I take another sip of the whiskey, then yawn. "That what you came to tell me at," I stare at the watch on my wrist, "two in the morning?"
He straightens, wipes the smile off of his face, "I heard about the attack on you earlier today."
"You are not here because you are concerned."
"No," he concedes, "you are not that easy to take down." He takes a sip of his whiskey, leans forward to place it on the table. "The attack left you exposed. It makes you seem weak, no longer unassailable. It’s a red flag to every singlefiglio di puttanaout there to come after you."
I tighten my fingers around my glass, then glance up at him, "If you have something to say, why don’t you just say it outright?"
"You need to pull your head out of your ass and find a wild card. One that will undo the damage to your reputation and confirm to the five families and to our rivals that you are the strongest and the most powerful…and the only contender to taking over as Don… After I am gone, that is."
"Trust me, I’ll have your seat within the next twelve months."
"Is that a threat?"
"A friendly warning." I allow my lips to curve, "You’d best ensure that your own position of power isn’t compromised in the meanwhile."
He stares at me, then throws his head back and laughs. "I taught you well,ragazzo mio." He murmurs, "You make me proud."
"You didn’t teach me a thing," I say through gritted teeth, "and you make me sick."
"Now, is that any way to talk to your padre."
"You ceased to be my father the day you took a hand to her."
His jaw hardens. "No one knows what’s going on in a marriage except a husband and wife."
"From where I was, there’s no doubt about what you were doing to her, youpezzo di merda."
A vein pops at his temple. He rises to his feet, "I came here to tell you that you need something out of the ordinary to salvage your reputation, and I may have just the thing to help you."
Fuck, if I hadn’t thought the same thing earlier. Fuck genetics that our thinking runs along the same lines. Fuck nature for playing the cruelest trick on me…in making me so like him. Fuck the past for ensuring that I hate him more than anything or anyone I have ever set my eyes on.
I tilt my head at him. "Is that right?" I drawl.
He nods, "The traitor who ratted out our operations to the cops in England... We have tracked down his daughter. Her location will be conveyed to you shortly. Don’t mess this chance up, Michelangelo."
He pivots and walks to the door and I call out, "Don Sovrano."
He pauses.
"I don’t know what you hope to achieve by sharing that piece of information, but I’ll never forgive you for what you did to her."
He stiffens, "Perhaps you need to look at yourself more closely, son. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree."
Turning, he walks out.
8
Michael
I snatch a knife from the array of blades spread out on the cloth on the table. Yeah, I keep my most prized possessions safe, only to be brought out when I need to indulge myself. Like now, with the anger coursing through my veins at thatfiglio di puttana’swords.
The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.What the hell did he mean by that, anyway? I may look like him, I may think like him… But where it counts—in my heart, in my mind, in my soul—I am nothing like him. I can’t be.
And what about the sick proclivities that hover under my skin? What about the tendency toward tipping over to the dark side that I harbor within me? What about the overindulgence in some of the more extreme forms of S&M that my brothers and I tend toward? Did we not get that from him? Did I not get that loss of control I sometimes encounter when my needs get too much for me to contain, when I need the release that only cutting up my own skin brings me? And when that isn’t enough, I carve up the skin of another. Normally, one of my sexual partners—with her consent, of course. I only take women to bed who know what they’re in for… Mostly.
Many of them don’t anticipate just how far I’ll want to take it. Most enjoy it, and want to come back for more. Some leave, running away in the middle of the night, never showing their faces to me again. Considering I’m not ready to face the sight of another woman—not someone who isn’t her—in my bed, it leaves only one way out.