10. The Father
ten
Dr. Laura’s earliest appointment was a week away. It was only so soon because Cristiano was the one who was asking and not some other patient who hadn’t been in in a while. It was Cristiano’s name she’d put on her schedule, and him she would expect to be sitting down with the following Thursday. She thought he felt compelled, for whatever reason, to come in and sort some things out—effectively touch base—and he was letting her keep that thought. She wouldn’t learn better until the time for the appointment came, and then the real test would happen.
Cristiano would be lying to say he wasn’t nervous about any of that. Or all of it. But it had been his idea to suggest therapy for Felicity, and she’d taken him up on the offer. Whether she genuinely wanted counseling to help her with the trauma their respective families were heaping on her or if she saw it as her only chance to step outside his penthouse in the foreseeable future, he didn’t know. He might never know. He also didn’t care. She wanted to give it a try, so he was going to make it happen.
But he had the better part of a week to let his anxieties build about that. Anxieties which would be significantly lessened if he could manage to find the punk bastard who’d escaped his storehouse before the day of that appointment.
In the meantime, he had a different errand to run.
When news had broken over the weekend of Armando Garcia Jr.’s apparent suicide in his prison cell, Felicity had finally cried. And she’d been ashamed of herself for it. Cristiano was glad he’d been home when it happened—glad he’d been able to be there for her, in some way—but he loathed each tear that trailed down her perfect face. He had no regrets about arranging for Manny’s death, but he did wish it could somehow not have caused her any distress. He also understood that regardless of all the hell they’d put her through, the Garcias had been her family. No matter how hard she tried to insist she wanted nothing more to do with them, the fact remained she’d been living in her hometown when he’d found her. Not more than an hour from her parents. Some part of her, however repressed, still yearned for that connection. That sense of family.
Felicity had a lot she needed to unpack. In some ways, he suspected he understood that better than she did. She’d been confused by her own reaction, swearing she was nothing if not disgusted by her eldest brother.
“The world’s better off without him, just like it will be when Tristán’s gone. I don’t understand why I’m crying like this!”Her words had been stammered through tears and muffled into the fabric of his shirt, and he knew the frustration in her voice was entirely self-directed.
Cristiano hadn’t argued with her or tried to talk her down. He’d held her, encouraged her to let herself feel what she needed to feel, and when she’d asked him to bring home some ice cream the next time he went out, he’d done that, too. When she’d woken herself up screaming that night, he wished he could have been the one to tie that noose around Manny’s neck.
He exhaled slowly. The weekend hadn’t all been tears and heartbreak. It just hadn’t been the best of memories for their first weekend together. But what had he expected?
His eyes caught on a street sign and he slowed, making sure not to miss the turn. He was riding solo this time, as he generally preferred, so only the obnoxious voice in his GPS could call him out if he got too lost in reflection. He turned onto the street, spotted a house number, and rolled another couple of blocks forward before coming to a stop in front of the moderate two-story he was looking for. And he wondered, for a split-second, if it was coincidence or something else that explained why this man lived not two miles from the couple who’d perished from this city the last time he’d visited.
Maybe he’d add that to his list of questions.
Cristiano unfolded from his car, made sure to lock it, and strode confidently up the broken concrete pathway. His quarry, as identified by the information his search had returned, stepped out onto the small square of a front porch before he could reach the steps. A silent message that he was not to violate the other man’s space, if the older man’s suspicious, narrow-eyed stare was anything to go by. Too bad for him, Cristiano didn’t give a shit.
“You lost?” the middle-aged man of multiple European ethnicities asked in a brusque tone.
“You Patrick Todd?” Cristiano tossed back. He pretended to show him courtesy by stopping at the outer edge of the bottom step.
Todd’s dusty brown brow pinched tighter. “Who wants to know?”
