Chapter 42 #2
“Endo shot in the air.”
My dad’s eyebrows rise. “You call him Endo?”
“Why, yes, Daddy. What else would I call him?”
Dad’s eyes narrow.
I follow up with a smile.
“I’m glad you’re okay,” Wilfred says from behind my dad. He seems to want to get closer to me, but my father is firmly in the way.
Wilfred steps past my dad, which makes my dad snap his head to look at him. I think the Doberman has broken free of the leash.
Wilfred spread his arms. “Don’t I get a hug?”
Usually, Wilfred and I don’t hug, but today is a very strange day full of unexpected events.
My father and his business partner are in bed with a person who brands women.
I’ll never forget those tattoos, and someone will have to convince me I’m wrong before I ever forgive my dad or Wilfred for bringing me here in the first place.
“Of course.” I smile like a hyena and hug him. He smells fresh and cold, his gentle touch making my stomach churn. When I try to pull away, he traps me for a few seconds before releasing me.
His gaze shifts over my shoulder, and I turn to see Endo sitting down, not paying attention to us.
Wilfred seems annoyed.
I’m annoyed.
But if there’s anything Endo is great at, it’s making people think whatever he wants them to think. It looks like he’s not paying attention, but I know better than that. He’s hyperaware of every person around him. I’m sure he hates the fact that Wilfred hugged me.
Maybe I’m annoyed that Endo hasn’t shot him.
Who am I?
“There you are, gorgeous,” Massio says as he approaches the table. He sweeps me into his arms. I can do nothing but hang on as he lifts me off my feet. My front brushes against his erection, and the moment he puts me down, I struggle not to throw up on him.
His malicious smile tells me he made me feel his hardness on purpose. This is an evil man, the kind of man who hurts women. I wonder how many of these women have been hurt by him or the people with him. Does Wilfred hurt them too? Does my dad? Oh God. My imagination will only make things worse.
I try to push away my imaginings as we get seated, but I fail. Everywhere I look are signs of abuse. Bruises, empty gazes, tattoos on their toes.
A pair of breasts wrapped in a sheer bathing suit brushes my shoulder.
The woman leans over the table and pours white wine for my dad. She ought to be pouring from his side, but when his appreciative gaze finds her breasts, I understand why she’s serving him this way.
“Why do these women all have the same tattoo on their toes?” comes out of my mouth. The moment it does, I regret it. I regret it because my dad chuckles in that evil way that tells me he is enjoying my discomfort.
“For the same reason you have a hickey. They’re owned.”
My dad is a skilled conversationalist. He damn well knew I would not be okay with this setting, and he didn’t care.
Why should I care that I came to lunch with hickeys on my neck?
His opinion of me shouldn’t matter. I struggle against seeking his approval.
These are childhood wounds I wish antibiotics could heal.
My father orchestrated everything. He exploited Massio’s hatred of Endo to get rid of Endo. The enemy of my enemy is my friend.
I can’t take back what I asked, but I have to take care not to stir the pot more because volatile men with guns are eating at the table.
This isn’t some debate I can have with reasonable people who would argue their points and try to find solutions.
This world is different. Anything you say can get you killed on the spot.
“Massio owns them,” my dad answers without a sliver of emotion.
This is not the reunion I hoped for. I’m not sure if I want to go back. Actually, I’m sure I don’t. I’ll take up Endo on his advice to leave for my assignment early. I’ll pack my stuff and go the same day I get home, and go see Charlotte and Beatrice.
“How does one come to own a woman?” I’m sure my rage shows on my face. I can feel the heat crawling up my chest and my neck.
“I don’t own them, per se,” Massio says. “I own their debts. Mostly their families’ debts. When the men in their lives can’t pay what they owe me, they offer me their women.”
“Except the women aren’t theirs to trade.”
Massio shrugs. “They’re free to leave.”
“In a coffin?” I prompt.
He snickers. “I wouldn’t commission a coffin.”
Massio implies the body would simply be discarded. I open my mouth to tell him off when Wilfred interjects.
