Page 135 of Clean Slade
“It’s not about the money. It’s about the principle.” My father shouted, and as he inched closer, the floor creaked underneath him.
“Principle? Principle? And what kind of principle is holding your family hostage, threatening to blow them to smithereens?”
Even saying the word made my skin crawl. The mere thought of my little girl…
No.
You’re not going there, King. You’re not going there.
I looked at Mac in the camera, oblivious to what was happening. To how close her life was to ending before it had even begun.
And what about Grams? Did she know she was sitting on explosives? Did she know what kind of trap her own son had put her in?
The phone buzzed, and a message notification popped up on the top of the screen.
“Boss, we have a problem…” I managed to read before my father pulled the phone away and tapped on the message.
“Fucking idiots,” he mumbled as he typed furiously.
“Problem?” I asked him.
Was it stupid to hope there was a hitch in my father’s plans that would save my daughter from his grasp?
“Mind your own business. Your time is almost up.”
He showed me the screen again and what was at stake if Salieri didn’t show.
The time on the top of the screen read four-o-four. I’d called Barry at three-fourteen. Barely ten minutes until my father realized there was no one coming. There was no chance.
And the clock was still running against me.
What did I have to lose? There must be a heart underneath all that stone. Surely.
“Dad.” I looked up and used the word I absolutely loathed on him. “Please think about this. Think about how much sense it makes. You’re not going to get anything by doing this. You’re not going to get Salieri, and you’ll lose the only family you have left. Hell, I doubt you’ll even get any of your money back, and you just gave him more in the past few weeks by buying his drugs.”
I was desperate. I had to make him listen because Salieri wasn’t coming. And I didn’t know if Slade’s plan was going to work.
The clock was still running against me.
What did I have to lose? There must be a heart underneath all that stone. Surely.
“Family? What family? You hate my guts, my mother hates my guts, and I’m sure you’d raise that little rat to do the same. There’s no family. There’s only me against everyone else,” he answered, and I looked at Nino, who shook his head as if we’d lost the battle.
Maybe he was ready to give up, but I wasn’t.
“Who’s fault is that, Dad? Who let the power go to their head and turned on their own people. You think there’s no family? Whose fault is it when you destroyed it in the first place?”
My father bit his tongue. I couldn’t understand why. He’d never been afraid to speak his mind. What was stopping him now?
“What happened to the man who sat me on his lap and read me bedtime stories? What happened to the man who never left for a job without kissing his sons goodnight. What happened, Dad?”
It may have happened many moons ago, but it had. Not that it mattered to me. It never mattered. That version of my father had been lost years ago. Decades ago. There was no trace of him left. There was only Tony Ferraro Sr., the guy standing in front of me holding a bomb to his own flesh and blood.
“You-you remember that?” Father whispered, shocking me with the vulnerability in his voice.
This was it. This was my moment. I was sure this was my moment to try and pierce that armor.
“Of course, Dad. How could I ever forget? It’s the one memory I have of you. I cling to it and wonder what happened to my father.”
