15. Axel
Scarlett wanted to be alone, to mope in the bedroom by herself, sometimes on the couch and sometimes in the tub. There was nothing I could do for her, so I went back to my routine, working out in the morning and then overseeing my businesses throughout the day. Now that Scarlett and Dante weren’t speaking, I didn’t involve myself in the business at all because I wasn’t sure where I stood anymore.
I should be happy that Scarlett was my wife again, that she’d seen her father for the snake that he was, but I actually felt like shit. It was the kind of pain that she would never conquer, a mark that would blemish her skin for the rest of her life, and I hated that. What had happened with my parents…I wouldn’t wish that on anyone else.
In the evening, I was on the couch in the living room, and she was in the tub with a bottle of wine. We hadn’t said much to each other all day. It ruined me to hold my silence, but my comfort would only suffocate her.
My phone vibrated, and I saw a text from Aldo. Dante is here to see Scarlett.
I’d known Dante would make his move at some point, and I’d asked Aldo to be quiet about it, rather than coming straight to the bedroom door.
How would you like me to handle this?
Escort him to the parlor. I’ll be there shortly.I walked into the bedroom and saw the cracked door to the bathroom, the candlelight shifting and moving on the ceiling. I pulled on a shirt and left the bedroom, closing the door so quietly she wouldn’t know I’d left. Then I headed downstairs to the parlor, seeing the fire in the hearth, the tray of cigars and scotch, and the man sitting in the armchair, looking pale as a ghost.
I stared at him for a moment before I moved to the opposite armchair.
He wouldn’t look at me. Not in disdain…but something else.
I sat there and waited for him to ask for Scarlett.
He didn’t. “I was expecting you.” He sank back in the armchair and met my gaze head on.
My ankle rested on the opposite knee, my closed fist against my cheek. “She doesn’t know you’re here.”
“I figured as much.”
I rubbed my fingers across my jawline, seeing the darkness that had invaded his soul. There was no hardness to his stare, no arrogance to his stature. He seemed dead on the inside, defeated in the very war he’d started. “What do you want?”
He stared at the table between us, his fingertips rubbing against his temple. “To speak with my daughter…but I suspect that’s not going to happen. She’s ignored all my calls and texts.”
“I’m not keeping her from you—if that’s what you’re wondering.”
He looked at me once more. “I’m sure if she did want to see me, you would keep her away from me.”
“I don’t tell Scarlett what to do. She makes her own decisions. You should take a page from my book.”
A slight smirk moved on to his lips. “The first insult of the night.”
“I can ask her to come down, but I suspect she’ll say no.”
He gave a heavy sigh. “I need to speak to her. I have to make this right.”
“I don’t know if you can make this right, Dante. It’s too much shit for her to forgive. She looks at your relationship through an entirely new lens. Every word you’ve ever said, she’s picked apart with a comb.”
“Did you tell her, then?”
“Tell her what?”
He looked at me full on. “You know what.”
“I didn’t have to tell her, Dante.”
He stared for several seconds, his gaze hard as stone.
“You fucked yourself over when she heard what you said. Don’t blame me for that.”
He looked away.
“So?”
His eyes came back.
“Still going to pull the trigger?” If his answer was yes, I’d kill him right there. I had a gun strapped underneath my armchair. In light of everything that had happened, I knew Scarlett would understand.
“Not really much point, is there?” He looked at the fire and slouched in the chair, like he didn’t want to be there but had nowhere else to go.
I actually felt bad for him.
“She’ll never forgive me.” He spoke so quietly, his words were barely audible. “I don’t even know why I bothered coming down here.”
“Who was that meeting with?”
He turned back to me.
“The man who agreed to take out Theo and me.”
“It doesn’t matter.” He looked at the fire again. “I’ve called the whole thing off.”
“How do I know you’re not lying?”
“There may be a chance my daughter forgives me…someday. But she’ll never forgive me if you die and she knows I’m the one responsible. I’ve dissolved our partnership and told him we wouldn’t be moving forward.”
“I should kill you, you know that?”
“My daughter wouldn’t appreciate that. And if she really didn’t care…then I wish I were dead.” He spoke with a breathlessness, like he was too tired to carry on this conversation. It was a very different version of him than I’d ever met.
“That was a stupid move, Dante.”
He gave a sigh. “I just wanted my business back. Theo had great connections, but you’re a young hothead who lets his arrogance get in the way.”
“You’re one to talk.”
He didn’t rise to the insult, still not caring. “Doesn’t matter anymore.”
