Page 92 of The Broken Queen
Scotty had encouraged me to take a seat on the opposite side, with the wave of his gun toward my family. I should have known this would be his play. Deep down, I knew he was capable of truly heinous things, but I still doubted that he’d ever hurt us. I thought we were his chosen family, and yet, here we were.
“We’re going to have a family meeting, right here and right now. It seems things have gotten a little out of hand as of late, and I’d like to clear them up,” Scotty started while taking the fourth chair and keeping his gun on my parents. He also had a trigger remote in his other hand, which meant he had another weapon somewhere, set upon a remote switch. It would fire if he released it or pressed the button.
I sat stiffly. “Mom, Dad, I’m okay. You’re okay. We’ll get through this.”
Scotty mocked me. “That’s the spirit, Presley. Let’s have a positive outlook.”
“Why are you doing all of this? I thought we were your family.”
Scotty scratched his jaw with the barrel of his gun before letting out a sigh. “First of all, you’re to blame for it escalating to this level, Presley. You murdered the son of one of the most powerful families in the mafia. The Vissimo family is now after me because of your little temper tantrum.”
Good. I hoped they would target him and eventually kill him. Reaper laid on his belly and began slowly inching closer to my legs. I held my hand out for him to smell. If Scotty sicced him on me, I wanted to make a connection with him first.
“As far as you being my family, that never changed, but whatdidchange was my need to get back in the game. While everyone was so eager to hide, I had built my entire life around navigating organized crime. I’m good at it. There’s not just a legacy to be had here; there’s a family name we were supposed to create. Kyle, you fucked that up.” He scolded my father by raising his voice, but then, softly his gaze returned to me.
“At first, I had no idea they had a plan in place. I knew about the Adesso’s past and my link to them, but I didn’t think Markos would be pulling them into that. Regardless, once I found out, I wanted to continue with the alliance because I would have prevented them from ever hurting you. But the twins came and fucked everything up.”
I faintly corrected him, “It wasn’t the twins who forced me to kill my grandfather.”
“That may be true, but you wouldn’t have been afraid or even known who Markos was if they hadn’t planted the seed.”
I knew my mother and father wanted to ask this, so I did it for them. “How could you ever agree to align yourself with him, knowing the vendetta he has toward my family and toward Juan’s?”
Scotty glanced at his phone briefly before explaining, “The Mariano family has owned my loyalty for longer than any of you have been alive. Even when Kyle decided to go rogue and kill Ivan Varga, I nearly died myself because I was supposed to owe my allegiance to Markos. He’s one person you can’t simply walk away from and hope they don’t come to collect. Markos asked me to murder Lucian Adesso all those years ago and plant the playing card simply because he knew it would instill the need for vengeance in the three sons left behind. How he planned to utilize that hate was not my business.”
“It would have worked,” Scotty continued. “If your heart hadn’t been broken, you wouldn’t have felt the need to have someone try and heal it. You wouldn’t have gotten attached to Adrian, and he wouldn’t have fallen for you.”
I shifted in my seat, irritated all over again at the mention of Adrian. He didn’t deserve to be manipulated the way he was, none of them did, but I cared less for his brothers since I was nearly positive they had something to do with killing Adrian.
“So what now? Why are we sitting here?” I asked.
Scotty pulled the hammer to his gun back and leaned forward. “I need everyone on the same page. Presley is to marry into a family ofmychoosing; she will create an alliance forus. Kyle, you will come back to the game and reemerge as The Joker. Rylie, I used to like you, but honestly, if you wanted to remain here or fuck off, I couldn’t care less. It would actually help if Kyle was single for our debut back into the world of organized crime. I’ve yanked Decker’s father-in-law, Charles Shaw, into this. He invested about half a million dollars into my little come back plan. He wants a cut.”
My dad’s nose flared in rage.
“Once everyone agrees, and I’m able to leave here safely with Presley, then I’ll have someone come in and untie you both and letyou go,” Scotty explained, right as the gym door opened and Gio walked through.
He aimed his .45 caliber gun at Scotty’s head without hesitation. Reaper snapped up with a growl.
“Come join the party, Giovanni,” Scotty said happily while waving his gun at my parents and revealing his trigger switch.
If I could get it from him safely, then Gio could shoot him.
“Gio, he has a trigger switch. Wherever the guns are, they’re aimed at my parents,” I warned as his arm remained raised.
“Lower your gun first, Scotty,” Gio warned.
My uncle flicked his gaze quickly to the door where Gio had come through. He was wondering where Kingston was. I had no doubt he was about to order Reaper to attack Gio, so I quickly ordered him first.
“Sich hinlegen.”Stay.
“Since you’re standing here and not dead, I’m going to assume you killed Markos?”
“You assume wrong,” Gio said easily.
Scotty smirked while waving the trigger switch around. “Do you think you’re fast enough to save them, Gio?”
I tried to catch his gaze, but his eyes never left Scotty. “I might not be, but she is.”
