CHAPTER ELEVEN TRACE #2
“Your father brought them with him. He’s been gambling all week at the casino, getting high and loud in the hotel the rest of the time. We’ve had too many complaints. The last few were calls straight to the police. We cannot give them any more reason than what’s already necessary to come here—”
He would’ve kept going, but I held up a hand. I got the picture.
Ashton’s family bribed a lot of the police, here and in the city, but they didn’t like using favors if they didn’t need to. Especially favors for a jackass like Dominic West.
I locked on my father. “Who are these girls?”
He was big like Stephano, but while Steph kept himself in shape and any excess weight was turned into muscle, I doubted my father could remember the last time he saw the inside of a weight room.
He had a paunch on him, and his hair was graying.
Right now, it was greasy and messy. He hadn’t shaved in a few days.
The bags under his eyes had bags, and they had bags.
I could see the white under his nostrils. He’d recently done a drag.
He also hadn’t answered my question.
“Who are they?” I barked.
“I know you, son—”
I was railing inside. “I’m not your son. Your sperm helped create me, but you and I have never been father and son, so do not start trying to pull that card right now.”
His eyes widened, and his face jerked back a little.
In public, I held more decorum. I let him parade around the father/son charade, but Stephano, my sister, Ashton—they knew the truth.
They got the real show. They knew how very, very estranged my father and I were, but I still walked the line in their presence.
I played my part in the pretend game, because that’s what we did in the West family.
It was a rule.
Nothing got addressed. Everything got ignored.
But this, how my father took advantage of my relationship, how many times he must’ve gotten high, had sex parties, made a scene—this was only being handled now because another family was fed up.
Dominic had committed the cardinal sin in our family.
Nothing messes up business, and he’d done that.
We needed the Walden family, like they needed us.
If there wasn’t harmony between the two, both sides would take a hit.
Our alliance was protected at all costs, and now because of that rule, we could finally do something about my father.
My father very much knew that he had truly and royally fucked up.
His time for having fun at the expense of my friendship with Ashton was long over.
He was getting all of that right now, and I waited, biding my time to see what card he would pull next.
He’d either shit his pants, or he’d get self-righteous.
I was hoping for the latter because it wouldn’t feel right hitting a crying man.
He swallowed, taking a step backward, his hands raised. “Tra—”
I let out a low growl.
He amended, “Tristian—”
“Who are those girls?!”
He let out a sigh. “I got ’em from Nemah.”
Nemah.
I didn’t know if that should make me feel better or not, but at least I had options now.
Nemah was locally known for being in the sex business, so that meant these girls knew the score.
“That one needs medical attention now,” I said to Marco.
He nodded to the guard at her door, who went in. The guard came out a second later with her body in his arms, and Ashton hit the elevator door. They opened right as he got there.
“Take Josiah. Take her to the hospital, back entrance. Call our doctor,” Marco instructed. The man gave Marco a nod right as the doors closed on him.
I turned to the guard on the other girl. “Give her something to cover herself.”
He went to the closet and pulled out a blanket, then took it inside the room.
Marco approached as his men did that and asked under his breath, “What do you want done with her?”
I ignored his question for a moment, focusing on my father again.
Dominic West, even though he was a fuckup, was still a West.
Despite the general rule of not killing each other, I wondered, deep down, if I could give the order.
If I told Marco to execute my father, would he?
Maybe. Ashton, yes. Ashton’s family? I wasn’t sure.
It would put them at odds against my family, but Stephano, would he let me do what we both knew needed to be done at some point?
I didn’t know. There was no love between them, and I had no idea if there ever had been.
I was tempted, so really truly fucking tempted.
My mother was dead because of him. He used to beat the shit out of me on the regular until Stephano caught the bruises on my arms. The beatings stopped after that, but I knew he only intensified on my mother.
Family rules. I couldn’t say anything. She didn’t either. Whenever he did whatever he did, he did it in private, and she never talked.
I wished she had.
The only grace from her death was that he’d stopped, and I could tell that he’d never touched my sister. If he had, she wouldn’t have grown up a pampered, privileged brat. Love my sister, but she was, and it made me breathe easier.
But, seeing my father watching me, reading me, maybe he was seeing my temptation to try an order that I knew would turn my soul, but my god—I was still tempted.
For once, he kept his mouth shut.
“Bobby is downstairs. He’s waiting for—”
“Goddamn, you motherfucking piece of—” My father flew past his guard, who had eased up on his alertness. Dominic got past him, and he was coming right at me.
