Page 41 of Blood and Penance
Lorenzo chuckles. “Are you sure you’re still a priest, big brother?”
“At this point, I don’t even know.” I blow out a long breath. Being a priest isn’t as important to me as it had been before. “My only concern is getting my son far away from Giovanni. I’ll deal with the consequences for my soul afterwards.”
“For what it’s worth, I don’t believe God will hold it against you, Gianni. Everything you’ve done has been for them. It’s what a good family man would do.”
The car comes to an abrupt stop, and we don’t waste any time climbing out of the car with guns in hand. I expect resistance, but there's none.
“What the fuck is going on?” Lorenzo asks, looking around confused, but I know what’s going on.
He’s not taking us seriously. When it comes to my son, I’m not the same man he’s used to dealing with.
“He expects me to go along with his plans. He doesn’t believe I'll kill him to save Giancarlo,” I say as I calmly walk toward the front door of the family lake house.
It’s one of the places I enjoyed with family when I was younger. We were a normal family in my young mind. Well, as normal as a crime family could be. Our father would take us fishing at the lake in the back. Me and my brothers would also swim in that same lake as our mother and father sat in lounge chairs laughing and talking like a loving couple. Then the older I got, the more I recognized this place wasn’t real. Our happy family was never real no matter how much me and my brothers, and even possibly our mother wanted it to be. Giovanni knows nothing about family. All he knows is control.
I enter without bothering to knock. It’s not like he’s not expecting us. A wave of nostalgia washes over me, but I shoveit down because I don’t have the time or the want to reminisce about shit that doesn’t matter anymore. It had been an illusion, anyway.
“Giovanni!” I call out, my voice echoing through the house. “Where is my son!”
“We’re in the study!” Giovanni calls out, and I look at Lorenzo.
His voice is calm. And a calm Giovanni is a very dangerous person.
Lorenzo shrugs and we both make our way toward the back of the house to Giovanni’s study. When we reach the study, the door is wide open, and my step falters when I see my son sitting on his grandfather’s lap with a box of crayons, smiling like he doesn’t have a care in the world. This isn’t how I wanted to meet my son for the first time, but of course Giovanni would want to take that experience away from me if it made me fall in line.
“Come in!” Giovanni waves us forward with a huge smile on his face. “Come in! I’ve been expecting you.”
Of course he has.
I place the gun in my hand behind my back, and Lorenzo follows. I don’t want my son to be scared of me because I’m carrying a gun. Giovanni’s eyes follow our movements, then he places his gun on top of the desk right next to my son.
“Look who it is, Giancarlo.” He ruffles my son’s curly hair, and I have to grit my teeth, to keep from screaming for him to get his hands off of him. “It’s your papa and your Uncle Enzo.”
Giancarlo’s gaze lifts to meet mine, and a slow, beautiful smile spreads across his face like sunshine. My heart clenches inside my chest. He looks so much like me when I was younger, but I can also see Phoenix in his features.
I still can’t believe I have a son.
His eyes widened. “You’re my, Papa?”
I take a step closer, as so many emotions clog my throat. However, Giovanni puts his hand on his gun, causing me to stop as I try not to glare at him. “I am, Giancarlo. I’ve missed you so much.”
Giancarlo tries to get down from Giovanni’s lap to come to me, but he holds onto him. Tears fill Giancarlo’s eyes. If my son wasn’t in the room with us right now, I would kill my own father for making him cry.
“Nonno, I want to go with my Papa.” Grandfather.
“You willll mio nipote. In just one minute.” Little grandson.
“We need to talk,” I say, looking at my father.
“The only thing I want to hear come out of your mouth is that you’re going to do your duty to this family and take over. If not, there’s nothing to talk about.”
“Let Lorenzo take Giancarlo, and we can come to some type of agreement.”
“Agreement?”
“Yes, father. Isn’t that what you want?”
“Hand Lorenzo your gun,” Giovanni orders after he looks at me for a moment like he’s trying to figure out if I’m lying.