I let the silence settle in, pierced by the crackle of the flames every few seconds. There was nothing left to discuss, but he continued to linger, like his daughter would come around the corner at any moment. “Dante.”
After a breath, he looked at me.
“I only took your business because you took Scarlett. I never would have wanted it if you’d just let us be together.”
He gave an almost imperceptible nod. “I know. A mistake I’ll always regret.”
“So I’d like to give it back to you—as a sign of a truce.”
The defeat in his eyes started to fade as light returned to his stare. “A truce…”
“I know what it’s like not to have a relationship with my parents. I don’t want that for Scarlett. Despite the horrible things you’ve done, I know you love your daughter. You just have a really fucked-up way of showing it.”
In disbelief, he continued to stare.
“I can ask Theo to walk away too. He would do that for me.”
Dante seemed to be stunned into silence because he didn’t speak for a long while. “While I’m touched by your merciful offer, it doesn’t matter now. I lost the one thing that actually matters.”
“I’ll help you rebuild this broken relationship, Dante. As I said before, I think it would be a great disservice to her to lose her father. Your business will be separate from your personal relationship with Scarlett, whom you need to accept will never be associated with that world again. And you need to tell her the truth. The whole truth. Everything.”
He released a shaky breath.
“Tell her—and I will do everything I can to help you.”
“You said she already knows?—”
“But it should come from you. And you should explain why you made the decisions that you did. She’ll still be angry, but at least she’ll understand why you did those horrible things. With the full story, she’ll never have to wonder, and she’ll be able to move forward with life—forward with you.”
He looked away. “Why would you help me?”
“I just told you?—”
“We both know I’m the reason your family hates you.” He said it quietly, with a hint of shame. “How can you forgive me for that?—”
“Who said I forgive you?” I snapped. “I will never forgive you for shoving my father to the floor and shooting him in the arm. I will never forgive you for threatening my mother. I will never forgive you for destroying what little hope I had of reconciliation. But this isn’t about me. It’s about Scarlett. I can put aside my own feelings for her best interests—because that’s what a husband does.”
He blinked several times as he stared at me. “I guess I was wrong about you.”
“Yeah, you were.”
“I’m sorry for all the complications I caused to your relationship. But it seems like this love is real. Otherwise, it wouldn’t have endured for so long. That’s a special kind of love.”
It is.
“How much space does she need before I try to talk to her?”
“There’s not enough space in the world, Dante. But I can bring her down here now.”
“You think she’ll talk to me?”
“I can encourage her.”
He gave a nod. “I would deeply appreciate it if you did.”
I walked into the bathroom and found her in the tub, the bubbles to her chest, her skin wet and glistening. She’d be the sexiest thing I’d ever seen if her eyes weren’t so hollow. “You drank all the wine.”
“Aldo needs to bring two bottles next time.”
I sat on the edge of the tub. “One bottle is cute. Two is not so cute.”
“You’re one to talk.” Her eyes were slightly playful.
“Your father is downstairs.” I didn’t know how to address the situation because there was no easy way to do it. I knew how it would provoke her, but using a butter knife instead of a steak knife wouldn’t make it hurt less.
She reacted exactly as I expected, turning still with guarded eyes.
“I think you should talk to him.”
“Why?”
“There’re things that need to be said.”
“I don’t think there’s anything worth saying.”
“Scarlett, I understand you’re angry?—”
“I thought you hated him.”
“I do.”
She raised her hands in confusion. “Then why would you want me to talk to him?”
“Because he’s your father. And I’d give anything to talk to mine.”
Her hands lowered, and the anger in her eyes dimmed. “The situations are not comparable?—”
“The details don’t matter. I would just hate for you to live the life I’ve led.”
“I thought you would be happy to have him out of our lives.”
“All I’ve ever wanted is you. I can tolerate him forever as long as we’re together. That was never the issue. It became the issue when he took you away from me. But now he can’t do that again, so he’s not a threat to me. As far as I’m concerned, our beef is squashed.”
“He was going to try to kill you?—”
“A lot of people have tried to kill me. It’s nothing personal.”
She stared at me for several seconds, like she couldn’t believe I’d just said that.
“Get out and talk to him.”
She remained under the water in the tub, the defeat in her eyes. “I’m not going to forgive him?—”
“I didn’t ask you to. No one expects you to. But we both know this conversation is going to happen at some point. May as well do it now while he’s here.” I got to my feet and gave her my hand. “Come on, baby.”
She hesitated before she rose out of the tub, water dripping over her luscious curves, and she took my hand as I helped her step over the side.
I wrapped her tight in a towel and pressed a kiss to her temple.
