Page 7 of Secret Obsession

4

Hawk

Myfather’sdarkeyes,long devoid of any warmth, glared at me in disgust through the glass partition. “You fucking idiot.”

Dammit, he knew about the traitor Bob and the beating I had dished out. It hadn’t even been forty-eight hours since it happened, and Pop was already in the loop. Leo must have told him via his contraband cellphone. It was the only safe way to relay information without the prison guards listening in.

“When I heard what happened...” My father’s face contorted in disgust. “You’re goddamn useless.”

Fucking Leo was supposed to bemyright-hand man. I should punish him for going behind my back and feeding info to Pop. Teach him who was in charge. But I knew Leo’s allegiance would always be to the original boss of our organization.

The one serving a life sentence…because of me.

The familiar guilt churned in my gut. It would have been better if I were the one in the orange jumpsuit.

My father had more gray around his temples since the last time I saw him a month ago, but he still looked young for a man in his late sixties. Most men his age had bulging guts and rounded shoulders as they turned into shuffling, drooling hunchbacks, as he liked to call seniors. But not him.

He refused to age because that was a weakness, and nothing mattered more to him than staying the strongest, the baddest, and the best. Possessing more discipline than any man I’d ever met, my father’s daily workout regimen was paying off. He had a flat stomach, muscular arms, and perfect posture. The scrapes on his knuckles mirroring mine told me he was still making sure the other inmates knew who the boss was.

“Sorry, Pop,” I said into the receiver, not able to elaborate, in case the phone was tapped.

I hated that my visitations had to be done here instead of in the common room. Legally, the guards weren’t allowed to listen in, but they were often dirtier than the prisoners. I bet those arrogant pricks believed laws didn’t apply to them.

My father squeezed the receiver so tight it made me think he probably wished it was my throat he was choking. “When did you turn so goddamn soft?”

The venom in his words fueled that ever-present shame I had lived with for being a constant disappointment to him. I was forty-seven years old. Thousands of men trembled before me. But the second I was in front of my father, I turned into a little boy who desperately needed his approval.

It was times like this I was relieved that Mom wasn’t around to see what I had become. “I’m not soft,” I ground out through gritted teeth.

I beat the shit out of the traitor and landed him in the hospital. Docs said he had six broken ribs, three fractures to his femur, a busted-up larynx, and a cracked jaw. He wouldn’t be able to walk, talk, or eat solids for months. “I did what had to be done.” And I was ruthless about it, even if it wasn’t a lethal punishment.

“You did nothing. It needs to be finished up the right way.”

What he meant was, ‘You didn’t kill him. You have to murder him.’

I was suddenly thankful for the tapped phones forcing my father to talk in code because those were the two words I never wanted to hear again.

Kill.

Murder.

That wasn’t me anymore. At least, I was trying my damnedest to not let it be. I was fine with hurting people who deserved it, loved it even. I welcomed the power surging through my body as my fists dealt out the punishment blow by blow. It was intoxicating. But I drew the line at passing the final judgment and ending a life.

But in my father’s books, that made me soft. It didn’t matter that I had transformed his organization into a billion-dollar empire, raking in more cash than he’d ever dreamed possible.

He had started from meager beginnings as a thug on the street corners dealing coke, then turned to gun for hire, started a prostitution ring, added loan sharking, fraud, extortion, and the fucking list kept going on and on. He had made good coin, but never more than a couple of million a year.

But since he had gone to jail, I used my skills and brains to single-handedly veer his racket into a multi-billion-dollar organization. One that had a legit front. Now we owned a high-rise where I legally ran my hedge fund firm while illegally leading the country’s largest money-laundering operation.

Something that would make most parents proud. But what was the point in trying when my mom was gone and my father loathed me more than anyone else in the world?

I had shut down all his vile side hustles that made me lose sleep at night. No more murders. No more drug and human trafficking. No more extorting money or hurting innocent people. At least, that was what I had told myself to ease my guilty conscience.

But in reality, my hands were as dirty as the cash I handled. I wasn’t a saint and never would be. Cleaning drug and blood money made me just as guilty of all the heinous crimes committed to earn that cash in the first place.

I wasn’t looking for redemption. There would be no forgiveness for my brutal sins. All I wanted was to never have to pull the trigger again. Because if I did, I’d lose whatever shred of humanity I had left. No amount of puppy love at the shelter would be able to bring it back.

I needed to remind my father that my way of doing business was better than his. “Pop, our financial reports this month—”

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