of expertise.
" Enough," I reply on his behalf
" So she's dead?" he asks not caring as he sips his wine.
" No"
" You get any money from her at least?" He asks with a sigh.
" She doesn't have any money"
That seems to be the final draw, as he turns to face me. " So, you got nothing? That fucker steals half a million dollars from me and you got nothing? Are you losing your touch son?"
My knuckles turns white as I clench my hands.
Santino catches my eye across the table and gives me a subtle shake of his head. My relationship with my father is complex and bound up in so much guilt and regret that communicating with him in any way feels too difficult. So I keep it all locked away and deal with him as little as possible, because if I were to ever lift that lid and let some of this rage out of me, I might fucking slaughter him where he stands. And despite who I am, killing my own father - the great Gonzalo Mariano - is not high on my list of priorities. I force my muscles to relax, curling my fingers around the stem of my wine glass before I take a sip.
" Not nothing. I have his sister," I say calmly.
He blinks at me, amused " you have her?"
" Yes"
" Where? Are you using her as bait?"
" I doubt he would take that bait. He doesn't give a fuck about her" I say annoyance prickling beneath my skin again but this time, directed at Demetria's brother.
" So, what then?" He asks with a sly grin, and my stomach churns as I think about the things this man has done
" No. She's working for me", I grit out as I await the inevitable disdain that's about to spew from his mouth.
" Working for you?" He snorts. " As what? Your personal whore? You're a Mariano, you don't pay women for that. It's beneath men like us"
" She's a nurse." Santino interrupts, my father's gaze shift to him.
" A what?"
" A nurse. She can stitch up the wound of a man who has been tortured to stop him from bleeding out too soon, so the torture cab continue," santino says with a shrug.
" So, she's your pet?" My father asks with a scowl.
" Maybe. I can train her to be my assistant," santino laughs darkly and that seemed to appease my father a little.
" What about my money? What would you do about the piece of shit that 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 them home instead of putting them down"
" Weak?" I snark at him. " Who are you to call anyone weak? The man who let his own wife die just because he was too busy fucking his whore?"
" Watch your mouth. I should have known you wouldn't be able to handle this responsibility. I should have let Lucian…." 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 Mafia to punish my older brother and to drive a wedge between us that could never be healed. Lucian 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 Lucian 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. Santino and I tore through California, leaving a trail of our bodies in our wake that would rival the 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 buisness than the one he showed me.
" Whatever you wished papà, but it's too late now. You made the head of this family. So you will watch your tongue before you ever dare to call me weak again"
He narrows his eyes are me, and his face softens a little " you're so much like your mother. She was a good woman. But you can't be both and that led to her demise."
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"
" No, but it's inside you anyway. You have to suppress that part of yourself to be the man you are. For Lucian, it comes easily to him he got none of your mother's compassion "
I shake my head and sigh. " How could you be the one that fathered us and yet you 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, Selena walks into the room with dinner.
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The atmosphere remained awkward and we made limited conversation throughout the dinner. My father eventually left and now I feel like I can breathe again as santino and I nurse a cup of scotch in my study.
" You need to stop letting him get to you Alejandro" he says as he takes a sip of his whiskey.
" Unless you're ever going to confront him about everything you know, you need to learn how to reign in your anger so you don't end up ripping his head off it's been seven years."
" You know I can't confront him santino" I snap.
" You seen your guest this afternoon? " he asks trying to change the subject
" No. I doubt she has left the room all day"
" I bet she's plotting your demise." He chuckles darkly.
" Maybe,"
" Anyway, I gotta go. I want to stop by and see Patrick and make sure they are not running into any more trouble "
Patrick has worked for me for seven years, and he runs the warehouses for me. We own enough legitimate businesses to justify the kind of lifestyle we live and to take the police off our backs . However, if anything illegal comes into this city, then it goes through me and I take a percentage.
" They had more trouble?" I ask with a frown
" Nothing serious." Santino shakes his head. " They dealt with it, but Patrick thinks there's something going on. The Spanish have been a little too quiet maybe they are moving operations elsewhere to keep us out of the loop."
I don't trust my Spanish counterpart. Never have. But he had an alliance with my father, so we have an easy truce.
" I don't want to start a war for no reason santino, tell Patrick to keep an eye out while things are still quiet."
" Will do Alejandro" he says before disappearing out of the door and leaving me alone to go over the events of the day.
I find my thoughts straying back to Demetria and the fact she is lying alone in one of my beds upstairs. I brought her here t
o work off her brothers debt right? So why can't I get the image of me crawling over her and spreading her thighs open until I can sink into her out of my head?