“I wait with bated breath.” I swore and followed him into Tony’s office. It suddenly felt wrong to be calling him Tony instead of Dad. But there was no love lost, and that was damn tragic. Parentless kids, all of us. Nixon, Trace, Mo, Mil.
“So.” Sergio sat behind the computer. “Word on the street is you need ten mil.”
“Word on the street? What are we? In a gang?”
Sergio chuckled. “What else would you call it?”
“Valid point.” I leaned against the glass desk and watched him log in to my father’s computer. “How do you even know his password?”
“I’m a ghost. I know all.” His hands sped across the keyboard so fast that it made me dizzy. “This may take a few minutes.” He motioned to a seat, but I refused to sit down. Not after having five guys shooting at my face and knowing it was my own family that had sent them.
This was only the fifth time in all my life that I’d been in my “father’s” office. I walked over to the minibar on the far right and poured myself a whiskey.
“Think you should be drinking, all things considered?” Sergio asked from the desk.
Ignoring him, I took a long swig and looked at the table next to the minibar. There were pictures. But they weren’t of me.
They were of him and Nixon.
With a curse I turned away. Was it always about him? Would it never be about me? How selfish could I get that I would even ask that, but… I wanted something that was my own, someone that was my own, and it seemed as of late I was either stuck with second best or picking up someone else’s pieces.
“Almost there, just keep your pants on,” Sergio called.
Again, I ignored him and searched more around the room. There weren’t any more pictures on the tables he had set up. Two chairs were in the corner with a closet toward the main door. Curious, I walked over to it and tried the knob.
Locked.
I pulled out one of my picks and had the door open in seconds. Shock wasn’t an adequate word to describe what I was seeing. Shock would have been a normal response. My response was anything but normal.
Horrified? Now that was better.
A shrine.
With prayer beads.
And a picture of Nixon’s mom. I could stomach that, I could deal with that amount of crazy, but the picture had Trace’s parents in it. I’d seen them only once when I was little but I’d also seen pictures. From what Nixon had told me, they were unmistakable.
There were red marks across every face in the pictures. My stomach heaved as I numbered how many faces had the red mark. Both of Trace’s parents… and my dad. My real dad.
Which could mean only one thing.
Tony had been snuffing out the entire family for over eighteen years.
And today would be his day of reckoning. His finale.
I hoped to God it would be a massive disappointment. I’d even tell him that to his face, right before I pulled the trigger.
“Done!” Sergio announced. I turned around and walked toward the desk while he scribbled something on a piece of paper. “So, the wire transfer will go to this account.” He handed me the paper. “Did you remember to get a briefcase?”
“In the car already.” I stuffed the piece of paper in my pocket and shrugged. “How are you in on this? Who are you actually working for? Me? Luca?”
Sergio’s eyes darted behind me. I turned and saw a camera nestled quite nicely in the corner. Great.
When I turned back around he was already walking toward the door.
“Wait,” I called. “If this goes badly… thank you, for what you just did.”
“We’re family.” He shrugged and pulled out a pair of sunglasses. “Try not to end up with a bullet in the head, eh?”
“I’ll do my damnedest.” I cracked a smile and took a seat on Tony’s plush leather chair.
How long? How long had he been planning this, and why the hell were Trace’s parents involved? I wracked my brain but couldn’t come up with any solution other than pure insanity.
I waited another five minutes then left the room and walked down the hall to the elevator.
I was more pissed off than scared; I didn’t really get scared anymore. Impending death never scared me. Hell, it was a reality. But now? Knowing that Trace could lose both me and Nixon? At the same time? All over again? Yeah, that sucked. I refused to leave her. Even if I had to go to hell and back and beg to be brought back to life—I refused to leave her. I couldn’t.
The elevator dinged. I walked out and dialed Tony’s number. “I got the money.”
“You did?” The ass sounded surprised.
“Yeah.”
“Complications?”
“A few minor ones. Nothing to get upset over.”
“I’m impressed.”
“Don’t be,” I snorted. “Now, where am I meeting you?”
“Our house, of course.”
I paused. I thought we were supposed to meet at Nixon’s, which meant he was changing things. Why was he changing things? “Fine. See you in ten.”
I hung up and got into my car. Shit. Things were already going sideways and I had no idea what to expect. Would he put a gun on me when I opened the door? Would he take the money, confess, and then shoot me?
I contemplated all the ways I could die the entire way to the house. The minute I got there, I jumped out of the car and grabbed the briefcase. Birds chirped and the sun was shining, just as if something huge wasn’t going down.
And then I heard a gun click. “We’ve been expecting you.”
I turned around. “Phoenix?”
His smug grin made me want to rip his head from his body.
“Who else were you expecting?”
Chapter Forty-seven Chase
Phoenix nudged me in the back with his gun. Holy shit. I would kill him. End him. If he as much as sneezed on my back. I walked in front of him and opened the door to the house.
Tony was standing in the living room, smoking his usual cigar and looking out the window.
“Ah, you’ve made it.”
“Nice greeting,” I said dryly. “Can you please call Phoenix off of me before I put a bullet in his head?”
Tony nodded and Phoenix backed off, walking over to Tony and slapping him on the back. “See how easy this was?”
“Easy?” I repeated.
“He needed money.” Tony shrugged. “How would it look if our family simply gave the De Langes ten million dollars? It would look like a handout. Besides, I need Phoenix to be silent, and we’ve come to a sort of agreement. I pay him to keep my secrets and he finishes the business I don’t wish to finish.”
“What business?” Dread pooled in my stomach.
Tony puffed on his cigar. “You and a few others…”
I opened my mouth to speak when all of a sudden I heard a whimper. I walked farther into the living room. My eyes fell on the couch.
Mo, Mil, and Trace were sitting there. Hands tied behind their backs and duct tape over their mouths.
“You sick son of a bitch!”
“Kids!” Tony spat. “You’re all children! Did you think this was a game? Did you think I was working underneath a child for the past four years to simply hand over all the power I’ve had? Do you think I like having to listen to a child order me around as if I was nothing? A child that did not even deserve to be boss in the first place! Blood relation, Chase! You are the blood relation!”
“I know,” I mumbled. “That doesn’t mean you needed to kill Nixon. Your actual son, you dirty bastard.”
“Lucky for me, I did not have to. I simply provided the information to the Nicolosi family. I knew they would not be pleased that their golden family, the chosen Abandonatos, were falling apart at the seams all because they could not let go of the past.”