Brutal King (The Seven Deadly Sinacores #7)

Chapter 32

32

GIDEON

“I’m meeting with Giuseppe Tadesco,” Father told me. “He’s called in a meeting to discuss my recent acquisitions. Apparently, there are a few that believe I’m encroaching on their territories.”

“Are you?”

“No.” He leaned forward, placing his elbows on his desk. “But I could, if I wanted to. That is what this is all about. They are afraid of me. That puts me in a dangerous position.”

“You’re still going, though.”

“I want to make a deal with them. If they’re smart, they’ll take it.”

“If not?”

His reply was a strange smile that said more than I understood. Then, coming around the desk, he handed me the penny. “Don’t lose it. The Ferryman will expect his payment.”

T ensions in the dining room are high. Seven of us are seated around the large table. Luca is at one end, I’m at the other. Between us, Gunner, Rowan, Gavin, Noah and Arran.

I wonder if it was always like this between them, with the suspicious glares and awkward silence.

Carina and Scarlet walk in. They’re not together. Scarlet had to use the restroom and Carina was bringing in a snack tray. But they bump arms on the way in. Carina recoils and Scarlet walks away with her tail between her legs.

Gunner, noticing her reaction, calls her to him. He tugs her down onto his lap and wraps a single protective arm around her.

“I think it best if we get some of these lingering issues out of the way,” I say. “Otherwise, none of you are any good to Sofia. And that’s why we’re all here, isn’t it? To save her?”

“From you ,” Arran says. “If it weren’t for you, she wouldn’t be in this mess.”

I laugh because it amuses me how easily I’m judged by these criminals. “I’d really love to see who’s willing to cast the first stone. I’ll start with you Arran. You bought Skye for a million dollars. You wanted revenge on her because you assumed, incorrectly I might add, that her father killed your sister. And Noah, you seduced Emily, also for revenge. Gunner here tried to kill Scarlet.”

“In all fairness, she tried to kill me too,” he throws in.

“Even my brother isn’t without fault.” I arch a brow at Rowan and he shifts uncomfortably in his seat. “But I won’t air his dirty laundry because he’s family.”

“Thanks,” Rowan says, sarcastically.

“Yes, I took Sofia. But you’re no better than I am.” I look at every one of them.

“You tried to kill us all,” Noah states.

“Only a little,” I say, grinning. “You’re all still here, aren’t you?”

“My sister isn’t,” Carina adds, her stare focused on Scarlet.

“If you’re going to point the finger, it should be at your husband,” I tell her. “He’s the one that allowed her to join them at Flagler’s Marina. Alma shouldn’t have been there, and that is on him.”

Carina blinks, as if the thought had never occurred to her. She lowers her gaze and says nothing more.

“We’ve all done terrible things,” I continue with my speech. “But we’ve done them for the women we love.”

“You’re saying you love Sofia?” Luca asks, disbelief lacing his tone.

“I’ve been saying that for a long time.”

“What can we do to help?” Noah asks.

Now that the ice has been broken, discussion can begin in earnest. I fill them in on everything I know. They offer up solutions.

In the midst of all this, Arran asks, “Gideon, why would your father fake his own death?”

“This had probably been his plan all along,” Carina tells him. “To have Gideon finish the job. If he failed, Stephen could move on. But if he succeeded, he would swoop in and take it all.”

“And play dead for over a decade?” Arran asks her as if she has all the answers. Even I find myself waiting for her response. That is until I remember that, no matter how big of a brainiac she is, when it comes to Stephen Black, I know much more than she does.

“He’s a patient man,” I say. “Those years would have meant nothing to him if the reward was worth it in the end.”

“Train Gideon. Get him to take out his enemies and grow his empire. Fucking brilliant,” Gavin throws in.

“It was definitely a good plan if not even Gideon could see through it,” Noah says. “But why not just tell him? Why not include him in the plans?”

“Revenge,” Scarlet replies. “It’s a strong emotion that makes people do terrible things. Perhaps he knew without it, Gideon wouldn’t be willing to do the things he did.” She glances at me, her eyes filled with sadness.

Unable to take the pity, I leave the table and go to stand by the window. There are gardeners working outside, meticulously hedging and pruning the gardenia bushes that line the property. It seems almost violent the way they go about it, with their huge clippers and support sticks. Breaking off several branches in the process, training them into the form they wish them to be. Eventually, the bushes will grow into whatever shape the gardeners choose.

It’s how it’s done with plants. With mares. With people.

With me.

Every memory of my father I’ve clung to replays in my mind, only now, there’s a double perspective to it all. There is before he shot me, and there is after.

Falling into the pool was like a baptism that washed away the mud, allowing me to see both what Father wanted me to see, and the truth.

I’m scrambling to separate the two, and am horrified that even now, I’m trying to reconcile it.

There are vague memories of losing my mother. Having only Father to rely upon. He killed the men that took her life, promised to keep me safe. He was all I had .

At five years old, Rowan and Shannon came to live with us. But she was always crying, always unhappy. When I turned ten, she left. She took my little brother and ran. I begged Father to bring him back, but he told me the risk was too high. They could kill him. Kill me. He was all I had.

