“You think you’re some hot shit?”
Grinning, I braced my arms on the desk. “Hello Carmine, to what do I owe this pleasure?”
“You have my daughter,” he growled.
“I do,” I replied evenly. “I trust you’ve also heard the price she fetched?”
He huffed into the phone. “I made a deal. How the fuck did you get your hands on her?”
Well, I wasn’t going to tell him that he had been sold out by his own men hired to take Leda to her husband. But he should’ve seen it all coming.
Men like him were old fashioned. Always bloodline this, and family ties that.
The moment I had heard that he had been arrested, I knew that he would be looking for a way to cover his ass. His son Nico wasn’t looking to become Don, just to destroy his father.
Which meant Leda was Carmine’s only card left to play. It hadn’t taken much to figure out her whereabouts, track her, and see the moment when she was practically dragged to prison, I had seen my chance.
They had no idea she was already mine before she stepped foot on that stage. They never stood a chance at getting their hands on her.
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” I replied casually. “It’s too bad, Carmine. I imagined you had other plans for your family.”
“I’m not dead, asshole,” he seethed, his anger clear through the phone. “You think that I don’t have back-up plans? You think you’re untouchable? You think you got away with this scot-free? Do you have the slightest idea who you are messing with?”
“I know exactly who I’m messing with,” I growled, dropping all pretense of a casual conversation. “A pathetic man who’s nothing but a has-been. Whose own son dismantled his empire. A man whose supposed allies were tossing down stacks for the chance to fuck his daughter. You are done. You’ve been done.”
Carmine chuckled, not fazed by my words. “If you think that this little setback is going to ruin me,Don Valentino, you have another think coming. I earned that fucking title the old fashioned way. The dignified way.”
The sneer in his voice made me want to reach through the phone and wrap my hands around his neck. He thought, like the rest, that I got to where I was because of what I used to me. He thought that I didn’t claw my way to the top.
“Think what you want.” I kept my voice smooth. “But I’m on the outside, and you are inside that fucking prison cell, with nothing more than time on your hands.”
“I will give you this offer only once,” Carmine said after a moment. “Give my daughter back to me, and I will forget this ever happened.”
Never!
I let out a snort. “Give her up? I’ve bought her for twenty million, and I intend on getting every penny’s worth out of her. Would you like to know what I’ve been doing to your precious little princess, Carmine? Would you like to know in excruciating detail of how I made her beg?”
“Fuck you,” Carmine growled. “If you even think—”
“I’ll take good care of your little girl,” I interrupted. “Don’t you worry.”
I ended the call and smirked as I thought about how the old man was likely raising hell that I hadn’t given him the respect he thought he had earned.
Blowing out a breath, I slammed the cell phone down onto the desk, feeling some of the anger drain from my body from the exchange. There had been one thing that had bothered me all day, one thing that I hated above all else.
When Carmine demanded his daughter back, a feeling sliced through me.
I was worried about Leda.
I was worried about what would happen if she were to go back there. So much so, that I wanted to protect her from her shithead father and anyone else that came to lay claim to her. It wasn’t in my nature to be a protector.
I was the savage that did the hurting.
I was supposed to be her worst nightmare, yet after our exchange hours earlier, I had an uncomfortable feeling when it came to my captive Mafia princess.
The same feeling that I had right now, after my parting words with Carmine.
I was going to take care of Leda, but not in the sense that he thought.