Cristiano moved up the stairs, letting his boots fall with intentionally ominous, clunking steps. He didn’t shy away from crowding into the older, shorter man’s space, looking down at him when they were on the same level and speaking in a flat voice. “Cristiano De Salvo,” he said. “We need to have a conversation, Mr. Todd. You can invite me inside like the civilized men we pretend to be, or we can do this out here. I don’t care.”
Todd’s nostrils flared as familiar recognition—familiar discomfort—lit in his eyes. “I don’t owe your family money,” he said. But his voice was less firm this time. He undoubtedly understood that owing money was only one reason a De Salvo man might show up on someone’s doorstep.
“That’s true,” Cristiano said. He took a step forward, forcing the other man to back up. “You owe me answers.”
Indignation flashed across his features. “I don’t—”
Cristiano shot out a hand and took firm hold of Todd’s throat, cutting him off. “This is your only warning. I’ll make assumptions that paint you in the worst light if you refuse to talk.” Frankly, he already had. But he’d spent enough years dragging information out of men to know that the strangest of reasons could compel someone to make a poor choice. “Blink twice if you’ll cooperate. Do anything else, and we’ll skip to the punishment.”
Todd attempted to drag in a breath through his nose, choked, and slowly blinked. Once. Then again.
Cristiano released his throat. “Wise decision.”
Todd coughed, reaching up to rub at his jugular. He aimed another glare at Cristiano, then motioned to the front door now beside him. “L-let’s go inside, then.”
Cristiano followed the man, noting the well-lived-in but not thoroughly trashed condition of the home as they made their way to the living room. It wasn’t a massive house by any means, but it wasn’t as small as the one the Garcias had moved to when they’d come to Trenton, either. It was perhaps comparable to the one Felicity had grown up in, at least based on the floorplan and listed square footage. Somehow, that realization only further grated on him.
Felicity had grown up in a family of five. The youngest, the only girl, and horribly mistreated. Their family had spent most of her childhood crammed into a two bedroom. He didn’t know whether she’d shared a room with her volatile brothers or been designated to the couch, or something worse, but it wasn’t right. She deserved better. Meanwhile this man had spent fifteen of those same years sharing custody of his two sons, each of whom had their own room in this space.
Cristiano had to remind himself not to start swinging. Not yet.
Todd dropped into an old, oversized recliner and made a vague motion to the equally stuffed sofa. “Have a seat.” As if they were just chatting.
Cristiano obliged, anyway, and lowered himself onto the couch. He spread out, making his large frame appear larger, and let himself study the man who’d already broken into a sweat.
Patrick Todd was fifty-two, about five-foot, nine-inches tall, and a little chubby. Mostly in his middle. He had dusty brown hair with a small bald patch almost dead-center on the back of his skull, and red-rimmed, light brown eyes. His nose was a little oversized, suggesting he drank too much, which probably also explained the gut. He walked with his shoulders slumped, didn’t associate with his neighbors, and had a tendency to pay his bills a day or three late. He had two sons, both in college, from a failed marriage and according to the records Cristiano had dug up, he’d been shit about paying their child support, too. No real surprise.
On the flip side, he’d made sure he had a roof for them for their visits. Gave each boy a bedroom. Kept food in his fridge—if only barely—and by all accounts generally showed up for their lives. As far as paper records could track, at least. Records that were supported by the framed photographs Cristiano had spotted on their way in.
It was more than the bastard had done for his daughter.
Eyes narrowed, Cristiano said, “Let’s talk about your daughter.”
Todd’s eyes went wide. “My what?” He shook his head slowly. “No. I don’t have a daughter. I have two boys, twenty-one and nineteen. They’re off in—”
“I know about your sons,” Cristiano said. “I’m talking about your first child. The one you conceived with a married woman.”
Todd sputtered, another denial building on his lips.
“If you sit there and tell me Aracely Garcia never told you,” Cristiano said, “I’ll take out a knife and cut off your balls.” Presuming the man still had any.
Todd paled and swallowed so hard it looked like he’d choked down a damn baseball. Finally, in a voice so much weaker than the tone he’d greeted his unannounced visitor with, he said, “You’re here about … that girl?”
