“Will that even work?” Santo asked, sharp teeth gleaming in the light from the fireplace. “At this point, will anything short of death stop him? In my experience, men with that level of power never go quietly into oblivion. They need to be in control.”
“Are you willing to kill your own father?” Carter asked me incredulously. “Getting away with murder isn’t easy and the cost isn’t cheap, trust me.”
“I’d kill the fucker in a heartbeat,” I said calmly, because I would. Bryant had proven himself to be a rabid dog, I knew he wouldn’t be fully silenced unless it was with a bullet, but there were two reasons I wouldn’t risk it. “But Mom doesn’t deserve to be widowed by her own sons, even if Bryant treats her like shit, she loves him.”
“She’d be better off,” Carter said.
I shrugged. “Yeah, but you want to take that choice from her? I sure as hell don’t. I don’t feel comfortable taking our father from our sisters, either. He’s a bastard, but at the end of the day, he’s their father and we are hardwired to love our parents. Besides, I have a family that needs me now. I won’t risk going to prison and having that all ripped away just for the satisfaction of ending Bryant.”
“It’s a close call.” Carter sighed heavily. “Ultimately, I agree. Bryant lives. But seriously, Tiernan, I heard him talking to cousin Charles about targeting your ‘assets.’ If he’s waited this long for revenge against you, you know it’s going to be big. Lucian, Leo and I can try to talk him down later tonight at dinner, but he’s set against you now.”
I had no doubt.
Bryant was the one who taught me only to land the first punch if you were sure it would knock the opponent out for good, otherwise you risked retribution. Our father practically had a whole fucking rule book written around the concept of revenge and I knew he planned to throw the whole fucking thing at me.
“I can arrange a meeting with Bryant anytime,” Santo offered. “I just need something tangible to give him, or he’ll smell bullshit a mile off.”
We fell silent, each of us knowing the entire crux of our patriarchal takedown hinged on that one thing.
And then, in the silence, came a tentative knock at the door.
Before I could tell whomever it was to fuck off, Beckett Fairchild peeked his head around the door. “Hello?”
“We’re having a private conference, Beckett,” I barked. “Wait your damn turn. I said I would make time for you.”
Beckett glowered at me, an expression I’d never seen on his face that was surprisingly effective. “No, I’m afraid I have to speak to you now, Tiernan.”
He closed the door behind himself and confidently stroke into the center of two Morelli men and a well-known mafioso as if his skin was made of titanium armor. I watched with some amusement as he braced his hands against my desk to lean over to me.
“I won’t apologize for eavesdropping, because I have exactly what you need.”
“I won’t apologize for cutting out your tongue so you can’t pass on anything you so innocently overheard,” I responded with a wolfish smile as I pulled a knife from the top drawer of my desk and set it on the table between us.
Beckett didn’t even glance at the weapon, his vivid green eyes hooked through mine. “There’s no need for that. If anyone is going to cut out my tongue, it will probably be your father after I go with Santo to sell him information about Colombe Energy Investments.”
His words ignited a nuclear silence, the air ballooning with pressure.
“And why the fuck would you do that?” The words rumbled through my chest as I stood and flattened my own hands on the desk, leaning over it to snarl in Beckett’s face and match his pose.
There was something wrong about this, something that made the hair on the back of my neck stand on end.
“I have my reasons,” Beckett replied, not backing down in the face of my ire.
“If you want to help us so badly, you’ll share them.”
He stared at me with such intensity, his eyes started to redden from the strain. “Lane was my best friend, my brother by choice. I promised I would look after Brandon and Bianca, and I failed. This is my way of making it right.”
I didn’t believe him for a single second and based on Carter’s scoff, he didn’t either.
But… “You understand that going with Santo very well might result in Bryant sensing a trap and putting a bullet in your fucking head?”
I waited for him to shy away from the stark truth, but Beckett just rolled his shoulders back and fixed me with that jade green gaze. “You spoke of the people you love as reason not to kill your father. Well, I have my own loved ones and I’m willing to do this for them.”