Marco started to step between us at the same time the guard tried reaching for him, and Ashton was coming in from the side.
I sidestepped around Marco, which Dominic had been anticipating, turning to meet me head-on, but as he swung, I stepped back, evaded, and stepped behind him, then pushed his body down.
I followed him, punching as he went so he hit the floor. He was getting it from front and back. He lost his air for a moment, and I rained down another punch, and another.
I didn’t think I could stop. I knew I didn’t want to.
When he ceased moving, Ashton and Marco pulled me off of him.
“Like that move, Dad?” I was breathing hard but barely noticing. I had no trace of him on me. Nothing. Not one hit, but he was the one bleeding. “It’s one I learned from you, you fucking piece of shit.”
Ashton went still. He’d known. He’d been there when I’d had the bruises on my arms. He’d seen them at recess, but he hadn’t known the extent, and he’d never asked. He was getting a picture of it now.
It was the one thing he and I didn’t talk about.
He was writhing around on the floor now, trying to get up. The guard kept him down. Dominic was still glaring at me, and I knew, I knew right there that if my father could kill me, he would.
My demeanor changed in that instant. The hate was so clear. I stepped back, feeling a calming blanket settling over my insides. I narrowed my eyes and asked as the elevator opened again, this time bringing Bobby, “You regret it, don’t you?”
My father was barely paying attention to Bobby, who had stopped just inside the floor.
Buddha was with him. They took in the room before going and hauling Dominic up to his feet.
Each had a hand on his arm, and before they could take him out, he held his ground. “Regret what?” He raised his chin up.
“Not finishing the job one of those times when I was a kid? When you could’ve.”
He knew what I meant, and his eyes flashed.
He got my meaning.
Bobby and Buddha tried taking him again, but he held them off, twisting around until they had to stop. He held his arms up, their hands on them, but he looked me dead in the eye. “Yes, son. I regret that.”
Right.
My gut flared, but I stomped it down.
I would not let him do any more damage to me. He was done. He was so far done that I didn’t want to ask what Stephano was going to do with him.
“We’re taking him.” Bobby gestured to the elevator.
I lifted my chin up, just barely, to acknowledge him.
They were gone soon after, and that’s when Ashton grated out, “What the fuck was that about?”
I met his gaze, letting some of my anger deflate. As much as I could because we still weren’t done. “What’s between him and me is better left unsaid.”
He kept watching me, intensely, but he nodded, a faint up-and-down motion.
Marco cleared his throat. “Right. Well, we have one more girl to take care of. It’s your call, Tristian.”
I already had my mind made up.
“We’ll take her with us.”
Ashton never argued with what I proposed to her and for her friend, who I promised that we could get from the hospital if she wanted.
The friend was collected. Ashton’s family didn’t protest. They had not notified Nemah about her, so as far as he knew, she was gone to Dominic West. Nemah could bring it up to Stephano, but he wouldn’t because another silver lining about my uncle—he hated Nemah.
There was a strict order that if Nemah came into our territory, he’d be killed on sight. Made this even easier.
But it was the next day, the girls were taken to a hotel, and we left. Or we were supposed to leave. Ashton and I watched from our SUV across the road in another motel’s parking lot.
We saw the group arrive, the ones I’d reached out to. A few females slipped into the room.
Within minutes, they were all leaving.
They were fast and efficient, and they were good at their job.
They’d help those girls disappear. That was the point of their entire program, but they were not friendly to Ashton or me. Not as long as we were tied to our families. But I’d still approached, explained the situation, and they’d agreed as long as we weren’t around.
“If this gets back to either of our families ...,” Ashton started.
I gave him a look. “It won’t.”
Stephano would conclude that I’d had both girls “taken care of,” which was how the family business usually “took care of things.” He’d be satisfied.
He gave me a nod, sighing. “You ever actually consider not going into the family business? We both have cousins who aren’t involved. We could have that, you know. If we wanted it.”
Jesus. If that wasn’t the million-dollar question for both of us.
Stephano’s only remaining son had turned his back to the family business, and my uncle leaned toward the male-oriented way of thinking. My sister didn’t count and wasn’t considered to step in and take over. It was me and me alone to keep everything going.
Way I viewed things was to not view things. That gave me ideas and options, and Stephano was my father in so many ways.
I couldn’t have those ideas or options.
I just shook my head. “We’ll cross that bridge when it comes, if it comes.”
He glanced my way, studied me. “And if it comes sooner than you think?”
I just held his gaze. “Then we decide then.”
He nodded. Like I knew he would.
That’s how we were.