12. Long Time Coming
twelve
Long Time Coming
Brandi knew, intellectually, that Mikey came from a family of oversized men. She’d seen pictures of Dante and Romeo, online and on the walls of Mikey’s home. There was even a head-and-shoulders portrait of all three brothers along with their cousin, Cristiano, in the formal sitting room.
None of that prepared her for seeing two men that towered over her fiancé at the side curve of the drive. Their relation was obvious with the dark hair, blue eyes, and the one she knew to be Dante’s subtly similar facial structure. And she was glad they were related, glad Mikey had such a good relationship with his family, because she didn’t want to make enemies of these muscle-bound giants.
Dante—not quite as tall or as broad as his companion—held out his hand after Mikey provided formal introductions. “It’s unfortunate that we’re meeting under these circumstances, Brandi.”
Brandi took one more steadying breath and accepted the handshake, for a split-second surprised when he didn’t crush her hand, before saying, “It is.”
Cristiano held out his hand when Dante’s fell away. “Welcome to the family.”
“Thank you,” she said, hoping her voice didn’t sound as small as she felt. She was not a small woman by societal standards, but the man stood basically a foot over her. It was daunting.
Mikey lifted a hand to her shoulder. “You can still wait in the house if you’d rather.”
“I don’t want to wait in the house,” she said. “Maybe you could just give me a signal or something, so I can slip outside before…” She held no delusions about being able to stop the train wreck that had become her father’s fate. If she were honest with herself, she wasn’t sure she wanted to. Neither of those things meant she wanted to stand in the room and watch it happen, regardless of what he’d put her through.
Mikey lowered his hand to the small of her back.
“We won’t kill him here,” Dante said. “Here we’ll talk. But he isn’t long for this world, and that’s something you will need to make peace with.”
“About that,” Mikey said as they started walking, “I want in.”
Dante, who had taken the lead, craned his head back as if Mikey had said something unusual. “You want what?”
“I want to be the one who kills the bastard.”
Only because he was so much taller did Brandi notice when Cristiano came to a stop. “Since when?” Cristiano asked. “I can’t even remember the last time you got your hands dirty.”
Brandi’s eyes widened and she looked up at Mikey. She knew why he was angry. It was inappropriately flattering, though she was afraid to admit it, that he’d gotten so angry for her. But she didn’t want to be the reason he put himself in a position he might regret.
Mikey met her stare and his arm slid the rest of the way around her. “Not my story to tell. Just trust me when I say you’d understand.” He started forward again, prompting the other two to do so as well.
Brandi dropped her gaze to the ground as the asphalt gave way to stone path. “Mikey, if—”
“I already told you this was happening.”
The guest house was barely a dozen yards ahead now, but she planted her feet and faced him, needing to say the words before their audience expanded. “Yes, but I don’t want you doing something you’d regret just because of my childhood trauma. Okay?” She pointedly ignored the other two men, having no clue what opinion they might have of her backtalk.
Mikey grinned and caught her chin with the hand she’d dislodged from her back. “Claws away, kitten,” he teased. “I’m nowhere near a saint. Never claimed to be. I would lose more sleep over not doing this.”
She flushed and fought the instinct to argue. He certainly looked like he meant what he was saying.
“Cute,” Cristiano said, stepping around them, “but flirt later. It’s time to work.”
Mikey rolled his eyes and released her chin. “I don’t even want to hear that from you.” He paused for barely a heartbeat. “Either of you, actually.”
“I didn’t say a word,” Dante replied as he passed behind Brandi. He flashed Mikey a chilling smirk. “There’s no rule that work and play can’t mix. It’s all about results.”
Brandi watched the two continue forward and leaned closer to Mikey, whispering, “Are they terrifying, or am I way too nervous?”
Mikey returned his arm to around her back and moved her forward, quietly replying, “I’m sure you’re a little nervous. If you weren’t officially family, though, it would be highly advisable to be scared shitless right now.”
The guest house opened to a small mudroom, and the one guard that had stationed himself there was standing ramrod straight by the time Mikey led Brandi inside. Dante and Cris had chosen to wait, and Mikey realized quickly Dante was going to let him lead. Likely more because this was a personal matter than because it was his property. The lines were thin in their family.
So Mikey guided Brandi down the wide hall and around the bend, into the space that would normally have been a living room. The furniture had been repositioned to accommodate their unwanted guest, who was tied with the standard zip ties to a tall wooden chair from the kitchen. The more comfortable furniture had been pushed away to frame the space and remained vacant, the two other guards standing ready.
Both guards stood a little straighter when their gazes slid past Mikey’s figure.
Mikey pretended not to notice—he was more than used to it—and stepped enough to the side to make room. “I heard you’d dropped by, Wesley. I have to say I was surprised.”
