Chapter 8
Chapter Eight
Christian
Sometimes I wish I were the playboy my father still believes I am.
If I were there would be no question on whether or not I would have stayed with Lilly all night. And, we’d still be wrapped in bed. I can guarantee anybody that. We’d most assuredly still be in bed fucking and I wouldn’t have left her with the promise of tonight.
If I were still the playboy, I would have continued to ignore my father’s calls and I wouldn’t have answered his summons to meet him and Georgiou at our family home.
I’m here. I just arrived.
I guess though I walked the line of playboy just for my indulgence in the angel last night. I’m not gonna beat myself up about that, though. I needed last night, and I couldn’t resist. What I will curse myself for is the fact that now I’ve had more than a taste I’m fucked.
You don’t just take a woman like that and forget her.
I can’t shift her from my mind and all damn night I found myself thinking about her, thinking with my fucking dick instead of thinking about what I was doing.
Maybe, though, thinking with my dick saved me from going insane from the nothingness I found. It was another fruitless night.
I met Kirk and we hit up all the places I knew Falcone to hang out. Intel gave us good guidance, but nobody was talking. Nobody on the streets was saying shit and I was sure they knew things.
I make my way up the garden path. It’s just gone ten.
Pa wanted to see me at ten fifteen but I’m early.
I wanted to see my mother first. I always check in with her first when I’m summoned to meetings like this.
As a family, we meet up twice a month on a Sunday for dinner.
It’s the only thing we do that resembles something close to a family unit, but believe me we’re dysfunctional.
I push the wooden gates to the garden open and I see her. The solemn look on her face is evidence enough of that dysfunction.
She’s tending to the miniature yellow roses she planted last year. I don’t know much about flowers in terms of when they bloom and when they’re supposed to look their best, but Ma knows how to keep a garden looking like it’s fit for the good Lord himself.
That’s what she says her aim is. Nobody would believe that I was raised Catholic. Me with my sex club. Then again, nobody would imagine a Giordano in a church either, not with the connotations linked to our name.
Ma hasn’t seen me yet and I take my strides evenly so as not to startle her.
Her hair’s grown longer, and she looks good.
She looks similar to how she did before the cancer took her.
She fought long and hard. What I would call a battle.
She fought for three years and she won. Her fight for survival impressed me.
That’s what she’s like though. She’s a fighter and she’s always impressed me.
I look a lot like her while Georgiou is the spitting image of our father.
I think I’m more like her too in a lot of ways.
She has this free-spirited side to her that I know rubbed off on me.
What I don’t like is that she puts up with the same shit most of the women in the family have to deal with from their men.
The taste for cheating runs strong with my father and uncles.
Ma looks strong right now, but I sense her heart is weeping.
Fuck, I can already guess from the sight of her that some shit has happened, and she hasn’t even looked at me yet. It’s the way she’s pruning the roses. With care, but with an edge of anger.
The garden is her place of Zen. The place she comes to on the regular and most often stays out in for the whole day just to get away from my father’s shit.
“Buonasera, Ma,” I greet her when she lifts her head.
She smiles at me and her whole face comes alive with that heart warmth that coming home should feel like.
“My son,” she says and comes over to give me a hug. “I was hoping to see you before you went into see your father.”
“I always come and see you,” I remind her.
“Yeah you do but, when you’re in one of your moods I can’t tell what you’ll do,” she says with a chuckle. “I have to say Christian that ignoring your father’s calls is not the best thing to do if you want to keep on his good side. I know why you did it though.”
“Thanks. It’s nice to have your understanding,” I answer.
She looks across to the terrace and I follow her gaze. A maid I haven’t seen before has just walked out with a dust cloth and she’s started cleaning the tables.
She lifts her head and sees Ma watching and looks away quickly with the fear of God in her eyes. She’s not that far away that I can’t tell she’s scared.
When Ma looks back to me her eyes look glassy.
