Page 24 of And Twice as Twisted
“Stop worrying about me, Daddy. Find peace in the fact that I am strong enough to handlehim.I love you.”
I struggled with words as I threw out every expletive in both Italian and English. What had he done to my beautiful daughter? Why didn’t she want to come home?
“Maybe you should’ve protected her better. And I’m not just talking about from me.” The anger in his tone forced me silent. I felt as if he was trying to send me a message, but I couldn’t understand it.
My daughter asked me to let her go. She’d rather stay with the enemy than her own blood. He was right. This man had wanted to take everything from me and he’d succeeded.
“That’s not going to help.” My eldest son loomed in the hallway outside my office. He motioned towards the glass of Scotch I’d filled to the brim. The alcohol barely took away the unpleasant memories anymore. Instead, it offered me a numbness that allowed me to detach from my surroundings. A reprieve if only for a little bit.
As my son—who was an exact replica of me at his age—glared at me in disapproval, I wanted to scoff in his face. “Just wait until all this is yours, then talk to me about my vices.” I stood and made my way to the window, smiling as I watched my wife wander through her gardens.
“What was it like?” Lucky stood at my side, posing an innocuous question, but one I understood held much deeper meaning.
“Not like this.” I motioned around the room. “I came from nothing, had nothing other than an Italian name. I killed, I lied, and I fought dirty to get here.”
“But you had Ma’s softness to protect you.” We stared at my beautiful wife, the mother of my four children, the woman who had single-handedly brought me back to life over and over again.
“Even that wasn’t easy. Or, back then, enough. I loved another woman, but your grandfather forced me to choose: love or power. I couldn’t have both.”
We never hid the truth from our children. From a young age, they all knew there was a very good chance I would arrange their marriages. Just like my own father had done with me. While I was the one to get my hands dirty to amass my power, it was my father who had built alliances. Isabella’s family came from old money with even more valuable connections. Seraphina, Bella’s mom, did not. We grew up together, our bloodlines fightingamongst each other to get the upper hand, but our love wasn’t enough.
“I hated her for it,” I whispered, watching her smile as the wind blew her hair around her. “I resented thatshestood in the way of my claim for power.”
The beginning of our marriage was anything but blissful. It was filled with constant bickering, a lot of tears from my wife, and terrible words and actions from me. When the walls came crashing down around us, she was the rock that built me back up. I promised I’d spend the rest of my life making it up to her.
I lied. I cheated. I went behind her back and brokered deals that her father would have been less than pleased with. But she protected me from him, time and time again. She knew she had as little choice in the marriage as I did. But if she was going to be forced to marry a monster and become queen, she’d do it her way. And she did, gracefully.
“When did it change?”
Isabella waved when she noticed us watching her.
“When you were born.” I motioned for my son to take a seat, realizing this conversation was long overdue. “When she got pregnant, we’d been at each other’s throats for months. I hated that I was building a life with her, with someone I thought I could never love. When, in reality, it was because—”
He smirked, the apple not falling far from the tree. “You did love her, but it wasn’t your choice, so you fought it.” He laughed, knowing all too well how that could’ve easily happened with him and his wife. But my son was a far better man than I ever was and would be an even better king.
“We didn’t speak for months, not until the night she went into labor.” I took a long drag from my cigar, handing another to my son. “Things had just really started to settle with me taking over the city. The streets had amicably accepted my reign and I’d put out a lot of fires. I had several families that were backing usand had cleared the way for me to sit on my throne. As you know, all it takes—”
“Is one bullet for someone to steal it from you.” He cracked his knuckles, no doubt recalling several incidences from his youth and then again with his bride. “I’m not mad at you anymore for lying about Bella.”
He was. That was a type of anger and hate that would never fade. But I needed everyone to believe she was dead to protect them. Just another check on the lists of grievances I’d caused my family.
“It was late. I’d just come home from drinking at one of the corner bars I owned back then. I was drunk, so drunk I didn’t even notice the voices in the hallway.” The cigar burned bright as I was transported back to that night.
“Christ, Rick, give me a hand.”
Riccardo, my oldest friend, laughed as he helped me get my key in the door.
“Another fucking night locked in my prison,” I slurred out and regretted my words almost immediately.
I’d spent the night at the corner bar, drinking away my problems. However, none of them were real. No, the real problem was the fact I didn’t even know why I was so angry anymore. I’d fought so hard to stay away from Serafina, my true love, at mywife’srequest. As my son grew in her belly, her only ask was that if I sought comfort elsewhere that it not be with the one woman she knew I loved. Her blanket approval meant I cheated with any bitch within reach. So many wanted to swallow my cock to say they tasted royalty. And I let them. So many of them. Too many. I walked out as soon as my balls drained and each new conquest made me hate myself a little more.
Isabella was a beautiful woman. The sweetest soul I’d ever come across. She turned our house into a home. My menrespected her, enjoyed her company. And the more time I was around her, the more my walls started to crash down around me. Which meant that the guilt began to eat at me more and more. I slowly stopped sleeping around, and to ease the guilt, I drank. A lot.
Like tonight. I could barely make out the outline of my front door, let alone get my key to unlock it. Riccardo moved fast, opening the door and shoving me inside with a laugh as I stumbled. I gave him the finger, straightened, and wandered aimlessly towards my bedroom.
I should apologize to her for everything I’d done this past year and beg her to forgive me.That thought was running through my mind as I continued down the hall.
“What the—“ I stopped when someone grabbed my arm and tugged me into my office, closing the door and placing a hand over my mouth.
