“Where I come from, Senator Keaton, words have meanings, and deals are honored,” my father hissed. “I gave you Francesca, yet you seem adamant about ruining what’s mine.”
“We seem to be in the same boat. I have a briefcase missing with your fingerprints all over it.” Wolfe chuckled darkly.
“Not my doing.”
“Aren’t men in the Chicago Outfit supposed to pride themselves in never stabbing a man in the back and always telling the truth?”
“I’ve never stabbed anyone in the back,” my father said cautiously, “and Murphy’s was an unfortunate incident, which I am sure the Irish will benefit from once the insurance kicks in.”
“Let’s talk about the pep rally,” Wolfe continued. The one where there were shootings? I heard about it briefly in the news but knew that nobody got hurt. A deranged kid who played too many violent video games, they said. It was on the same day the stock market fell, and no one made a fuss of it.
“What about it?” My father crushed his teeth together. I could hear it clearly even past the door.
“You’re lucky you’re still out and about, and not locked up with the shooter,” Wolfe said.
“I’m out and about because you have no proof.”
“Neither do you that I had anything to do with the pier. But the cherry on the shit cake wasn’t my attempted assassination. No. That was half-baked and completely amateur. It was the engagement party.”
I choked on my own saliva. My father tried to assassinate my husband. And my husband didn’t even tell me. He hid it from the world, essentially protecting my father. Why?
“Are you seriously comparing sending off my frivolous daughter to flirt with her childhood crush at a party to locking up thirteen of my men?” Arthur Rossi spat out. It was the second time his voice rose. Real rivalry did change him and not for the best.
“Your daughter is neither frivolous, nor is she a flirt. She is, however, my soon-to-be wife, and I’m growing tired of you disrespecting her. I will also not have you push her into anyone’s arms, much less someone she was fond of when she was younger. In fact, for every time you act up concerning Francesca, or put my reputation in jeopardy as you did during the engagement party, I will kill one of your businesses. The pier. A restaurant. Perhaps a poker joint. The list is endless, and I have the means and the time. Get this past that thick skull of yours—she is mine now. I decide if she works, where she studies, and in what positions I want to fuck her. Furthermore, eliminating me from the equation will not work. Not only did I spread the evidence on you in different places, secured by different people, but I also have written letters instructing my trustees what to do in case of my untimely death.”
He talked as though he was going to do terrible things to me. But I didn’t believe him. Not anymore. This past week, he had put my physical needs before his own. He obviously said these words to piss my father off, but I no longer cared why he’d said them. If he truly cared about my pride, he would stop flaunting our sex life like that in front of my father. I heard something smash—a vase or a glass—and Wolfe chuckling enigmatically.
“What makes you think Bishop and White will let you get away with it?”
“The fact that they are letting me get away with it. I have the upper hand in this game of cards. You will play by my rules or lose your hand. There is no other option.”
“I will take Francesca away,” my father threatened, his voice lacking that same icy authority that usually laced his speech. I swallowed back a scream. Now he wanted to take me back? I wasn’t a toy. I was a human being who had grown oddly attached to my future husband. Besides, no one in The Outfit was going to want to have me now, especially after Wolfe had taken my virginity.
Only, my father didn’t know that.
Even if he suspected it—he obviously didn’t care.
Wolfe did. Wolfe had the potential to ruin my life now. He got what he wanted. My virginity and reputation. He could end this today. It would be enough humiliation for my father. Sweat clung to the back of my neck at the thought. It took forever for Wolfe to speak again.
“You will not.”
“How are you so sure?”
“You love The Outfit more than you love your daughter,” he said simply. An arrow of venom pierced my heart. This is why humans invented lies, I thought. No other animal in nature lies. The truth is ruthless. It cuts you open, shoving your face into the mud. It forces you to look reality in the eye and deal with it. To feel the real weight of the world that you live in.