“Shut up!” I yell. “Just shut the hell up. I’m talking. For once in your goddamn life, shut up and let me talk.”
Drago looks at me as though I’ve lost my mind. Hell, maybe I have. But I need answers. Real answers. Even if they horrify me.
“Is it true?”
“What?”
“Is it true that you’ve been investing in… in… underground sex trafficking rings?”
“That’s business that doesn’t concern you.”
“Answer me!”
He narrows his eyes. “How do you think I was able to rent out that last house?” he asks me. “Did you think the money just fell out of the trees? All our money got burned up when he took it from us! I had to fucking work for what we had!”
“Work?” I repeat incredulously. “You call that work? You didn’t work for shit. You sold women to get money. You forced them into sex slavery!”
“How do you think the Lombardi empire was built, you stupid little bitch?” he screams, his eyes bulging with fury. “How do you think our father lived the life he lived? We were fucking titans! We were fucking gods of New York!”
Delusions of grandeur. That is the only term I can think of now as I look at my crazed older brother.My stomach twists with disgust. I don’t know whether to throw up or put a gun to my head.
My entire family has profited off the backs of women and girls. I have profited off them. I didn’t know it, but what kind of excuse is that? Had I survived all these years because of the money earned from pain and suffering and oppression?
“There’s still time for you to earn back my trust,” Drago tells me. “Get me out of here and maybe I can salvage the plan. Maybe we can salvage our empire. Remember what I told you about him, Renata. He’s scum. He’s a monster. You can’t trust the Irish. They’re fucking lowlifes.”
“The only lowlife that I can see here is you.”
His eyes go wide. But before but he can throw another insult in my face, I slap him hard across the jaw. My hand is probably going to bruise from the force of it. But I don’t care. It’s fucking worth it.
Let him feel just a sliver of the pain he’s caused.
And, God help me… let me feel some, too.