Page 7 of Bound By Sin
“Sure thing, Valentino. May I ask what the story is about?”
“Not at this time. If we have to take it further than the cease-and-desist, I’ll inform you of everything. Right now, I want to keep it as quiet as possible.”
“Okay, Valentino. Give me until the end of the day, and I’ll get back to you whenever I have more information,” he said, then ended the call.
That was one thing I loved about him. When I gave him an order, he followed and didn’t ask a shit ton of questions. That was why I paid him a hell of a lot of money to take care of shit like this. He’d been on my payroll since the day I took over the family. He was in his early seventies now and getting closer to the day he’d retire. He’d been throwing it in our conversations for at least the last five years, I guess, trying to prepare me for his eventual retirement. I wasn’t sure what I’d do without him or who’d take his place, but he deserved to relax and not deal with Cavallaro shit anymore.
I dialed the only person who could give me answers about Tara without going to the source—Tara herself.
“Valentino?” Brian said after answering on the third ring. “Haven’t heard from you in a while, man. What’s up? Everything good?”
I’d known Brian for years. Although the man was unstoppable in the boardroom, we became close friends not through our legal businesses but through our illegal connections. On the outside, he portrayed the upstanding businessman to the world, while I portrayed the criminal. We became fast friends because we understood one another. We were one and the same.
“No, everything is not fucking good, Brian. Is it true?”
“I deal with a lot of shit every day, Tino. You’ve got to be more specific, man. Is what true?”
I fucking hated that nickname. Only he and Tara used it, and it reminded me of a time I’d spent the last eighteen years trying to forget.
“Does Tara have a daughter?”
He sighed. “She does have a daughter,” he answered without any hesitation like he hadn’t hidden that shit from me for years.
“And why the fuck didn’t you tell me?”
Rage rose inside me. Maybe the kid wasn’t mine. Maybe she was his, and that was why he hadn’t told me shit about her. I’d kill him if he’d started fucking Tara again after I left. She was mine. She would always be mine.
“You didn’t think it was something I needed to know about!”
“You left her, Valentino!” he shouted, his anger matching mine. “Why the hell do you expect me to tell you any fucking thing about what’s going on in her life other than that she’s good? Hmm?”
What could I say to that? He had a good point, even if I didn’t give a shit. Why did I expect him to tell me anything about her life when I was the one who’d walked away from her? He didn’t owe me shit when it came to her.
“Because we’re fucking friends, Brian.”
“We are, but she’s my fucking friend too. I also have to think about her.” He took a deep breath and released it. “What the hell did you expect me to do, Valentino? She called you so many fucking times. Did you answer one damn time? No, you didn’t. You left her fucking heartbroken, man.”
His voice was calmer, but his anger over my treatment of Tara was unmistakable.
With the kind of man Brian was, he wouldn’t try to hide how pissed off he was from me. A little bit of my anger evaporated because he’d been looking out for her well-being. I understood the need to do that. We both loved her, but I still didn’t like it.
“You didn’t see how devastated she was.”
I didn’t, but I didn’t have to. We experienced the same heartbreak. The same restless nights.
My heart clenched in my chest. The last person I ever wanted to hurt was the woman I loved, but I didn’t have a choice. Could I have explained my new responsibilities to her and why I had to leave? Give up what we shared? Probably. But I’d thought it was best not to make things worse for the both of us. Being away from her had been difficult enough without me having to break her heart, and mine, in person. That day, if I had seen her before it was time for me to leave, I would have never left, and the alternative wasn’t an option. Back then, she couldn’t come with me, and I couldn’t stay with her.
Today, things are different. My position is solidified. My reign as Don is secure. I can have anything I fucking want, including my family.
“You know my world, and you know I didn’t have a choice, Brian.”
“We all have choices, Valentino. Right or wrong, you made yours. You made the choice to walk away and not tell her the reason why.”
He was right. I did have a choice, but I couldn’t bear to see her hurt after breaking it off with her. My heart wouldn’t have been able to take the sadness in her eyes, or the tears in my own eyes as I walked away. The tears as I broke my own heart and hers. So, I chose the coward’s way, something I wasn’t proud of and had never admitted to myself.
“Is she yours?” I asked, choosing not to defend the choice I’d made to leave. It was something I lived with every damn day she was out of my life, and it wasn’t something I wanted to have a conversation about right now. Would I have done things differently if I could go back? Most definitely. But would it change the outcome? More than likely, no.
I’d been heading a crime family during the transition from one Don to another, one of the most dangerous times in a family. While I would have had the conversation about why I had no other choice but to leave her, I would have still insisted that we not be together. Back then, she didn’t need to be a part of my world. Today was a different story.