That girl.
Cristiano moved before he could think better of it, the words incensing him beyond reason. He sprang forward, knife already in hand, and buried the blade into Todd’s nearest knee. His hand clamped over the man’s mouth just as a scream ripped out and he held his hand there, fingers pressed firmly around the man’s jaw, until the sound ebbed. Then he leaned closer and let his lips curl with his rage as he spoke. “Her name is Felicity.” He stared into the man’s wide, panicked, fucking watery eyes. “I’m going to release your mouth, and you’re going to explain to me why you abandoned your first-born child. Do anything else, and you bleed again.”
Todd did his best to nod, chest heaving.
Cristiano moved his hand and wiped it roughly across the side of his pants. For the time being—and maybe as a test—he left the knife where it was.
The man who didn’t deserve to be Felicity’s father sucked in a ragged breath, licked his lips, and panted out, “A-Aracely … told me she was pregnant. But we’d never been serious. I knew she was married; I knew she was just rebellin’ against her husband because she felt he was ignorin’ her. I was okay with that, ‘cause I was only screwin’ around with her to piss off my own girl. We’d had a fight, broken up, it was what we did back then. I thought if I let her know I already had a new piece, she’d get jealous, you know?”
Todd actually looked at him like he was hoping they could reach an understanding. As if he expected he could talk all that genuine crap and they could have a male bonding experience. It was disgusting.
Cristiano narrowed his eyes in a warning glare. “Don’t stop now, Todd. You’re on a roll.”
“R-right. Well. So, when I heard Aracely was pregnant, I told her to get lost. Said I didn’t want a baby, ‘specially not with her. I wasn’t even sure it was mine! I mean, she was married. They coulda been fuckin’ and I’d never know.” Todd looked away and something like guilt flashed across his eyes. “She came by once, after the girl was born, maybe a few months or so. Showed me the baby. She told me her husband would never accept the girl, and said she’d named her Felicity … to spite me. Then she told me if I wanted to ever see her or anythin’, I’d have to sue for full custody. Then she left, just like that. I think I shouted somethin’ like ‘well fuck you, too’ while she was gettin’ in her car.”
If Cristiano could go back in time, he’d go back to the previous week and find an excuse to kill Aracely himself, too. Everything about Felicity’s life had been fucked from the moment she was conceived. The so-called adults had been thinking about no one but themselves from the start. That’s done.
He let out a low, dissatisfied rumble. “And you never fought for custody.” He didn’t need the answer. He already knew it.
Todd shrugged, then winced. “I was just glad to be rid of that drama. Plus, my plan worked. Soon as Felicia heard my side chick had gotten knocked up, she came stormin’ back to me.” His lips lifted with a stupid grin, like he was proud. “She was always crazy, but that bitch was the love of my life. Probably why my marriage didn’t last.”
“Felicia? Your girlfriend was the woman Aracely named your daughter after?” He was sure Felicity had said she was named after a friend of her mother’s who’d died tragically. But he was equally sure she’d also said that her mother had come to resent her for the association of her name, too. One more fucking lie.
“Yeah,” Todd said. “That was the ‘to spite me’ part.” He dragged in another breath. “Why the fuck do you even care? That whole family’s fucked. I hear the boys are monsters. One’s in prison now, ain’t he? Probably the other’ll be there soon enough. God knows what they turned that girl into.”
Cristiano reached out and curled his hand around the hilt of the knife. “Oh, you hadn’t heard?” He let a wicked smirk tip his lips. “The eldest committed suicide four days ago.” He withdrew the blade, not bothering to silence the man’s strained shout. “Maybe he’d gotten word that his parents died last week. Or maybe it was for some other reason.” He spoke slowly, making sure his words penetrated the resurgence of pain in Todd’s system.
Todd went pale again, his audible breath stuttering as his eyes widened. True fear settled in his gaze. “Th-they’re all … dead?”
