Brutal Prince (Brutal Birthright)

My custom suit smells like a dying starfish.

FUCK THAT GIRL!

I’ve got to change clothes before I literally lose my mind.

I head back to the house, where the party is beginning to wind down. I’ve missed the singer, not that I cared, except to see the look of joy on Nessa’s face. Just another cock up in this shit-show of a night.

I’ve barely stepped foot through the door when I’m met by my furious-looking father.

“Where the fuck have you been?” he snarls. “Why didn’t you tell me there were Gallos at our party?”

He looks down at my clothes, dripping dirty lake water on the spotless tiles of the entryway.

“And why are you wet?” he says flatly.

“We had a dust-up down at the pier, but I’m handling it,” I tell him through gritted teeth.

“Unacceptable,” he says. “Get in my office. Tell me everything.”

I’m itching to get back out there and wreak fiery vengeance on those greasy guidos, but I march in the office to give him a report. He’s not pleased by a single word of it.

“What the fuck were you thinking?” he shouts, so close to my face that his saliva hits my cheek. “Why are you starting a gang war in the middle of your campaign?”

“They started it!” I yell back. “They tried to burn our fucking house down. They stole grandfather’s watch and threw it in the lake! What do you want me to do, bake them a fucking cake?”

“Lower your voice,” my father hisses at me. “People will hear you.”

As if he wasn’t just yelling at me twice as loud.

I take a deep breath, trying to control the anger threatening to spiral out of control.

“I told you,” I say, quiet and strangled. “I. Will. Handle. This.”

“Absolutely not,” my father says, shaking his head. “You’ve already proven your incompetence. Crippling the youngest son? You’ve lost your mind. You know he’s some star athlete? You might as well have killed him.”

“Next time I will,” I seethe.

“You’re done,” he says, shaking his head.

“That’s not your decision!”

He shoves me hard in the chest.

It spikes my adrenaline all the more. I respect my father. He may look like a professor, but he’s killed men with his bare hands. I’ve seen him do it.

But he’s not the only one in the room who can break bones. I’m not the obedient son I once was. We’re eye to eye these days.

“As long as I’m head of this family, you’ll do what I say,” my father says.

There are so many things I’d like to say to that. But I swallow them down. Just barely.

“And what do you propose . . . father?” I mutter.

“This is getting out of control,” my father says. “I’m going to call Enzo Gallo.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me!”

“Shut your mouth,” he snaps. “You’ve done enough damage. I’ll see what I can do to repair this before both our families end up dead in the street.”