Page 82 of Reluctant Heir

Antonio pulled me aside after my wedding. He handed me the file and told me we would have a meeting on it. Then, with a cunning smile, he ominously said, “Welcome to the family,” making my skin crawl.

I fought the urge to snarl at him. I don’t want to be a part of his family.

The things he did to me when I was younger—the things that were done to all of us boys in the name of making us strong, toughmen, things performed by our own fathers and men they considered their friends—were despicable. It would be horrifying to the outside world.

The girls don’t understand, but they are subjected to their own brand of torture. It might not look like cigarette burns, knife wounds, bullet entries, or their first murder on their conscience. But it still holds a psychological sway. They are oppressed, suppressed, kept locked away. Their innocence guarded like a prize.

What even is innocence anyway?

It doesn’t exist in this life.

I let my eyes flow over words, names of flowers, numbers they yield, areas they are shipped from. My stomach roils. This is the information I was waiting on. The code for each will be revealed at the meeting with the heads, no doubt, but I can make educated guesses. How magnanimous of them to call them flowers—delicate, beautiful things they take and destroy.

Does their evil know no end?

The next few pages are bank documents— displaying balances for savings, checking, retirement accounts —and it all looks normal. Above board. Like a regular family. But it couldn’t be further from the truth. We are rich, beyond rich, earned on the backs of others. I can get behind guns, drugs, money laundering. But taking actual flesh and blood and transferring it as a commodity—that’s where I draw the line.

The door opens quietly, and I glance up, expecting to see Geo and whoever has arrived, but instead, I’m greeted by a head of dark hair and a fuming, angry face. I sigh, wanting to reach up and rub my temples. I don’t want to deal with her right now. I start to understand why all the men don’t include their wives in their dealings—too opinionated, too loud. Just too much for me to deal with on top of everything else today.

“What do you want?” I ask her, knowing exactly what she wants.

She steps inside, shutting the door behind her and leaning against it.

“Do you have any medicine for a headache?” she asks, and I raise one eyebrow.

I was expecting her to light into me over my decision with Francesca. The decision she thwarted. I should be punishing her. I should have control over my household, and now, everything is falling apart around me.

“Couldn’t you have asked Brigette instead of bothering me?”

She narrows her eyes at me and then shakes her head. She walks forward, collapsing into the chair on the other side of my desk, right in my line of sight.

“I went to the kitchen, but she wasn’t there.” She gives a halfhearted shrug and then closes her eyes.

She confuses me, the way her moods change like the wind. Sometimes, she looks scared, and other times, she’s a warrior, fighting for what she wants or believes in. Right now though, she looks tired.

So am I.

I pull open a drawer to my right, finding the container of over-the-counter medication, and toss it in her lap.

She doesn’t thank me, just picks it up and opens it, putting two in her mouth and swallowing without any water. I’ve never understood how people do that. Then, she throws it back to me. I wait for her to talk, to ask me whatever she came in here for, but she sits there, staring at a section of the wall over my shoulder.

“Well?” I prompt, widening my eyes and opening my hands.

I’m ready for her to leave or let me bend her over this desk.

I can’t deny that being inside her has been cathartic for me. A way to touch her intoxicating body and release my pent-up anger and stress at the same time.

Should I make the mistake a third time? I don’t know.

At what point does it stop being a mistake?

“What?” she asks, turning sideways and looping her legs over the armrest, placing her head in the cushiony corner of the wingback before looking at me.

“What do you want?”

“I wanted some medication. Got it now, thanks.”

“That’s it?”

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