“I want you there too.” Her arms were pinned inside the cotton, with her wet hair stuck to the back of her neck. Small and vulnerable, she looked so precious to me.
“Yeah?”
She nodded.
“Alright. Get dressed.”
When we walked into the parlor, Dante’s eyes immediately went to Scarlett.
It was as if I wasn’t even there.
His defeated and empty gaze was suddenly bright with affection…and hard with despair. He rose out of his chair slowly to greet her, like there would be a chance for a hug, but she stayed on the other side of the coffee table.
I moved to a chair in the corner of the room, present but out of the way.
She sat down in the armchair.
He slowly lowered himself back down, his ass right at the edge, looking at Scarlett like he couldn’t believe she was really there.
Her hair was still damp because she hadn’t dried it, just squeezed it with a towel so the drops stopped falling on the floor. She’d put on a pair of jeans she’d left on the floor of the closet and pulled on a hoodie. Despite the warmth from her long bath, her cheeks were pale as if she was freezing cold.
Dante continued to stare at her like she was an angel sent from the heavens. “Thank you for seeing me.”
Her hands were together on her lap, and her back didn’t touch the chair, as if she expected this conversation to be so brief there was no point in getting comfortable. “You can thank Axel because I had no interest in coming down here.” She stared at the coffee table between them, like meeting his gaze was simply too painful.
Dante was quiet for a while, swallowing that rejection like a big pill. “Well, I appreciate it, nonetheless.”
Silence passed. A lot of it.
I looked at Dante then looked at Scarlett.
Dante cleared his throat. “I came here tonight to apologize to you. I’m so sorry for everything. I want you to know that you’re the single most important thing in the world to me, and I’m sorry that I’ve made you feel otherwise.”
She stared at the table like those words meant nothing to her. “Actions speak louder than words. You were going to kill Axel if I hadn’t overheard you. Forgetting my purse is the reason he still breathes.” She lifted her chin and looked at him.
“You said you were divorcing.”
“Again, what does that matter? I told you I loved him.”
Now Dante broke eye contact because her savagery was too much.
“You’re the reason he left me.” Her anger died and slowly turned to sadness, like she was remembering that heartbreak. “You let me believe that he…he left me for someone else. You have no idea how that fucked me up.”
Dante didn’t look at her again.
“You can’t sit there and say you care about me, not after that.”
Dante took a breath before he looked at his daughter again. “He went to prison for assault and rape?—”
“I told you he was innocent.”
“I wanted to protect you. I told you from the beginning I didn’t like him, but then you snuck around behind my back. I told Axel to go away, but he didn’t listen to me either. As horrible as it is, I thought you deserved better. The execution was horrible and probably caused more damage than it prevented, but I knew you deserved someone better.”
“Someone better…” She released a painful chuckle. “There is no one better.”
A twinge of warmth moved through my chest.
“You’re right,” Dante said. “Axel is a fine man with admirable qualities. Over time, he’s proven to me how much he adores you. All I ever wanted is for a man to love you more than himself…and he definitely loves you more than anything.”
“Did you realize this before or after you plotted to kill him?” she snapped.
“Before,” he said honestly. “You need to understand that all I’ve wanted is my business, and Axel crossed me when he took it. I’m not the kind of man to accept defeat. My decision had nothing to do with your relationship?—”
“Which means my relationship didn’t matter. Which means that I’m not the single most important thing to you. Your business is.” Her ferocity burned like a wildfire. “Always has been and always will be.”
Dante released a barely contained grimace.
“How could you hurt me like that?” Now the ferocity was gone, replaced by raw pain. “You knew he was going to walk into that restaurant with her. You knew I was going to see it and die. You knew…you knew all of it. For months, you watched me suffer and said nothing. You set me up with Theo when I’d already found someone I wanted to be with.”
“I didn’t know you felt so strongly?—”
“Bullshit. You knew. And then when Axel took your business right from underneath you, you asked me to marry him to get it back. The very man you’d taken away. Now that it suited you, you suddenly had a change of heart. If Axel hadn’t done everything in his power to get me back, he would have ended up with someone else and I would have ended up with the lesser choice. How can you live with that?”
His head was bowed in shame.
“There is no coming back from this. I want you out of my house—and out of my life.”
Dante lifted his chin to display his face, and that’s when the tears were visible. His eyes were wet and glistened in the glow of the fireplace. “Sweetheart?—”
“Don’t sweetheart me.” She kept her voice strong, but her eyes were purposely elsewhere, like she couldn’t see him like this, no matter how angry she was. That meant she cared…she still cared. “Please go.”