Wesley Richardson’s eyes widened, barely flickering to acknowledge Dante and Cristiano as he stared holes into his daughter. He seemed so stunned he’d forgotten he could speak.
“Wesley,” Dante said. “You came all the way to my brother’s home. The least you could do is respond when he greets you.”
Finally Wesley’s head jerked back, a wildness overtaking his eyes. He flexed as if he thought to stand, but of course he couldn’t. A grunt escaped him and he exclaimed, “Brandi! What the fuck have you done, you disgusting whore? Is this why you’ve been ignoring me?”
Mikey tensed. He’d honestly expected the man to at least start a little slower.
Brandi huffed, but made no move to step from his hold. “Gee, I’m sorry, did you try to call me after that dinner failure? My phone got destroyed by the asshole stalker I told you about. Turns out he was sent after me because you never pay your goddamn debts. Which reminds me, whoever it is you owe now, they want their money. And I’m not going to bleed for it again.”
Wesley visibly seethed. “How dare you! You filthy, lying—”
“Watch your fucking mouth,” Mikey snapped. “I won’t tolerate you speaking to my fiancée that way. Do it again and this conversation becomes much more unpleasant.”
Silence filled the room for a long second as the older man gaped at him. “Your what?”
“Surprise,” Brandi said. She leaned in to Mikey at an angle so she could still see her father. “I’m getting married. Isn’t that great? I won’t be your burden anymore.”
Mikey tightened his arm around her. He really couldn’t wait to slice Wesley Richardson open like a fucking fish. “Of course, since you didn’t know—”
“Over my dead body!” Wesley shouted, spittle flying from his mouth. Veins popped on the sides of his face as he strained against his chair. “I won’t accept it!”
“You may want to rethink your choice of words, Wesley,” Cris said.
Wesley kept yelling. “You’re my daughter! I’ll decide—”
Brandi’s hands tightened in Mikey’s shirt.
“Shut him the fuck up,” Mikey said, projecting his voice to be heard over Wesley’s wailing.
Cris moved into the room, but instead of throwing a punch that might break the man’s jaw, he angled around and took hold of Wesley’s throat in one large hand. Wesley went completely still, barely daring to breathe. “Yeah,” Cris said, “I heard you were a blustering coward. Now answer my cousin’s questions when he speaks to you or this gets messy.”
Wesley’s nostrils flared, but he said nothing.
Brandi eased her grip enough to allow Mikey to step away.
Mikey took only two steps forward and tucked his hands into his pockets in the interest of self-control. “I only have two. Start by telling me why you decided to come to my private residence, Wesley.”
Wesley’s thick brow furrowed and he sucked in a breath, eyes darting from Mikey to Brandi to Dante and back again. “I was looking for my daughter,” he said.
“Try again,” Dante said.
No one spoke as Wesley swallowed hard, the action visibly straining against Cris’s steady hold. “I was!” He sucked in a breath. “That ungrateful bitch refused to do what I needed, and then she said something about one of your guys following her around. When I tried to call her a couple days later, she didn’t answer. She never answered again, so obviously one of you was responsible, and since you were the one I sent her to, I thought I’d check here first.”
Mikey exhaled and reminded himself for not the first time that he didn’t want to have a cleanup crew trampling all over his property.
“Cristiano,” Brandi said, her voice tight, “could you step back for a moment?”
Cris arched a brow and looked back to Mikey. When Mikey nodded, curious, Cris released his hold on Wesley and took exactly one step backward.
Brandi strode forward simultaneously. She didn’t say a word as her arm went up and a hard slap split the air, her father’s head jerking to the side. Her shoulders shook as she inched back, as if she had forgotten her father was bound and couldn’t retaliate. “I have tried so hard, for so long, to forgive all the terrible things you’ve done to me. All the things you continue to say. Losing Mom really paralyzed me, I guess. Made me realize how easily I could be alone and abandoned in this world, and that always seemed worse. But God-fucking-dammit, I’m done. I hope you rot in Hell.”
Pride swelled in Mikey’s chest even as he noted the way her arms trembled at her sides.
Wesley coughed and made sounds as if to respond to her declaration.
Mikey shot Cris a look and his cousin quickly latched back onto the man’s throat, grabbing tight enough to gag him.
Brandi turned away from the scene, her head down. “I think I’ll go back to the house now.”
“Brandi,” Mikey called, reaching out to catch her shoulder before she could run away.
She raised her eyes to his, tears brimming in her lashes. “It’s not true,” she said, pain straining her voice. “What he said, it’s not—”
Mikey leaned in and covered her lips with his in a short, firm kiss. “I know. Don’t worry about that.” He rubbed his thumb along her jaw, avoiding what remained of her bruise. “Go, and put this out of your mind. I’ll let you know before I head out.”
She nodded, but hesitated. “I … think I might want that appointment you offered.”
