Chapter 17
A Week Later…
We were getting ready for Tom Sr.’s welcome home dinner. He’d been released from the hospital several days before and now that it was Sunday, the usual Ferrano family Sunday dinner thing was on, though grander in scale. Lisa had called and told me to make sure we came, that extended family would be there, too, to welcome Tom home. Tommy told me things were tense with his father and that some shit was going on in the business, but said we’d go for the sake of appearances.
The past week had largely consisted of me and Tommy seeing very little of one another. He was closed-lipped about things going on businesswise and hadn’t said anything, really, about his time away. He was gone a lot. When he was home, he was affectionate and sweet, if quiet and preoccupied.
I watched Tessa’s boys a few times and Sarah and I watched Luc’s girls together the day she gave birth to their baby, a 5-pound 2 oz. slightly early but healthy bouncing boy they’d called Nicholas James.
The house security had first been beefed up since the night Tommy came home but then it dropped off, which I found odd. Security dwindled to just Nino during the day and Dex at night, which I asked Tommy about and he said that things weren’t cool with his father and that many of the usual guards were reassigned to other Ferrano projects by his father. He had hired private security to guard the perimeter but had an intense vetting process because of the problems in the past little while so they were all outside the gates.
My first outing in a while was on the Friday before the dinner at Tom and Lisa’s. I’d been taken to a shooting range where Tommy got me more comfortable with a gun so that he could leave a gun here knowing I’d know how to use it and knowing I wouldn’t be afraid of it being here. Tommy hadn’t said anything further about his exit plan and I didn’t want to press him, knowing there was a lot on his mind.
* * *
The air was thick with tension for the whole welcome home dinner. Bianca and Nino, her mother, her Aunt Joanne and Aunt Joanne’s husband Al were there plus a few other people that were considered extended family. It was catered affair. Tessa was somber and Tom was edgy and terse with everyone.
Tommy and Dario hung back for the most part, in conversation with one another rather than their father and the rest of the room.
Tommy whispered to me to say my goodbyes right after dessert. As I was making the rounds to say goodbye , I awkwardly approached Tommy’s father. I leaned in as he’d motioned to hug me but then he hooked his hand around the back of my neck and pulled me to him. He kissed me on the mouth, forced his tongue into my mouth, and then looked at Tommy with ferocity on his face. The whole room seem to be stunned and the electricity coming off Tommy…he was wired.
Suddenly I was pulled back and they were chest to chest, both glaring at one another. Dario grabbed my elbow and then ushered me out of the room. The whole room then emptied, leaving Tommy and his father in there. People spilled out into the backyard. Dario put me into Tommy’s car. “Two seconds, Tia,” Dario said and then ran back into the house.
My heart was hammering in my chest. I looked at the house and Lisa and Luc were standing there talking and they were staring at me. I opened my mouth, still in shock, and shrugged at them. Lisa had tears in her eyes and Luc looked like she wanted to spit venom.
Suddenly my door opened and a tall and husky neckless guy pulled me out by the arm. I didn’t recognize him. He wore a men-in-black suit and dark glasses. Security?
“What are you doing?”
“Come with me,” he said, and he put me in the back seat of a black car parked behind Tommy’s. Luc and Lisa were still staring, open-mouthed, so were some other people. The doors opened and two more burly goons got in on either side of me and the car drove away from the house. This was reminiscent of my graduation day.
What on earth?
I was steaming fucking mad. My Pop wasn’t happy about what’d happened at the hospital that day and hadn’t taken our calls or seen us since. He knew I was still digging into his activities and that I was finding out shit that made my skin crawl. My father was more power-hungry, more ruthless, and more evil than I had ever realized.
He’d frozen us out. He’d frozen company accounts and was taking legal action to lock Dare and me out of the business, even though we owned shares on paper. He’d put a lawyer in charge. Lisa didn’t know squat about it all so of course she invited us to Pop’s big surprise welcome home dinner and Pop hadn’t looked at us once all day until he put his hands and his mouth on my girl and looked right at me and that’s when I was ready to fucking lose it. I’d been behind Tia and immediately ripped her out of his arms and got in his face.
Dario took her away and the room cleared out.
“What in the fuck was that?” I demanded after a stare down that went on until the French doors to that room and the sliding doors to the outside all clicked shut and it was just us two in the room.
He said nothing, just looked at me with cold dead-looking eyes.
“Pop!”
“Everything you have, my boy, everything you have is because of my blood, my sweat.”
I raised my brows. “You haven’t made me work for everything I’ve got? You haven’t made me prove loyalty and worth to you every single fucking day of my life? Your kids, everyone who has ever loved you haven’t all paid a heavy price for being your family, your wives?”
Pop snickered.
“You don’t put your fucking hands on her again,” I warned. “If you weren’t who you are to me you’d be in the fucking ground for that shit.”
He didn’t reply, just kept looking at me with hatred.
“I guess Dare and I have your answer,” I said as my brother re-entered the room.
“You might wanna rethink this, boys.” He gave me a sick smile.
“What’s up your sleeve?” Dario asked him.
“Re-think this,” Pop threatened.
I shook my head. “No. I’m done.”
I walked outside.
I walked by my two sisters who were huddled with Lisa by the gazebo near the door.
“Three of Pop’s men drove off with her, Tommy,” Tessa whispered. “Lisa said they pulled her out of your car and left in a black Impala.”
I ran back into the house toward the room I’d been in with Pop and Dare. Dario met me in the hall.
I pushed past him, “Where the fuck?”
