Page 36 of The Beautiful Dead

“Sit.” A single word. Clipped. Commanding. He motioned toward the leather chair across from his obscenely large mahogany desk.

He never spoke to me like a son. Never had. I was another soldier to him. Another weapon. He’d broken me as a child and rebuilt me into a machine—one he could aim at a problem and watch it bleed out.

Without a word, I moved.

“Have you found Calloway?”

“Yes,” I answered. “He’ll be tortured for every ounce of information he has on the Gallos’ plans.” I cleared my throat and asked the question that had gnawed at me for years. “Why are the Gallos the only family that ever makes a move on us?”

His eyes narrowed. “I told you—they are the reason your mother is dead,” he said, his voice dropping to a growl. “They killed her and nearly killed you as a child.”

Same words. Same tone. Same script. Repeated verbatim every time. But today, there was something different. A crack in the rehearsed delivery. A heat bled through his words, like the question itself was tiresome.

If he had loved my mother as much as he claimed, why were the Gallos still breathing twenty-five years later? Why hadn’t he rallied the other families to wipe them off the map?

“Enough of that!” His cane slammed against the desk, the sharp crack echoing through the room. “There is much more we need to discuss.”

I held back the smirk that twitched at the corner of my mouth. There it was. The anger. I antagonized him.

“We have a leak,” he continued, his voice dripping with disdain. “I know you took out that gang as a warning, but the books are still off.” He leaned forward, eyes flashing. “If I can’t trust you to do your job…” His upper lip curled. “Then you will never take over the family.”

My fingers dug into the arms of the chair.

“I’ll have one of your cousins brought into the fold instead,” he sneered.

They’d always wanted a bigger role in the family, always been eager to please him. But he’d chosen me. Until now.

“I believed you were the only one capable of carrying the family name into the future,” he said. Then he moved. Slow. Deliberate. He stood, leaning on his cane as he rounded the desk. The sharp steel tip pressed against my chest, right over my heart. “I will not hesitate to end you if you disappoint me.”

I didn’t flinch. Didn’t react. “Yes, sir.”

The words were ice on my tongue, controlled and measured. But inside, I was burning.

Irritation coiled around my ribs, squeezing tighter with every passing second. It consumed me, cell by cell, until the fire dulled into something worse—something colder. I sat there for hours, taking his berating, his threats. Until I felt nothing at all.

Federico needed to watch his back because I was about to snap. And when I did, that feral hunger inside me wouldn’t be aimed at the Gallos. It would be aimed at him.

I couldn’t wait for the day he took his last breath.

I was unfeeling. Detached. I didn’t understand emotions, but I knew weakness. I knew how to exploit it. Federico was vile. He’d treated me as expendable since the day I was old enough to hold a knife.

Kill or be killed.

Trust no one.

Loyalty was a joke. People only followed you out of fear.

If you let them believe they were your friends, your colleagues, they’d stab you in the back without hesitation.

Many had tried.

None had lived to regret it.

My father should have been more careful with the lessons he taught me—because I didn’t fear him. I followed because I was trapped. But a caged animal fights back harder than a free one.

He thought he was the smartest person in the room. Thought he had complete control. But he didn’t see it. I was exactly what he made me. And that meant he was outmatched.

In strength.

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