I couldn’t bring myself to look into the mirror to see his face. I knew it hurt him. I’d talked to all of his doctors and pain was just a side effect; they could do nothing but give him more meds. But the meds made him angry, and sometimes violent. It was one of the reasons he tried to lock himself away.
“How much was this small fortune anyway?” I asked, trying to change the subject.
“Small fortune?”
“The one you have locked away from the Irish pig and his rat family.”
“Mel…”
“Don’t ‘Mel’ me with a razor at your skull, Orlando. I have another use for it and it’s not going to be wasted on those people.”
“What could you possibly want to do with that money that you can’t do now?”
I met his eyes in the mirror and just smiled.
I was going to do what he didn’t think I could. I was going to make us a force to be reckoned with again. I was going make sure we had the monopoly on cocaine and heroin. I was going to make sure we didn’t need any Callahan and damn well no Valero.
“I don’t trust that look in your eyes.” He frowned, watching me carefully. Even drunk, he was still trying to read me.
“Why, because it reminds you of the look in your eye?”
“No, because it reminds me of your mother. I always knew a storm was coming when I saw that look.” He pointed into the mirror at my brown eyes and I just smiled.
Grabbing the towel he had left on the desk, I wiped the leftover cream from his head and kissed it. “I have to go, Orlando. Get some rest.”
Taking the razor with me, I left him sitting there, with the rest of his hair lying on the cold marble. Walking back out into the closet, I locked the door behind me before leaving. It wasn’t the only entrance to his room. There was a back door into the gardens where the doctors came and went, but he wanted this door locked, so I obliged him.
“Fiorello, just the man I needed to see.” I smiled, stepping out into the hall.
“Is there a reason why you’re in the closet, ma’am?” he asked, but he already knew why. The walls had ears and the maids would talk. They always talked.
“Never mind that. My father has money in holding for me.”
“Ma’am…”
“Don’t lie to me, Fiorello. I need to know how much and where it is. After all, I’m fighting for my life here.”
He fought the wrinkled grin trying to creep onto his face. “And how will seven million dollars do that?”
Seven million dollars was not a small fortune; it was a large one and just enough to pay off debts along with procuring a few dozen kilos of cocaine.
“You two.” I pointed to the men just standing in the hall.
Walking up to me, they stood straighter. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Names.”
“Fedel Morris, Gino Morris’s son, you were the one who—”
“Stop talking,” I snapped at him before facing the other one. “You?”
“Monte…”
“A Beau Brooks. Get me everything you can on him, stalk him if you have to. Find out who his dealer is and then make him mine with whatever force necessary. Are we clear?”
“Yes—”
“Then why are you still standing here?”
They looked at each other for a moment before turning to leave.
“Look at you,” Fiorello said.
“There’s nothing to look at because you have a bank to call. So why aren’t you doing that?” His eyebrow raised before he bowed and left.
LIAM
She left the hospital so quickly, I swear she left a trail of smoke behind her. I knew Declan’s announcement would affect her, but I wasn’t sure how. What was going through her mind right now? She couldn’t have been thinking clearly; if she was, she wouldn’t have left without telling anyone. She’d grabbed the keys to the Range and drove off and I couldn’t call her because I still had her damn phone.
She was going to drive me insane, I could feel it. I was just going to lose it and murder her one day. If it weren’t for the damn GPS in the car, I would have been fucking ready to call in the National Guard.
It didn’t take long for me to notice her when I pulled up to the remains of what used to be the Giovanni Villa; her old home here in Chicago, the place where I first met, and was shot by, her. She sat on a pile of old rusted pipes, just staring, completely oblivious to the world around her. Parking right next to her car, I grabbed the water bottle. The moment I stepped out, a gunshot went off and I dropped to the ground. She just broke out in laughter.
“Have you lost your damn mind?” I yelled at her, looking at the hole in the car door.
“Stop stalking me. I wanted to be alone!”
“Then use your fucking words! You could have killed me!”
“Stop being melodramatic,” she said. “I knew I wasn’t going to hit you. I’m a better shot than you are.” She sighed, looking up at the stars.
Fuck that, she can get dehydrated for all I care, I thought, throwing the water bottle back into the car.
“Hey, wasn’t that for me?” she asked, watching as I came over to her.
“No, that water was for the wife who doesn’t shoot at me,” I replied, glaring at the glock in her hand.
She frowned. “How many wives do you have, Mr. Callahan?”
“As much as I love this banter of ours, what are you doing here, Mrs. Callahan?” I didn’t understand why she didn’t just rebuild it. After the home was burned down, she wouldn’t allow anyone to touch it. It was nothing but rusted scrap metal, broken china, and a few walls fighting to stay erect.
“Did you know it was here I decided to fully join—run the family business?”
“No, I wasn’t aware you spent much time in Chicago.” I wasn’t sure how I would know.
“I usually came for two reasons: my father had business to attend to, or he had a doctor’s appointment.”
“There were no doctors out in California?”
“There were, you ass,” she said, rolling her eyes at me. “However, Dr. Anderson was here. I never knew why they had such a bond. But he was the one who helped deliver me, so I’m guessing he never told the police that Orlando made sure Aviela didn’t leave. Loyalty was a big thing to him, yet he held none. He told me once, with his hands around my throat, only ever be loyal to myself. To only love myself.”
“He put his hands around your neck?” Now I was more than glad I put the needle in his arm.
“Calm down, macho man. My father didn’t abuse me, it was the cancer talking. While he was on chemo, he would get so violent, so cold. He was dying, and because of that he didn’t want to take it. We would have weekly fights about it. He locked himself away so he wouldn’t flip out on me. And when I was seventeen, I was ready to walk away. I was done. I was tired. I had gotten into UCLA, my father was almost near bankruptcy and people were jumping ship faster than we could blink.”
“And you turned it around.” Everyone in our “world” believed that it had been her father who had breathed life back into the Giovanni name once more. She was amazing.
As she smiled up at me, her eyes glazed over with a look I knew brought only trouble. “You want to know how?”