It took him a moment to recall what she meant. “Of course,” he said. “I’ll get you in this week.” Dr. Laura worked pretty much exclusively for their family anymore, it wouldn’t be hard.
Brandi offered him a flash of a smile before finally slipping from the room.
As the door shut behind her, Mikey locked eyes with the guard who’d stepped up for her previously. “Make sure she gets back to the house safely.”
“Yes, sir.”
Mikey drew a long breath and continued to ignore Wesley’s gurgling until the door opened and shut one more time.
“I believe you had one more question, brother,” Dante said. His voice sounded calm, but Mikey knew better. Dante had a lot of opinions about family and what that was supposed to mean, and he already disliked Wesley Richardson anyway.
Wesley gasped dramatically, indicating Cris had eased his hold. “F-fuck you! What did you do to my—”
“I’m saving her,” Mikey said sharply. “And it turns out, the real threat to Brandi’s safety is you. You might not be the asshole who beat her last week, but you have beaten her, Wesley. She’s been telling me some of the finer details.” He took another step closer and let the anger build in his eyes. “I know what you’ve done. I know about the isolation, the manipulation, the abuse. I know about the fucking back-alley hysterectomy. And you’re going to answer for all of it, today.”
Cris’s eyes widened in a rare show of genuine surprise. “The hell did you just say?”
“Motherfucker,” Dante growled simultaneously.
Wesley’s nostrils flared with a hard breath, his eyes so wide the red veins had become visible around the edges. “She wanted to be a slut. I was just making it easier for her to have her fun. I’m sure you’ve been enjoying all the tricks she’s picked up the past—”
Mikey shot out a foot and kicked Wesley’s shin hard enough to make the man cry out. “I didn’t ask for commentary on that. There isn’t a fucking thing you can say to justify what you did.” He watched Wesley heave against Cris’s grip, his eyes darting around the room, and sighed. “I’m going to have to get this place cleaned up anyway, aren’t I?”
“You are,” Dante replied.
He supposed the inevitability of that was part of the reason he’d opted for easily maintained surfaces. Still, he was going to make a fucking mess. He looked toward the remaining guard. “Find me a tarp and another pair of hands.” As that guard took off to do as he’d been bid, Mikey looked up at Cris. “You have a knife on you?”
“Of course,” Cris said. He let go of Wesley, bent down, and walked up with a wicked dagger Mikey knew full well he’d owned for years resting in his palm. “I’d prefer to get this one back.”
“Wh-what the fuck are you lunatics going to do to me?” Wesley rasped.
Dante moved into Mikey’s peripheral vision as he finished rolling up his sleeves. “Not nearly as much as you deserve, I suspect.”
Mikey gave himself a moment to test the weight of the borrowed dagger before moving into Wesley’s personal space and crouching in front of him. “Second question. Who do you owe money to out in Las Vegas, Wesley?”
The older man gaped at him for a second, obviously thrown by the change in subject. “What the fuck?”
Mikey tapped the blade against the shin he’d previously kicked. “You owe someone, or their organization, a debt. Probably several, but right now I’m most interested in one based out in Vegas. Give me a name.”
“Fuck you!”
“Sounds like someone has a little too much oxygen in his lungs,” Cris said. Wesley promptly made another strangled sound and Cris continued to speak over him. “My cousin asked you a very important question. Why don’t you put your best effort into convincing us you’re not the terrible father we think you are, and share what you know? For her sake.”
Mikey watched with feigned patience as Cris eased his grip again and Wesley sucked down more air, glaring around the room as if it would help.
“I knew,” Wesley panted, “I knew getting into bed with you De Salvos was going to be a fucking nightmare. But this is outrageous!”
“Sir,” someone said from behind them. “We brought a tarp for you.”
Wesley paled.
“Excellent,” Dante said as Mikey stood. “Let’s get our uninvited guest set up.”
Mikey moved back, standing beside his brother as Cris helped the guards maneuver Wesley and his chair onto the surface of the tarp that suddenly took up most of the room. The process was clunky, but it served a purpose, and once it was done it would be much easier for the cleaners to do their part.
“Shit,” Wesley said, his eyes bugged out as he did his best to look everywhere at once, “you bastards are crazy. What the hell is this? Did Brandi put you up to this? Or are you buying her off, too? Did that disloyal slut sell me—”
Mikey slipped the blade he still held into Wesley’s right arm, carefully avoiding major veins. “New rule. You never say Brandi’s name again. You never refer to her, in any way whatsoever, again. Every time you do, I find somewhere new to bleed you.” He extracted the blade and watched Wesley’s face contort in pain.
If one small stab in the arm hurt so obviously, Wesley was not going to enjoy what was coming.
