Page 29 of Her Dark Mafia Protector
“You don’t have to listen to him, Elle,” Nico says as he stands behind both men, ready to smack the butt of his gun against their skulls if they make any sort of move toward me. “Just because he’s your father doesn’t mean that you need to listen to him spout lies and bullshit.”
“I know,” I nod. “And it’s okay, Iwantto hear what he has to say. I want to hear his story.”
I turn back toward my father and can’t hide the look of disgust that I feel. “Youdestroyed us, Dad. You destroyed my childhood, my whole world. The only thing that you protected was yourself, and the corruption that you were trying so hard to hide.”
“She was going to leave us, Elle,” he whines like the broken man that he is.
Funny, I’m finally seeing now that my father wasalwaysa broken man, and I just never wanted to believe it. But as he sits here now looking pathetic as he tries to make up excuses for having done the unthinkable, I see him for what he is—aweakmonster.
“She wasn’t going to leave us,” I correct him. “She was going to leaveyou. And if I’d known all that she knew about you back then, I would have done the exact same thing.”
I listen as my father rattles on about all the reasons that he “did what he did”. He has a laundry list of excuses, all of which are paper-thin, ranging from needing to make more money to support his family to being “disillusioned” by the promises the mafia made to him, and finally landing on at least a partial truth of just being a flawed and greedy man overpowered by his selfish ambitions.
When he’s finished, he dares to ask for my forgiveness.
I can hear Nico take in a sharp breath, as if he’s angered that my father would even think he is deserving of any mercy or redemption. Nico and I have grown closer in a way that I’m unable to describe. It’s as if this joint, depraved quest of ours has allowed us access into each other’s innermost thoughts.
He reaches across the table to hand me his gun, knowing that I know how to handle one already and trusting me enough to call the shots of how things go from here.
I take it from him and wrap my finger around the trigger, aiming it down at the tablefor now.
“Whatever you choose to do here, Elle,” Nico says quietly. “I’ll take care of any consequences ormessthat ensues. You don’t need to worry about anything other than claiming the closure that you need. I’ll make the rest disappear.”
My father squirms in his seat. He knows exactly what the Ghost means by that. I could kill my dad right now, shoot him right in the chest, the same way that he had my mother killed, and no one would ever come knocking on my door about it. Nico would make sure of that.
It’s tempting to want to avenge my mother, and to meet the violence she endured with more violence. I don’t feel at all sorry for my father. In fact, Ihatehim more than I have ever hated anyone, except for the man sitting next to him who pulled the trigger that night. But I still don’t want to kill him. It wouldn’t bring my mom back to do so, and it would only make me feel worse and feel more likehim.
“Please, Elle,” he begs. “If I could go back and do things differently, I would. I’ve learned my lesson.”
“No, you haven’t,” I frown at him. “And killing you won’t teach it to you either. Here’s what you’re going to do, Dad. You’re going to quit the police force for starters.”
“What? I can’t,” he protests. “Being a cop is my whole life. It’s all that I know how to do. If I’m not on the force, then I’mnothing.”
“Youarenothing,” Nico growls from behind him.
“You’re going to quit the forceimmediately,” I repeat. “And then you’re going to leave Las Vegas. I don’t care where in the world you go, but it better be far away from here, and you’d betterstayfar away from me. I never want to see or speak to you again. Do you understand me?”
My father stares at me in silence as if he’s testing to see how much I mean what I say.
“Elle,sweetheart,” he says finally. “You can’t really mean that you?—”
Before he can finish his sentence, I lift the gun in my hand and shoot the man sitting beside him in the head. It happens so fast that I think it even surprises Nico. The Ghost doesn’t flinch, but his moon-blue pupils flicker momentarily in response.
My father’s mouth hangs open after watching what I’ve just done. His face is now splattered with the blood and brain bits of the mafia shooter that he hired to kill my mom when I was a child. Behind the spray of crimson red blood, my father’s face turns a pale white. His hands start to involuntarily shake as the shooter’s body slumps forward onto the table with onlysomeof his head left intact.
Without reservation, I glance back at my father and use my sleeve to wipe the blood spray off my face. I’d be lying if I said that killing the man who shot my mother didn’t feelgoodin ways that I wish it didn’t. It feels like I brought things back full circle, an eye-for-an-eye kind of justice. I’ve worked alongside the justice department and the police for way too long to think that the man would have ever faced the punishment he deserved. Thankfully, he just did now. I made sure of it.
“Thatis what I’ll do to you if you don’t do as I say,” I tell my father with an unwavering voice. "If I ever see you after today, I will kill you. And if I ever hear from you again, or catch word that you’re anywhere around, I will sendNicoto kill you.”
My father’s eyes dart to the side as he tries to see Nico out of his peripheral vision behind him.
“You’ve sided with an assassin,” he whispers, no longer arguing with me about what my demands are if he wants to keep his head attached to his shoulders. "You’ve aligned yourself with theGhost, a mafia monster. Your mother would be ashamed.”
Perhaps it’s all the adrenaline that makes me feel as wild and unhinged as I currently do in this moment, or maybe it’s the feeling that I’ve just lifted a weight that I’ve been carrying around on my shoulders for years, but I can’t help but let out a laugh at his insane remark.
“The Ghost isn’t the monster here, Dad,” I hiss at him. “You are.”
With that, I look up and lock eyes with Nico. And as if on cue, he reads my mind and reaches to take the gun from my hand. As he lifts it back across the table, he jerks his wrist to smack the barrel of the gun sharply against my father’s head, knocking him unconscious and causing him to slump back in his chair.
