Gian (Trassato Crime Family #1)(66)
He shifted on his boot-clad feet. “Don’t feel bad for Mom. She knew the score.”
“His wife doesn’t care that he shoves his bastard son in her face?”
“He wanted a son, and she couldn’t have any more kids. They made a deal. He got his son, and she got to keep her life as long as she welcomed me into their house every summer. It worked out for everyone.”
I fought back a scream of frustration. I couldn’t believe this. My life was a joke that never stopped. “I guess that makes me collateral damage. A necessary evil. An unwanted complication on the road to conceiving the golden child.”
“Don’t think about it like that,” he said, pity splashed all over his face. “Dad loves you as much as he does the rest of his kids. He just has a screwed-up way of showing it.”
Fuck this. I was going to use the apartment. I saved and scraped over the last few years, trying to make my dreams comes true. My brother was right. He owed me.
“It’s too late.” I pulled the keys from my pocket and dangled them from my fingers. “Thanks for the place to live. I’ll text you when I move out.”
I took a few steps backward then paused. “Oh, and Kon?”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t contact me ever again. You can slink around in the shadows and do whatever it is you do, but I never want to see you or anyone in my so-called family again. You’re all dead to me, and if any of you meddle in my life again, I’ll find a way to kill you myself.”
CHAPTER
THIRTY-SEVEN
Carmela Trassato
Two Months Later…
I stared at the man known as Bloody Alix and his son, Konstantin. My hands trembling in my lap, I kept my face a cold mask. These *s would eat me for dinner if I showed any weakness. I couldn’t believe Evie was related to these two men.
“What can you offer us?” Konstantin said, popping a powdered sugar confection into his mouth like we were discussing the weather.
I straightened my spine, refusing to give in to the urge to cower in front of them even though one well-aimed insult would expose me for what I really was—an uptight ball of anxiety waiting for a reason to tuck my tail between my legs and run out of here.
“Just Evie’s happiness. She’s part of your family. Isn’t that enough? She loves my brother, and he loves her.” I lifted my hands in a plea. “Why are you standing in their way?”
“Love is for fools.” Evie’s dad slid his elbows along the rust-colored fabric covering the round table. “They may think they love each other now, but give it a year. The things they loved about each other will become the very things they can’t stand. It will build and build until the love they shared mutates into hatred. In another year, the hatred will become indifference, and they’ll wish they’d never met. I’m saving them a lifetime of bullshit. They should be thanking me for ending the farce before it’s too late.”
Stunned, I blinked, then a rough chuckle escaped my mouth. “You don’t really believe that.”
He ran his fingers through his reddish-gray hair, his eyes void of emotion.
What a soulless bastard.
“I don’t give a shit about love stories. Maybe you can offer me something more tangible to convince me to reconsider.”
I cleared my dry throat. “Like what?”
He leaned back in his chair, propping his thick meaty fingers behind his head. “Like unfettered access to the Trassato territories to distribute my goods. I think your brother owes me that, considering he pilfered six of my high-roller poker players this week alone. Do you have any idea how much money he’s cost me?”
“I didn’t come here as a representative of the Trassato family.” I crossed and uncrossed my legs, trying to get comfortable. “I can’t make any deals on their behalf.”
Alix pushed his chair away from the table, and the wooden legs scraped across the cream-colored tile floor. “Then you’re wasting my time, missy. You don’t have anything I want. Send someone who has the power to bargain because I’m f*cking sick of your brother’s antics. I’ve let him play his little games, but I’m done.” His eyes narrowed. “Unless…”
Alix wrapped one arm around Konstantin’s shoulder and pulled him close. I couldn’t make out his hushed whispers.
Konstantin folded his arms across his chest. “That’s f*cked up.”
Alix grinned like a maniac. “Kon, don’t play coy. I didn’t miss the way you looked at her at the Trassatos’ house, and I know how much you want to make this right for your sister. You’ve been in my ear nonstop about making peace with her. This would be the perfect way to give everyone a happy ending.”
“Everyone except me.”
Konstantin speared me with his icy glare as he drummed his tattooed hand on the table. Intricate stars, triangles, and crosses decorated his fingers like rings. Equal measures of interest and disgust curled in my gut. Since he and his dad stormed into my parents’ home a couple of months ago, he’d dominated enough of my thoughts to make me more than a little uneasy.
“Get over yourself. Men like us don’t have a normal life with a wife and white picket fence. We get something better: power and wealth.”