Surprised at the abrupt change, Dante threw his smoke to the ground. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. Hold up, squirt.”
She whirled around, her ponytail hitting his chest, her eyes blazing with more fire than her little body was capable of. “Stop calling me that!”
Amused, Dante bowed his head slightly as he would to a lady. “My apologies, queen.”
She liked that, he could tell.
“How old are you?” he asked, curious, trying to place her.
“How old are you?” she fired back.
Dante grinned. “Sixteen.”
“I’m eleven,” she declared proudly. “It was my birthday last month. I told my ma to send some of my birthday cake to you.”
Dante suddenly realized who she was – their housekeeper’s daughter. They had the same green eyes. He didn’t know their housekeeper’s name, but he had started calling her Zia after she’d started feeding him home-made cookies. While he didn’t talk much to Zia, he lived for those sweet treats. His mother hadn’t cooked much either, so Zia’s desserts were something he’d started to cherish. He looked forward to having them all the time. And she was such a nice woman. Dante liked her.
The young girl, her daughter, was too far from the staff quarters. She’d be in too much trouble if his father, or worse his uncle, saw her there.
“You should go,” he nodded to where she’d come from, not wanting her or her mother in the crosshairs of anyone at the mansion.
The girl blinked once, before giving him a little smile, almost shy. “You have really pretty eyes,” she told him. Before he could respond, she turned away and ran down the hill, back to the staff wing.
‘You have the prettiest eyes, Dante. Be careful with them.’
His mother’s words came back to him, the only person before this girl to have told him so. His memory filled with her beautiful but sad brown eyes. Running his hand through his hair, he bent down, picking up the half-smoked cigarette, put it to his lips, and lighted it again. Exhaling through his broken nose hurt like a bitch, but he welcomed the pain, looking down towards the lake and the cottage beside it.
He’d never thought he’d find anyone on this planet who hated his father more than him – until Tristan. Though just fourteen, the younger boy would one day pull the trigger on the old man, and Dante would happily give him the gun. He just had to bide his time, until he was ready, until the world was ready.
“You have to make a run to the city tomorrow.”
Speak of the devil.
Dante ignored him.
Suddenly, his father came before him, his voice agitated, “What’s all this blood? Did someone hit you?”
Dante didn’t turn as
his father’s voice thundered through the grounds on the last word. The power play had begun. His father would flex his muscles, remind everyone who had authority there, just in case anyone could forget the suffocating fact, and everyone would go to their stations a little more fearful of Lorenzo Maroni.
Flicking the ashes to the ground, Dante stayed silent, continuing to smoke.
“Don’t you dare ignore me, boy. Did someone hit you?”
“It’s nothing,” Dante stated. But it was useless. His father wasn’t hearing him.
He shouted, calling to Al, his right-hand man, commanding everyone on the compound to gather on the ground.
Dante gritted his teeth, trying to watch the gorgeous sunset as minutes passed and people nervously gathered, silent but stinking of fear. That’s how his father ruled – fear. And the only way to piss him off was to not react to it.
Finally throwing the cigarette on the ground, Dante crushed it under his shoe, his eyes glancing over the crowd. He spotted Zia holding her daughter, the young girl with the green eyes who had just told him he had pretty eyes. She was watching not his father but him. He gave her a little wink, watching her flush and quickly look away, and he wanted to laugh in the middle of the shitshow. Moving his eyes over the group, he saw Tristan standing at the far side, slightly removed from everyone else, a blank expression on his face. If he thought Dante was going to rat him out, he had another thought coming.
“Who hit my son?” his father barked. He paused for dramatic effect, his eyes going over the gathering. When no one responded and looked adequately fearful, his father continued his tirade. “Who dare hit my heir? A Maroni! Tell me now or you will be punished. Tell me who did this. Attacking a Maroni on this compound is the biggest insult to me.”
Nervous glances were exchanged. Hushed whispers rolled over. The sun slowly set.
“You stand on my land, and insult my blood,” his father went on. “Tell me now, or the consequences will be severe for everyone.”