He brought me to Kingsbrook Manor to keep me safe. There were bad men out there that wanted to hurt him. I couldn’t leave the house. It was only us. He told me, he was all I had!

“Do you have my coin?” That was his question every time he returned, but it wasn’t what he was asking. What was he asking? What?

He taught me everything he knew. Or was he indoctrinating me?

Did he want me to follow in his footsteps as his heir, or as his puppet?

Was I isolated so long for my safety, or was Kingsbrook Manor my gilded cage?

Did he break me the way he taught me to do with Shiloh, and like her, I became his obedient soldier?

Yes. Yes, to all of it. And he was so good, I didn’t feel it happening. He broke me, and I loved him. I worshiped him.

He made me into a version of himself, a fucking clone that could finish the job he started while he sat back and waited. All the while, the things I did in the name of revenge…

“Do you have my coin?” The look in his eyes… He was searching for something in my face. I’ve always wondered what that was. Until today.

Do I have your unconditional loyalty?

Heat crawls up my neck and into my head, until it feels like my brain is boiling. I can’t breathe. The walls begin to close in on me, crushing me with the truth.

Everything I’ve ever been told, ever lived, ever known, is a lie. My entire life is in question. A psychological cage was carefully built around me so that I couldn’t see beyond it, and I clung to the very man who put me there.

Then I did it to Sofia.

My heart pounds in my chest and the sound of blood rushing through my veins roars in my ears. The room begins to spin around me and I sway.

“Excuse me.” I step out into the foyer and burst through the front door.

“Stop!” The armed men standing there attempt to detain me, their guns trained on my head, but I don’t need to go farther.

As soon as the crisp fresh air hits my face, I double over, sucking in as much as I can.

“It’s okay. Stand down.” Luca comes out behind me.

The guards nod and move away to give us space. I clutch my chest, unsure if it is okay.

“What’s wrong?” he asks me. “Are you having a heart attack?”

I glance at him. “If I was, you don’t sound worried at all.”

“Do you blame me?”

“No.”

“Come.” He grabs me by the shoulder and tugs me to a bench. “Sit.”

“Fuck me!” I curse when it feels like my side wound is opening up. It takes a moment before the ache ebbs.

“You will pay to fix that.” Luca stares ahead at the damage I caused when I arrived here.

Through a breath, I say, “Fine.”

“I know what it’s like to be betrayed by family,” Luca tells me.

“Not by the man meant to protect you,” I say. “Your uncle was a conniving little bitch. My father was a monster. And he turned me into one too.”

“I’m glad you’ve come to realize that.”

“I have.” I swallow hard, my jaw ticking. “Sofia… I… If I could change things… I would give anything to make it right.”

God, the things I did to her. The things I made her do. All so she would want to be with me. So that she would love me. I made myself all she had .

“…it’s called Stockholm Syndrome, actually. It’s what happens when someone is captured and develops feelings for their captor.” That’s what Sofia said to me. It was meant to be funny, I’m sure, but it rang so true, it was a shock to my system.

“My sister makes me crazy,” Luca admits. “She drove Pops mad, then Tony. Now it’s me. I do everything in my power to protect her, and she fights me every step of the way. But I’d still give my life for her. In a heartbeat.” He turns to me, his gaze as intense as Sofia’s. “When we go for her, there’s a chance I won’t come back. There’s a possibility I’ll die and you will live.”

“I’d give my life for her too.”

He narrows his gaze on me. “There’s just one thing I can’t figure. How she fits in all this. What is it that you needed her for? Because you never asked for anything in trade.”

I take in our surroundings. “When I discovered it was your uncle that killed Tony, I sent Scarlet to kill him . But he told her he was in possession of something I’d be interested in. In exchange for his life, he gave me his property.”

Luca frowns. “He had a house in Italy.”

“Not that one. Briar House. It was under his name.”

“You own Briar House.” He remains quiet for a long while. “I assumed it was part of the estate still in probate. The attorney didn’t inform me.”

“He didn’t have to. As long as I let you live here, you never had to know that ownership had been transferred.” I shift and grimace, my arm and side still incredibly sore. Not to mention the other parts of me bullets grazed. “I was going to use that as leverage against you. It was never going to be Sofia. She isn’t a pawn.”

He searches my face for something and must find it because he nods. “Regardless, I want you to swear to me that when this is all over, you will let her go. She deserves better than whatever you have to offer her and you know it. The baby deserves better.”

“It’s my child.”

“And you are your father’s son.”

His words aren’t said with cruelty, but with truth. Yet, they sink into me like a thousand cuts that rob me of breath.

I want to rebel against his wishes, but my lips remain clamped shut because he’s right. Sofia and my child deserve better. I am Stephen Black’s son.

For as long as I’ve had Sofia, I’ve sworn there was nothing in the world that could ever make me let her go. Except there is when I’m the danger to her.

“Everything all right?” Rowan steps out the front door. He glances between Luca and me suspiciously.

“Everything’s fine,” I tell him. “Luca and I just struck a deal.”