“Do you think she’s pretty?” she asks. “Your father does. Every year they get younger. She’s eighteen. Wants to go to college but can’t afford it. Working here helps. I’m sure your father will pay her handsomely for her services.”
She’s not talking about cleaning. The tear that slides down her cheek pulls on my heart and I don’t know why she stays. She doesn’t need to put up with shit like this.
She wipes away the tear quickly with the heel of her hand and rights herself with a smile she plasters on her face like a mask. It’s a habit I grew up with.
“Ma, what happened?”
“Nothing, dear,” she says shaking her head. “Don’t be late. Don’t make your father mad.”
“Ma tell me what happened. He’s going to be mad at me whatever I do,” I insist, and she knows I’m right.
“It’s just been awhile since I caught your father doing something …unsavory. I know it happens, I’ve seen him in action enough times, but it’s hard when you’ve walked the line of death and you don’t even have the husband you thought you had to support you.”
“Leave him…” I tell her. it’s not the first time I’ve said it.
She smirks. “I don’t know if I have the strength and my heart won’t allow me to leave the boy I used to know.”
God… I’ll be damned. I have to calm my rage. If we were talking about different people I would march into the house and beat my father to a fucking pulp. I can’t do that though. I have to do what I always do and look the other way. It would be worse if I did anything other than that.
“Don’t say anything, Christian,” she cautions. “I’ll figure things out. Go, don’t be late. Don’t let them push you around either.”
I dip my head in appreciation and give her a kiss on her forehead before making my way into the house.
I see the same maid cleaning the stairs and give her a hardened gaze when she looks at me. The look I give her is warning enough, although I know it means nothing. She doesn’t answer to me. She answers to my father. he’s the fucker in charge here and we’re all under his control.
His office door is open.
Inside Pa stands over his desk, talking to Georgiou. Both stop talking when I enter the room and close the door.
Georgiou gives me a withered stare. A sign that I really am going to have to stand my ground. My father doesn’t like the fact that I can’t be controlled. We’re like two forces pushing against each other and I have to bow to his control to get what I want. I hate it.
“Morning,” I say.
Pa releases a deep sigh and has that look in his eye that tells me if I was a kid, he’d knock my lights out. The same way he did when I was sixteen. That was the first time I defied him, and I didn’t even do anything big to make him lose his shit the way he did.
“Take a seat,” he says cutting past the pleasantries.
I take the seat in front of him and avoid Georgiou’s stare. The secret messages we used to send each other when we were kids still continued into adulthood. I’m not looking at him now though because anything he’s going to tell me with a look or with words is going to be shit I don’t want to hear.
“For a start, the shit you pulled yesterday is not gonna happen again,” Pa says glaring at me. he’s remained standing on purpose to show me he’s higher than me. “I call you; you answer the fucking phone. You hear me?”
He wants me to answer, but I’m not gonna be a pussy and do so. Instead I grit my teeth and I can see Georgiou across from me trying to keep his cool so he doesn’t strangle me himself.
Pa shakes his head as the silence makes its way between us.
“Christian, this is serious. What happened is serious and there’s shit happening that you don’t know about or seem to care about. It’s always the same with you,” Pa seethes.
“Always? Pa, one mistake.” I lash back.
“One mistake that could cost us. Angelo is furious that this happened. he’s already talked to some of the VIP clients and they’ve called for assurance that their shipments will be safe.
It’s bad enough I had to tell people everything is delayed because we have a fuck load of new staff, but assurance is another thing.
We have not handled this well and the situation has gotten out of control. ”
I bite the inside of my lip, unable to respond. When you’re in the wrong, you’re in the wrong.
The worst-case scenario I figured is clients may still use us because we’re the only ones they know who can still get a job done, but we’ll lose big time if our VIP’s leave. those are people who can leave because they have connections.
“I’m trying to fix the situation,” I promise. I told him the same when we spoke earlier. He just wanted to see me though to do this. rip into me. “Getting to a man like Falcone is hard Pa.”