“No,” Cristiano said. He dipped his free hand into his pocket and withdrew his phone. “Not all. Though the younger bastard will be, very soon.” He pulled up a picture he arguably shouldn’t be keeping on his personal phone, because it in no way disguised her identity. She was just so fucking beautiful. He had to have at least one picture of her smiling at him that he could look at during the day. She hadn’t argued when he’d asked. He turned the device around to show the image to the man he was about to kill. “You made a bad choice, for the wrong reasons, Todd. But I’ll give you this mercy. Take a good look at the face of the daughter you threw away.”
Patrick Todd blinked as if clearing his vision, his eyes slowly shifting to the screen. Fresh pain lanced through him and he pursed his lips together. “Sh-she looks like … she looks so much like my mother….” From his tone, he meant it as a compliment.
Cristiano put the phone away and stood. “I’ll spare the rest of your family,” he said. He knew the man’s ex wife’s name was not Felicia, so he made the assumption that that relationship had, yet again, fallen apart sometime after the affair with Aracely. Therefore none of that had a damn thing to do with his anger or Felicity’s hurt. “But you, Todd, have to pay for the pain you let happen to that sweet girl.”
Todd’s gaze flicked up to him, confusion and regret dulling the pain in his eyes.
Cristiano didn’t care to hear whatever question was building on the man’s lips. He plunged his already bloodied knife into Todd’s chest, twisted hard, and when he met the resistance of bone, he pulled it free again. He did this three more times before finally slitting the fucker’s throat and stepping back.
A small part of him had hoped he’d find a decent man when he found Felicity’s father. That he’d learn her father had never known she existed and that the man, whoever he was, would be eager to build a relationship with the daughter he should already have known. But he supposed a man like that wouldn’t have messed around with a married woman in the first place. At the very least, he likely wouldn’t have allowed his lover to simply vanish from his life.
So Cristiano wasn’t surprised what he’d found instead was a scumbag who’d knowingly abandoned his newborn daughter to a family that didn’t want her. That didn’t mean he didn’t wish he had found something different. He wasn’t used to leaving the scene of his latest execution with so much agitation still swirling around in his chest. It wasn’t regret, per se, but a sense of dissatisfaction. Just because he was good at violence didn’t mean he always wanted to dole it out.
He called Ryōma from the road.
“What’s up, Cris?”
Cristiano bit back a sigh. His irritation had nothing to do with Ryōma or the lack of a formal greeting. The more casual greeting meant his friend was alone, and for the moment Cristiano intended to take advantage. “I need you to take a cleanup crew out to Trenton.”
“Twice in less than a week, that’s rare. Anything I should know?”
“It’s gonna be bloody, and you should be fast. His kids are out of town for school, but if his neighbors are nosy there might be a problem. That’ll be at your discretion.” Cristiano rattled off the address.
“Sounds like I’m hitting the road,” Ryōma said. The line disconnected.
Cristiano exhaled and adjusted into the lane that would take him to the nearest family house. He couldn’t go home covered in her father’s blood, even if the man was a stranger to her, so he had to clean himself up and change his clothes first.
“I know phone calls aren’t usually our thing,” Taylor said as soon as Felicity answered, “but I thought I’d try to catch you and not wait for a text.”
Felicity lowered the book she’d been trying to read. It wasn’t the book’s fault her brain couldn’t engage, not really, but nonetheless she had been strangely relieved to be interrupted. Taylor’s words had that relief twisting into something far less pleasant. “Well, you definitely have my attention.”
In the handful of days since she’d given Taylor her new number, Taylor had downloaded the secure messaging app Cristiano requested and the girls had been communicating pretty much like normal. With the exception of the fact that Taylor had no idea Felicity was living with a man who had completely upended her world. Minor detail…
Taylor made a strange sound. It almost sounded like hesitation. Taylor was not a hesitant type of person. “Do you remember, when you moved back to Jersey, you said you’d put my name down in a couple of places as an emergency contact?”
