Page 35 of Because I Need You
“I swear, Lorenzo and his Robin Hood ways is rubbing off on you.” He exhaled. “Yes, it occurred to me, Giovanni. I knew the girl when she was a child. I have two daughters her age. Of course, it fucking occurred to me, I’m not that heartless, but in the end, business won, as it usually does. Is she giving you a hard time about the seat?”
“No.” I let out a laugh. “She didn’t even know what Charles was involved in. She thought…I don’t know what the fuck she thought.” I frowned, looking at her over my shoulder. She was looking down at her folded hands, her hair curtaining her face. I wanted to yank it into a ponytail so I could see the expression on her face. Instead, I turned around again and looked at the fireplace in front of me. “What is Mom doing here?”
“How’d you hear about that?”
“Cat.”
“Right.” He exhaled again. “I don’t know. She said she had some business.”
“Some business? She hasn’t been in the country in, what, over ten years? And now she has business?”
“Who said she hadn’t been in the country?” my father asked. My stomach dropped at the thought of it, but I knew he wasn’t wrong. She’d probably been here countless times and dodged us each and every one of them.
“So, do I call Marco? Is there an alliance there now?”
“Fuck no,” he shouted. “With the shit they’re involved in, you call him, and we’ll all go to jail. Wasn’t that your argument when you said you wanted to go legit?”
“Yes,” I said, though, it was kind of bullshit, considering I was laundering money and my clubs were filled with drugs. It wasn’t that I wanted them there, but they were snuck in anyway, so I figured I might as well make a profit. My father didn’t know that, though. Technically, I was legit, as long as you turned a blind eye to those things. “You’re a fugitive, Joe. It’s only a matter of time before someone goes to jail.”
“Not if I stay here.”
“Forever?” I asked, and waited, because I knew he knew what I was asking. Was he giving me control for good, or temporarily?
“I still call the shots,” he said. “And you know why you can’t take Charles’ seat, not really, anyway.”
I laughed. “Because there can’t be two Masseria’s, and me taking his place would mean you’re out.”
“I’m out when I say I’m out.”
Right. “I want control of the imports and exports.”
Now he stayed quiet for a moment, probably trying to gauge how serious I was about taking him out. Instead of addressing that, he said, “Just get the girl to hand over Charles’ briefcase and we’ll get whatever is in the vault. Pay her off if you have to. Buy her a fucking diamond necklace. Whatever. We need that and we need the fucking containers.”
I bit my tongue. He wanted to rob Isabel blind, on top of everything else. I didn’t want to hurt her, since she was innocent in all of this, but I wasn’t going to get involved. It wasn’t like she’d know what was missing or what wasn’t. Up until the other day, she didn’t even know her father had the amount of money he had. My mind went back to one thing he’d said. I didn’t know anything about any containers. I’d have to bring that to Lorenzo’s attention. Or not. I weighed out my next words.
“Who else knows about the containers?” I asked.
“Silvio.” Dad made an annoyed growling sound. “Fucking Silvio. If he gets to them before us…it’ll mean war. He’ll die. There’s no way he gets those.”
Important shit then. “Right.”
“You should’ve married his fucking daughter, and this wouldn’t have been a problem,” he spat.
“You married me off when I was twenty-two. Last I checked, you could only legally marry one person at a time.”
“We could’ve voided this one. The Costello’s are more important than Charles Bonetti. That line ended with him, unless Vincent is stupid enough to come back, which, for his sake, he better not.” He paused, then repeated, “You should’ve married the Costello girl when I told you to.”
“Drop it,” I said. “She’s too young.”
He barked out a laugh. “Never heard a man complain about young pussy.”
“Even I have limits on what I’ll do for you.”
“Find the containers before Silvio does,” he barked. “If I was there, I would have already found them.”
The line went dead after that. I slid Isabel her phone but didn’t look at her. My mind was muddled with containers, a briefcase, the vault, and my mother being here. I didn’t have time to decipher whatever look was on her face after that.
15
ISABEL
While I was assuring Luke that I was safe, my mind was still on Giovanni’s conversation with his father. He’d said he’d been whored out for secrets. I wasn’t sure what that entailed or when it had happened, but I heard the sadness in his voice when he said that, and it instantly made me sad for him. I fought the urge to get up and hug him, even though I knew he’d probably shrug me off and say something that would annoy me. When I hung up with Luke, I called Will, and assured him I was fine as well. I told him I was staying at an uncle’s house. It took me fifteen minutes to convince him my uncle was real, but then he asked me for the address, just in case, and my gaze shot to Giovanni, who was staring at my mouth. It flicked up to my eyes quickly, but my heart was already beating a little faster at that alone.