He remained in the chair, blinking several times to dispel the burn in his eyes. “There must be something I can do?—”
“If you’re really sorry, you’ll leave me alone and never bother me again.”
The words made him flinch, made him suck in a harsh breath and blink several more times. “I promise I will never do anything like this again?—”
“It’s not about a repeat offense.” She looked at him again. “It’s the fact that the entire time, when I thought we were so close, I was just your fucking puppet. You were never going to give me the business, were you? You were just using me to marry me off to someone powerful so you could grow your alliances.”
“You were never my puppet, Scarlett,” he said. “I just got lost in all the bullshit. I got lost in the money and the power. The only thing that actually matters is the two of us…and I somehow forgot that.”
Her arms tightened over her chest.
“I worked so hard when you were little because I wanted to provide for you. I wanted you to have a better life than I did, the four of us sleeping in a single bedroom. But I took that too far, lost sight of why I was doing all of this, let my good intentions mold into something entirely new and terrible. I know I’ve done awful things, and I’m honest about that. But never once have I not loved you.” His tears started to break through the cracks in his armor. He struggled to look at his daughter, who continued to give him the cheek. “Axel is right. Family is everything. Give me another chance.”
“This family is toxic, manipulative, and conniving.” When she looked at him again, it was with the same coldness. “And I want no part of it.” She got to her feet. “Did my mother actually not want me, or was that a lie?”
Dante couldn’t hide the hurt the question provoked.
“Did you kidnap me, and she’s been looking for me all this time?”
He bowed his head and let her question hang in the air between them.
Scarlett turned away and walked out of the room. Didn’t wait for me to join her.
Dante remained there and slid forward, catching his face on his palms as his elbows rested on his knees. His fingers pushed through his hair, and he gave a painful sigh. And in the light of the fireplace, I saw a tear fall.
I should have felt nothing. Nothing at all. But…I felt sad.
He took a moment before he righted himself and sniffed loudly. He wiped his face on his sleeve and took in a hard breath. His cheeks were full of crimson, and his eyes burned from the inflammation of his sinuses.
I moved to the couch and took a seat. “Give her some time.”
He rubbed his palms together and composed himself, hiding his weakness from me. “She’s right. What I’ve done…is unforgivable.”
“I agree.”
He turned his head slightly to look at me.
“But love doesn’t care about forgiveness. Love doesn’t care about anything. That’s why it’s love.”
I didn’t mention her father again.
Their conversation put her in a depressive state for a few days, and once she was out of it, I didn’t want to put her back in the hole. I gave her time to breathe, to enjoy the spring sunshine that started to flood the city.
I sat at the kitchen island and watched her work. Her thick hair was pulled back in a bun while she wore leggings and a sports bra with her athletic jacket slipping halfway down, showing most of her stomach.
She sauteed the dish for a few more minutes before she transferred it to two plates. She placed one in front of me along with a fork. “This is the last entrée. Assuming we like this, our menu is complete.”
Steam wafted from the dish like smoke from a blazing fire, but I was so eager for a bite that I stabbed my fork into the food and took a bite.
“You can let it cool.”
“I’m hungry.” I ignored the heat and chewed, letting the sauce and flavors all come together. “Fuck yes, this is going on the menu.”
“Are you sure? Because you’ve never vetoed any of my dishes.”
“I said no to that gorgonzola fig thing.”
“Yes, because it was a salad.”
I took another bite. “Baby, everything you make is good. If you weren’t my wife, I’d be eating there every night, trying to make you my wife.”
An involuntary blush moved to her cheeks as the smile tugged at her lips.
“I’d eat your food then that pretty pussy.”
“Wow…” She took a bite of her own food. “At least we aren’t in public right now.”
Without waiting for my meal to cool, I ate it all, wiping the plate clean with a piece of bread. “Our menu is complete. Now we need to set up with the vendors, add some décor, and hire staff.”
“Yes, the hard part.”
“I think the menu would be the hard part for most people.”
“Not me. It’s the only part I like.”
Aldo came into the kitchen. “Theo is here to see you, sir.”
“Bring him in.”
A moment later, Aldo escorted Theo into the room. He wore a short-sleeved black shirt and jeans, already dressing for the warmth of the beginning of spring. “Something smells good.”
“Hope you’re hungry.” Scarlett plated a dish and set it at the bar beside him.
“I can always eat.” Theo took the seat beside me, and just as I did, he ignored the steam and jumped in headfirst. “It’s good.”
She poured him a glass of wine then started to clean the kitchen.
