27. Brando
27
brANDO
T he phone rings, shattering the tense silence that hangs over my office like a dark cloud. I glance at the caller ID, a surge of frustration coursing through me at the sight of the unknown number. Why couldn’t people just be normal anymore and show their numbers?
With a deep breath, I snatch the phone from the table, my knuckles white as I answer, despite the tempest brewing inside me
“Brando, old dog,” Frank drawls, as he mocks me. “How’s your little crusade going? Still looking for Mia?”
I clench my jaw, Mia’s name sitting like shards of glass in my throat. “You know I’ll kill you for this,” I hiss.
Frank laughs, a chilling sound that echoes through the phone. “Kill me? Oh, Brando, that’s hardly a threat. But I must say, your passion is adorable. Reminds me of how you used to pine after Mia. So eager, so… naive.”
A rush of heat floods my veins at the mention of her name. Memories of Mia flood my mind—her laughter, her smile, the way her eyes sparkle with life. I can almost hear her voice, soothing and warm, cutting through the darkness that surrounds me as she tells me to walk away. To disregard everything this maniac is saying and hang up.
“Let her go and walk away, Frank,” I tell him, my voice steadier than I feel. “This is between you and me only.”
I’m willing to take him on. I’m willing to go to war with him, with Mia standing safely on the sidelines. I don’t want her anywhere near this monster.
“Oh, but you see, that’s where you’re wrong,” Frank counters, his tone shifting to something darker, more sinister. “She’s already in this, Brando. She’s been in this since we were kids. It’s funny, really. You think you know her? You think you ever did?”
I feel my blood run cold. “Where is she?” I don’t trust this maniac not to hurt her. I can’t have just got her back only for him to snatch her away from me again, destroying any hope of a future for us.
“You had her right there in front of you, yet still, she left with me,” he sighs. “What does that say about your capabilities? What does that say about who she wants to be with?”
Frank chuckles, an unsettling sound that sends a jolt of rage through me as he continues to talk in circles. “She wasn’t always yours to protect, you know. She wasn’t yours and she will never be yours. She was always mine. She will always be mine, ” he hisses sadistically.
“You fucking coward!” I spit, but the words are barely out of my mouth before he’s spewing more of his venom, dousing me in ice.
“I remember the first time I took her. She was so innocent, so trusting. I could smell the fear on her as I made my move. She begged me to stop, but you know how that goes. Little girls have a way of breaking under pressure, don’t they?”
His words infiltrate my skin. They scrape at every last remaining inch of sanity I have left as their meaning sinks into the very depths of my soul.
My vision blurs with a red haze of fury. I feel the world tilt, my heart pounding in my ears like the war drums of a madman. “You’re lying,” I growl, my voice low and dangerous. “You’re sick.”
“Am I?” Frank purrs, amusement evident in his voice. “I had my fun with Mia long before you ever laid claim to her. And now, here she is, back in my arms again. You can’t save her, Brando. You never could.”
Every word Frank utters feels like a knife twisting deeper into my chest. Memories of Mia’s laughter turn to screams in my mind as I fight against the urge to throw my phone against the wall. I imagine Frank sitting there, smirking, glorifying himself in this moment as he tears at every last shred of my mind.
“Where is she?” I demand, my voice rising, trembling with barely contained rage.
“She’s safe with me, where she was always meant to be.”
My breath quickens, blood pounding in my temples. “I’m going to fucking kill you, you hear me? There is not an inch of this city you can hide in where I won’t find you. If you so much as lay a hand on her, I will…”
His laughter cuts me off, filling the silence around me. It’s a sound that echoes with the weight of my desperation. I’ll do anything to get her back, but I know he’s not willing to play fair. “You’ll what, Brando?” His voice is suddenly seriously sober as he snaps down the line. “I want you to know what it’s like to be powerless while I have her right here, screaming for salvation that will never come. I’ll even tape it for you to watch on a loop if you like.”
The darkness threatens to swallow me whole. I feel the overwhelming urge to reach through the phone, to wrap my hands around Frank’s throat and squeeze until that mocking voice vanishes forever. But even through the static of our connection, he’s still too far for me to reach.
“Frank,” I say, forcing the words through gritted teeth, “if you hurt her, I swear?—”
“Swear what?” Frank interrupts, his tone dripping with derision. “That you’ll come after me? That you’ll hunt me down like the rabid dog you are? I’m counting on it, and just so you know; that won’t end well for you, either.”
My fury reaches a boiling point, but I force myself to remain calm, even as my knuckles tense against the edge of my desk. “I’ll find you,” I vow, my voice low and steady, even as my heart races with the promise of violence. “And when I do, you’re going to beg me to put a bullet in your head.”