“I’ll sue you,” Wesley said with a shuddering breath. “I’ll sue all goddamn three of you so hard, your children will be paying me off when they’re grown!”
Mikey sighed. “Really?”
“Now I want to see if he actually has a spine,” Cris said.
Something scratched through the air and the distinct scent of smoke followed as Wesley’s gaze locked in on something to Mikey’s other side. “That sounded like a threat,” Dante said. “Do I look like a man who stands idly by when someone threatens his unborn son?”
Mikey moved to the side, not in the mood to get caught in his brother’s sparked temper.
Dante pressed a burning match against the still-bleeding stab wound in Wesley’s arm.
Wesley screamed out. His head fell back as his shoulders and legs jerked from the pain.
Mikey wrinkled his nose at the stench of burning flesh that followed. He knew a lot of the men carried nose clips to protect themselves from having to breathe that in, but Cris had been right that it had been literal years since he’d waded into an active scene. He had made the egregious mistake of not even owning a pair. A mistake he was definitely rectifying.
Dante pulled his hand away and let the half-charred match drop to the ground. “Consider that your warning.”
Heaving ragged breaths, Wesley panted, “Y-you can have her. Do whatever you want with that overpriced brat. Just let me go!”
“What was that?” Mikey asked. He stepped directly in front of Wesley again and pressed the tip of the dagger to the top curve of Wesley’s left leg, just above the kneecap. “I distinctly remember telling you not to talk about my fiancée.”
“I remember, too,” Cris said.
Mikey swept the blade down, letting it glide along Wesley’s knee with just enough pressure to slice through the fabric of his pantleg and bite into the skin beneath. The cut would sting and bleed, but not profusely. It was all about the psychological impact. “Now, Wesley,” he said, talking over the man’s sharp gasp, “tell me about Vegas.”
“Vegas is crap,” Wesley bit out. “I’ve been there a handful of times, maybe. How the fuck do I know which time you want to know about?”
“You owe money, Wesley,” Dante said. “That’s not the sort of thing a man like you forgets.”
Wesley’s chest heaved and he made a show of rolling a glare in Dante’s direction. “Everyone who’s ever set foot in that shit town owes money. It’s a fucking trap. So what?”
Mikey slid the tip of his dagger up the inside of Wesley’s thigh as his patience frayed. “One of your debtors has come to collect,” he said, “and they thought they could use my woman as leverage. Now, you and I both know that tactic won’t work on you.” He pressed the blade in until all the color drained from Wesley’s face. “But I need to know where to aim when I strike back. Understand?”
Everything seemed to go silent as Wesley sucked in a breath, his Adam’s apple dragging down his throat. “I don’t know the name of the company,” he said finally. “I just dealt with a rep who was trolling the casino where I was. That guy stopped calling over a year ago, so I figured they gave up.”
Mikey frowned.
“You expect us to believe that at no point did an organization which loaned you money, and then attempted to collect that money, tell you their name?” Dante asked.
“That’s what I’m telling you!” Wesley exclaimed.
“Bullshit,” Mikey snapped. “You never intended to pay, so you didn’t bother remembering the information.”
Wesley leveled a glare on him. “Same difference. Enjoy your goose hunt.”
Behind them, Cris stretched something that made an echoing, ominous cracking sound.
Mikey kept his glare on the man who would never be his father-in-law. “I hope this fucking hurts.” He waited only long enough to see the glare fade from Wesley’s eyes before twisting the dagger around so the blade was pointed up and burying it just above the man’s pelvis.
Wesley gasped, his eyes going wide once more. The shock had clearly delayed his processing of the pain.
Mikey didn’t wait before dragging the blade up and standing with it to avoid at least most of the arterial spray that resulted.
Wesley finally opened his mouth to scream, but only half the sound escaped his mouth before drowning out in the surge of blood and complete failure of his internal systems. The last thing he saw was Mikey pulling a borrowed dagger from his chest before his head fell back, eyes glazing over.
Cristiano let out a whistle as Mikey stepped back from the thorough mess that had become of Wesley Richardson. “I gotta say, cousin, when you decide to get dirty, you don’t mess around. Nice work.”
“The tarp was a smart choice,” Dante said. “The Beta crew will appreciate that.”
Mikey blew out a breath and looked down at himself. He’d done what he could not to get covered in blood, but he hadn’t been wholly successful. “I can’t go back in the house like this. It’s the last thing she needs to see.” He glanced at the weapon still in his hand. “I’ll clean this up before I get it back to you, Cris.”
“Fine with me,” Cris said. “I’ll grab you a change of clothes. Think your woman will mind me walking in?”
Mikey frowned. “Announce yourself, at least.”
As Cris disappeared down the hall, Dante said, “Shame we don’t know who he owes. I’d be willing to ship his head to them to see how they take it.”
“Something tells me they’d take it as our inheriting the problem.”