“that’s why it should never have happened. It shouldn’t have and I’ll be damned if I’m going to sit back and allow you to make our family look bad. the problem is not what you did, its’ who you are.”
Bastard. This is what he’s like. Normally I can give as much as I get but not this trip. Not when it truly is my fault.
“Because of who you are, Christian, which is why you took the easy way out and trusted Jonny,” he continues, and I just stare back at him. “That’s why this shit is happening to us. If you weren’t my son, I would have ended you before you got the chance to explain yourself.”
“My apologies for that pesky little biological fact,” I sneer.
He grabs the paperweight from the stack of documents and lunges it into the wall.
It smashes and by the time I look back to him the man has his guns pulled on me.
Georgiou jumps in front of me to shield me, an act that’s thrown me for a loop. I push to my feet, standing behind him.
“Pa what the fuck! Fucking drop your guns,” he orders. I try to move from behind him to stand my ground, but he clamps a hand on me, holding me back like he did when we were kids and anyone dared picked on me. “Stand down Christian,” he says glowering at me.
“Both of you stand down,” Pa snarls. “Or the two of you are out.”
On that threat, of course Georgiou drops his hands.
Pa lowers his guns and fixes his stare on me again.
“You… you fucker, you better get those guns back. I don’t care what you do, or whether you come back to me in a box with a fucking tag on your foot, get them back.
” He shouts. “You are the fucking black sheep of this family. Everybody else pulls their weight but you drag us down. I’m not going to allow you to destroy an empire we worked so hard to build.
You fix the problem, or you’ll have me to deal with and believe me you don’t want that to happen.
I will make sure you lose every fucking thing. ”
He’s never threatened me like this before. I actually believe he would really kill me, or he’s hoping I’ll die so he won’t have to do it.
“Do you hear me Christian!” He roars,
“I got it,” I answer and walk out.
I walk right out of the house feeling my whole body burn with rage. I don’t know how I’m supposed to feel after my own father telling me I should get this shit back even if it kills me.
I rush to my bike, my head a mess. Before I can get on it, Georgiou runs out calling me. I have half a mind to ride away and leave him, but I stop. If I did that, he’d come after me and I don’t want that.
“Christian—”
“Don’t,” I cut him off. I don’t want to hear it. Whatever it is, I don’t want to hear it.
“Don’t do anything stupid,” he states, fisting his hands at his side.
“Isn’t that all I seem to do,” I throw back.
“You fucking listen to me. Don’t do anything stupid just to prove a point.”
“Georgiou just leave me alone. Go back to licking Pa’s ass. wouldn’t want you to end up in the shit like me.”
He grabs my t-shirt ready to fight and I sneer. He’s good with a gun, but he can’t fight me. I’ve clocked as much field time as he has in the office.
“You motherfucker, I’m fucking serious.”
“Me too. Georgiou, Pa is serious. He controls everything. That’s what matters isn’t it. Money and power.”
“Christian, this is your fault. I can’t save your ass when you’ve done shit that should have been tended to months ago.”
“Not once did I try to evade blame. It is my fucking fault, but fuck, brother, we both know that if the situation was reversed and it was you who fucked up, this wouldn’t be happening.
No one would treat you like this. Leaving a man in charge who knows a job so you can find a replacement is not a bad move. But I accept blame for his actions.”
He releases his hold on me. “Christian, please, don’t go out there guns blazing and get yourself killed.”
“You heard the orders. Get the guns back, how do you think I’m going to do that? Pa was serious. He’d prefer I died and get the guns back, than for us to lose business.”
He doesn’t answer. What can he say?
It’s the truth and to me he’s the same.
I just shake my head, jump on my bike and ride away.
Pa can threaten me all he wants. It’s not the worry over losing everything that has me riding away with the plan to do what I have to get the guns back.
What makes me do it is I don’t want to be the cause of shit happening to everyone else when it comes to the company.
I don’t want the others to suffer for my actions and I care enough to put my life on the line to fix this.
Doing so, however, might very well get me killed.