“We’re done making the menu,” I said. “Now we have to do all the other shit. Vendors, dishes and silverware, staff, all that stuff.”
“That shouldn’t be hard for you.”
“The first thing we need to do is hire a manager with experience so they can be part of this process.”
“Not a bad idea,” Theo said. “But you aren’t getting mine.”
I smirked. “I would never.”
Theo wiped his plate clean, and Scarlett carried it to the sink. When her back was turned, he addressed me. “We need to talk.”
“I knew this conversation was coming.” I raised my voice and looked at Scarlett. “We’ll be back, baby.”
“Alright.” She tipped the pan and placed all the leftovers in the glass container to save for later.
Theo and I walked into the parlor, where the fire was cold and the coffee table was empty. He dropped down into his usual chair and cut straight to the chase. “What’s the plan?”
“About what?”
He cocked his head slightly. “Dante plans to kill us, and we have no retaliation?”
I knew Theo was a no-nonsense, no-second chances kind of guy, so this wouldn’t go down easy. “I spoke to Dante. He said he called off the partnership. He also informed the Colombians there would be no deal.”
“And you believe him?” he asked with a sneer.
“Absolutely.”
Theo rubbed his palms together in his annoyance. “What’s going on with him and Scarlett?”
“He apologized, but she wants him out of her life.”
“Smart girl.”
“I think that might feel right in the moment, but a few years down the line, she’ll feel differently. Our children won’t have a single grandparent. Her anger will soften into longing and regret. I don’t want that for her.”
“After all the shit he did?” he asked incredulously.
“I know he’s an asshole, but I know he loves her.”
Theo shook his head in disappointment. “I couldn’t agree less, but this is your life, not mine.”
“I just want the best for Scarlett.”
“If you say so…” He sat back in the chair and rested his ankle on the opposite knee. “We should remove Dante from the business. He’ll probably throw a fit, so we’ll just remind him it’s a better alternative than being hung in his closet.”
I almost couldn’t bring myself to do it, to face Theo’s disappointment after all the help he’d given me. “We both know I only took the business from him to get Scarlett back. Now that I have her, I’m not that interested in it anymore.”
He took in that information with a hard stare, his arms on the armrests. “If your heart’s not in it, don’t worry about it. I suspected this might happen now that you’ve settled down. Pretty soon, she’s going to leg-lock you to get that baby.”
“Leg-lock?”
“It’s when a woman locks her ankles together so you can’t pull out.”
“And has that happened to you?” I asked with interest.
He gave a shrug but never answered.
“I’ve decided to do more than just step aside from the business. I’ve decided to give it back to him.”
Theo cocked his head, a flash of rage in his eyes. “You did what now?”
“It’s important to him, and it means nothing to me.”
“And what about me? What about all the work I’ve put into this?”
“I won’t make you do anything, Theo. But it would be nice to agree to a truce and move on with our lives.”
“You may have settled down with a woman, and her father may have come to his senses, but my life hasn’t changed. To let go of this business would be a mistake. The Skull Kings would never accept my giving away a business they worked on and just handing it over without real justification.”
I hadn’t expected such a disagreement about this. “Would you be willing to work with Dante going forward?”
“After he plotted to kill me?” He laughed, a cold, uproarious laugh. “The only reason he’s breathing is because of you. That’s the most mercy I’ll grant him. What he should do is hand the business to me and bow out.”
“If he doesn’t get Scarlett back, he’ll have nothing left.”
“Boo-hoo. You think I give a shit? Why do you give a shit?”
“With me out of the picture and everything that’s happened with Scarlett, I think Dante would be a good business partner. We haven’t seen his professional qualities because we’ve been too busy fighting each other, but he is a smart businessman. I’m sure you guys could turn over a new leaf and start fresh.”
“I don’t trust him.”
“I didn’t ask you to trust him. I was always the thorn in his side, but now I’m gone, so there’s no reason for you to have issues. He wanted to work with you all along, so you’re the business partner he wanted in the first place. Just put aside your differences and make money.”
He relaxed into the chair and rested his hand on his knee. “It looks like you relaxed…and pulled your head out of your ass. I was just about to ask her to dinner too…” He smirked, like this was just some fun game.
“You want to die, motherfucker?”
“Come on,” he said with a laugh. “I did you a favor.”
“By trying to fuck my wife?”
“By reminding you of all the men who will want to fuck your wife. How long was it before you went over there?”
I ignored his stare and his question.
He smirked. “I bet it was five minutes.”
“New subject.”
“You’re welcome, asshole.” He looked around the parlor. “You got any booze or what? Where are the cigars? Clean air makes me sick.”