Dread formed in Felicity’s stomach. “Yeah, of course.”
“So, your asshole landlord called me,” Taylor said. “He claimed he was looking for you, that ‘multiple neighbors’ have said they haven’t seen you in a while, and that you’re late on rent.”
Oh crap.Cristiano had said he’d handled the issue of her apartment, he’d even had her sign a short note of notice. She’d put it from her mind. She hadn’t thought anyone other than her psycho half-brother and pervert ex-neighbor might notice if she disappeared. Sure, her boss at the grocery store would have noticed, but he wouldn’t have done anything more than take her name off the active employee roster and send her an email in lieu of firing her to her face. She wasn’t currently allowed to check her emails, because Cristiano strongly suspected they were being monitored.
“And you know me,” Taylor continued, “I lost my shit on him. I mean, the audacity of the crap he was saying, right? Trying to play off like he didn’t completely take some freak pervert’s side and literally threaten to evict you when you were the victim.”
Oh crap, oh crap.She was going to throw up. She’d known she’d have to come clean and tell Taylor the truth eventually and she’d known Taylor would not be happy to have been lied to. But this was not how she’d wanted any of that to go.
Taylor let out an awkward laugh. “So, uh, I said some things. Harsh, unkind things. And he didn’t respond at all like I thought he would.”
Felicity dragged in a breath through her nose, biting her lips so hard she was surprised she couldn’t yet taste blood. She could not lose Taylor. Taylor was her one real friend, the one person who’d supported and encouraged her when she’d had absolutely no one and been literally and entirely lost. Taylor was the only kind of family she had, really, and with all the other messed up emotion she’d been going through in the past few days, it felt like that mattered more than normal. “Tay—”
“He apologized.”
“What?” Felicity barely squeaked out the question.
Taylor laughed. “Yeah, that was how I felt. He just up and apologized, said he was sorry for his behavior, for turning a blind eye on the invasion of your privacy, and that he’d do better enforcing boundaries with his residents from now on.”
“What?” She was so confused. Nothing Taylor was saying made sense. It was a lie. Why would her asshole technically-ex-landlord apologize for something he’d never done?
“I’m not saying you should treat him like your new buddy or anything,” Taylor said. “But if you’ve been having trouble finding a new place, maybe shift your priorities to landing a new job and explain to him that it was his fault you lost the last one so he should cut you some slack on rent or something.”
Felicity found herself shaking her head. “But…” What was she supposed to say to that?
“But what?”
Her mind a confused, stressed-out mess, Felicity muttered, “But it was a lie.” She realized her mistake only when silence greeted her. Her eyes widened at her own stupidity and she clapped a hand over her mouth. Was it possible to recover from that horrendous blunder?
“Sorry,” Taylor finally said, her tone cautious. “What was a lie?”
Tears burned Felicity’s eyes and she slumped against the sofa. “All of it,” she whispered. “The whole story about my neighbor breaking in, taking my phone, the landlord being involved, and losing my job after—none of it was true.” She did her best to hide the sound of her tears.
Again, Taylor was silent for several long seconds. “So you changed your number, and just thought you’d play a prank on me or something? See how long you could run with it?”
Horror flooded her. “What? No! That’s not … it isn’t like that.”
“Then why,” Taylor asked. Her voice had tightened in a way Felicity wasn’t used to hearing. “Why the hell did you lie to me like that? Do you know how worried I’ve been about you?”
“Th-there are reasons,” Felicity said, “but I can’t actually explain them right now….”
Taylor grated out a laugh. “Well that’s awesome. I’m glad you’re actually fine, then. Maybe I’ll call him back and apologize more than I ever have in my life, give him your new number, and have him delete mine.”
Felicity opened her mouth with the intent to plead with her friend, but she bit the words back. She had no right.
“Do me a favor,” Taylor said, “and don’t talk to me again until you feel like being honest.”