“Wine?” Wilfred pours me a glass.
He shouldn’t have poured before I answered. “No, thank you.”
“Endo?” he asks.
Endo shakes his head.
“Have a drink,” Massio says. “I ordered Emily for later. But I see you have another favorite now.”
I regret the way my head whips to the right and how I glare at Endo’s profile. He doesn’t blink when he says, “You can send Emily.”
Under the table, I pinch his thigh.
Endo grabs my hand and squeezes it.
“Are my sons not coming?” Massio asks Endo.
“They’re working. I need them on standby when Cass’s location is revealed. Which I need in the next ten minutes if I’m going to sit here and eat with you all.”
“Where is your head of security?” Wilfred asks.
“He’s on vacation. What’s with the questions?”
Wilfred sips his wine, not knowing that Endo might shove a gun down his throat at any moment. I kind of wish he would.
Honestly, what’s Wilfred even doing here? This is a family matter. I don’t like that he’s here. It implies he’s more involved in the family business than I originally thought he was. But then again, I wouldn’t have expected my dad to come alone.
Endo rolls his shoulders. He’s really crawling with anxious ants. I can almost feel his patience evaporating. He has very little patience to begin with, and everyone seems to be testing it.
Wilfred runs a hand over his cropped hair. “My sources tell me your head of security was shot and died on the spot.”
“Oh yeah?” Endo asks.
“When you took Scarlett,” Wilfred says, a strange tone to his voice, “I had to get a pound of flesh.”
“I’m sorry, what?” I ask.
My dad rolls his eyes. “It’s embarrassing how well educated you are and just how stupid you can be.
Your mother was right. You can’t see what’s right in front of you.
She said that disqualifies you from running a household.
I’m glad to see you chose to listen to her when she spun the story about her and her medical school. ”
WHAT? “Are you kidding me?”
“Don’t talk to her that way,” Wilfred says to my dad.
“I don’t need you to defend me.”
Under the table, Endo taps my hand twice. What’s that mean? Gangsters have too many signs. I need a manual.
“Let’s talk business,” Massio says, trying to interrupt what’s sure to turn into a family dispute.
Oh, okay. Let’s talk business and forget how we insulted the little woman at the table.
I don’t think so. “Look around you, Dad. Look at who you’re sitting with.
A human trafficker and an arms dealer. What are you?
Their supplier? Why did you make Cass disappear when you knew he had a broker who would make you money?
Did he make you money, and you double-crossed him?
” Now that Dad’s veil has been peeled off, I can tell from his expression when I close in on the truth. “You did. You double-crossed him.”
“Cass is not missing.”
The weight of his crimes settles like lead in my belly. Speculating is one thing. Hearing my dad speak about Cass is another.
“He’s in Hontus,” Wilfred says.
“Pardon?” Endo goes still, and so do the men.
“Where is Hontus?” I look at Endo, whose eyelids lower slightly over dead eyes. It seems he’s disengaging. This can’t be good. Hontus might be a famous criminal burial site, for all I know.
My dad breaks the eerie silence. “He got himself busted. It took forever to find out where they took him. Men in Hontus only get numbers. No names.”
Oh no. “What is Hontus?”
“Cass was supposed to deliver cargo to a family in Europe,” Endo says. “But you had him meet someone else. Who?”
My dad smiles.
Endo returns the smile. “Massio. It was Massio.”
Massio pulls out a weapon, at the same time as Endo grips the back of my neck and pushes me under the table.
I fall to my knees while gunfire erupts around me.
I press my hands over my ears and scream.
Someone grabs my shirt and yanks. The material rips, and I scramble to hold on to the blouse while more hands grab me.
My dad ducks under the table and offers me his hand.
The childlike instinct to let a parent I trust save me makes me grasp it. He pulls me, and I fall, scraping my knee. When I come up from under the table, I see that Massio is lying on the floor, bleeding from the hole between his eyes. Wilfred and my dad run and pull me with them.
A smoke bomb explodes. I can’t hear anything, least of all that little voice of reason telling me these are the men I should be running from.