“Good luck with that,” Frank replies, the smugness evident in his tone. “I dare you to come and find me. I dare you to put me down before I destroy you.”
Frank’s laughter echoes in my ears as I feel the walls closing in. I hear the click that signals the line is dead. And this time, I do throw the phone. It lands with a heavy thud against the far wall, leaving behind a gaping wound in the plaster.
I’m murderous as I storm out of my office, my heart pounding as I find Mason in the main room, staring into his drink. The sight of Mia’s father, lost in despair, only fuels my rage.
“Mason!” I shout, my voice echoing off the walls.
Mason looks up, confusion etched across his features. I pull him up by the scruff of his shirt and have him pinned to a nearby wall before he can catch his breath.
“Why didn’t you fucking tell me!” I growl. I punch the wall beside his head. Mason just stares through me, too surprised by my actions to say anything.
“Frank called,” I spit, the words laced with acidic venom. “He’s trying to torture me, and I need to know why you didn’t tell me the truth!”
Mason’s eyes widen in shock. “What truth?”
“About what he did to her!” I yell, frustration boiling over. “Did he rape her?”
Mason shakes his head, his face draining of its color.
“Mia told me he tried to take her against her will,” Mason replies, his voice trembling. “She never said that he did. He tried…”
“How can you know for sure?” I ask him.
He shrugs. “I’m telling you what she told me.”
“And what did you do, huh? What kind of a father are you?!?”
“I ran him out of the city, Brando. Tommy and I, we went in search of him, but he’d left town. As long as he stayed away from her, that’s all that mattered!”
“Well, he’s not staying away now!” My voice is bitter as it circles us and I push away from the wall, scrubbing at my eyes with the heels of my palms. “This changes everything. If he’s violated her, there’s no way I’m letting her stay there a moment longer. “There’s no possible scenario on this earth where I leave her in the same house with that psychopath!”
Mason shakes his head, confusion and guilt washing over him. “I didn’t know, Brando! I swear. I thought it was nothing more than him trying to force himself on her and it was dealt with.”
I pace the room, my mind racing. “If it’s true, she’s done a good job of hiding it all these years. And even if it’s not, I’m not leaving her with that monster a minute longer than she has to be.”
Mason takes a deep breath, his face pale. I stop pacing, my eyes locking onto his. “He doesn’t plan on letting her go, Mason.” He nods his agreement, determination replacing the despair in his eyes. “He never planned on letting her go; her sisters were a ruse to get her to go to him. To get to me. It was always about me.”
The fact that Mia and her sisters are suffering because of some debt Frank is delusional enough to believe I owe him scrapes at my soul. I can’t be the reason they suffer, and I will do whatever it takes to get them back.
“Does he has the twins?”
“Oh, I know he has them. Of that, I’m sure. I think his plan all along was to have all three. The girls just landed in his lap organically because they ran away. He couldn’t get to Mia because she’s been under guard this whole time.”
“So dangling her sisters in front of her was the only way he could control her,” Mason says.
“Exactly.”
“That motherfucker. I will tear him limb from limb and feed him to the sharks.”
My thoughts turn to Mia – she may end up hating me for what I’m about to do, but that’s a chance I have to take. I can’t leave her in the hands of a crazy man who has not an ounce of moral decency. I won’t. I left her with him once before, but I won’t make that same mistake again. Not ever again.
I think of Falcone and consider all the ways I’ll torture him once I get my hands on him. I’ve never in my life taken such pleasure in looking forward to ending someone’s life. Usually, death is an afterthought for the men that I exterminate. But not this man. There is only joy and anticipation when I consider skinning him alive. Hope blooms when I consider roasting him over a charcoal BBQ. And pure, unfiltered happiness pumps through my veins when it crosses my mind to castrate him and feed him his own limp dick. And I’ll take great pleasure in doing all of the above, whether or not he’s dead. There’s nothing like a friendly, murderous exchange between old friends.
There’s only one way to go about this. We need to do this the right way. So I do the only thing I know how to do. I call my brother Scar. I tell him we need to fast track getting Mia away from Falcone. He’s surprised, but he doesn’t argue; he knows I have my reasons, and he respects them. But more than that, Scar is the one who will keep me grounded when it comes time to go to war. He’s the balance to my crazy, the scale in a sea of chaos. Scar will always right the ship I’m travelling on, no matter what. And he’ll do it gladly. Plus, he’s a warrior when it comes to defending what is ours. And I know that he and my brothers – my whole family – now consider Mia family. She was family the minute she stepped through the front door of Scar’s home. She was family the minute I introduced her to my family and sat her down beside me at the table reserved only for those closest to us. She became family the minute I understood that she was mine even before the advent of time. The minute I realized that she always would be.