The room was empty.
“Where’d he go?” I yelled at my brother.
Dario looked back, “I dunno. He left the room after you. I made a call.”
“He fucking took her!” I snarled.
I tore through the house looking for Pop, but he wasn’t here. I finally found Nino, who’d been in the garden off that room and he’d seen Pop come outside and head toward the driveway. He had been watching his son play with the other kids while Bianca was in the kitchen with some of the other women, so he hadn’t paid attention. Most of the men were still on Pop’s payroll. The house security had been part of that until last week when he cut me off. Nino and Dex stayed with me; I was paying them myself.
I got on my phone and dialed Pop’s cell.
“You’re in time out, my boy,” is how Pop answered the phone. I tried to get a lock on the rage that was building in me but no, it wasn’t happening,
“Where the fuck–” I started but he cut me off.
“I’ll call you later and we’ll discuss the extra payment you’ll have to make if you want her back. Like you’ve changed your mind about loyalty to me, I’ve changed my mind, too. I’ve decided that thirty-five k for Athena wasn’t quite enough.”
He fucking hung up on me.
“I almost kept you for myself, Athena,” Tom said to me. “Almost. Now that… that woulda been the ultimate fuck you to your father.”
We were in a living room of a cabin in the woods where we’d been dropped off by his three thugs. It was just the two of us in there; the thugs were mulling about, armed, outside. Tom was pouring a glass of wine.
I visibly shuddered.
He continued talking. “Saw you on that street and it felt like I could have a do-over with Carlita. But then I remembered you clutching your little dolly in my car that night, begging to go home to your mommy. If it weren’t for that image burned in my brain, I wouldn’t have given you to my son.”
I tried to hold my emotions in check, but he went on, “Your father, piece of shit moron that he is, he thinks this was all his idea. I told him it was time to pay his debts, planted a few seeds, and he practically offered you on a silver platter.”
My armor split right down the middle and I started to lose my foothold, started to lose my foothold on everything.
“He’d have agreed to it being me, being Tommy, or you could’ve been given to my pool guy if it’d mean saving his ass.”
I was going to throw up.
“Dario has a thing for you. Wishes it were him. I know how he feels. I wish it was me.” He downed his drink, put his glass down, and then he started to walk towards me.
“He’s here, Sir,” a gruff voice announced, then I heard a gunshot and a thump. The goon who’d announced that was down on the ground, bleeding from his head. I heard rapid fire outside the cabin. I turtled on the floor and scampered backwards against a wall.
Tom Sr. advanced and got right in front of me. He was an inch from me when I heard Tommy’s voice and then saw him. Tommy was in the doorway and the gun in his hand was pointed at his father. On his face was a hard, stony, hateful expression and it was trained on his father.
“Back away,” he told him.
Tom sneered at Tommy, then reached, grabbing me, yanking me to my feet, then spun around so that he was in the corner of the room and my back was against his front. Tom’s arm was around my neck, my throat in the crook of his arm; his fingers digging into my shoulder.
Tommy didn’t look me in the eye. He was looking at his father.
“You let her fucking go, Pop. Now.”
“I gave her to you!” Tom shouted. “She saves your soul from hell and you thank me by pointing a gun at me, boy?” Tom started to laugh.
“Let. Her. Go.”
I’d never seen Tommy’s face like that. In all the moments when he’d frightened me, in all the times I thought his anger couldn’t be any scarier, nothing had prepared me for the emanating anger that was coming off of him at this moment.
“You letting me walk out of here, son?”
“No.” Tommy’s eyes were cold. Stone cold.
“Then why would I let you have her back?”
I felt Tom shuffle behind me.
“Don’t move!” Tommy hollered but Tom was quick. There was something cold against my temple. His gun.
Tommy’s jaw tightened.
Then Tom cocked the gun. “Drop your gun or there’s a bullet in her brain.”
Tommy didn’t hesitate, he dropped his gun and it slid across the floor. The cold steel left my temple.
“The love of a good woman, huh?” Tom said softly. “It does a lot to a man. I hope you appreciate that I gave this to you. But I’m surprised you’re so weak to choose her over yourself. Thought I raised you better.” He pushed me forward and I landed on the floor. I looked back and he had his gun trained on Tommy.
“Protecting what’s mine isn’t weak, Pop. It’s what a real man does. He prioritizes his family above all else.”
“Yeah? So why are you betraying me, my boy?”
“You’re wrong, Pop. You’ve chosen wrong. You’ve chosen power and ego over family. You taught me wrong. You bred anger and hate and rage into me. Somehow that beautiful girl on the floor at your feet, she changed all that for me. Made me want to put her first. She’s my family, my future. She and I won’t raise our kids the way I’ve been raised, Pop.”
He shook his head. “You think it’s been easy for me? Keep my family safe? Build this business for you and your brother? You think I haven’t had to make some gut-wrenching decisions in my life? You think I’m gonna let you shit on it? You turn your brother against me?” Tom was shaking his head in disgust. “How’d it feel when I took her? You like having something of yours taken away? You’re trying to take my company away from me, the respect your brother has for me. I don’t know what happened to your respect. I tried to get her last week, you know? Disarmed your house. You’re lucky I’ve had a chance to calm down since then or I might’ve shot her dead right in front of the whole family.”
The rage emanating off Tommy intensified. “We both know that was a game, Pop. I saw what you had your guys leave. And was that you fucking with my phone, too? Trying to get Tia to send nude pictures?”
Tom Sr. snickered. “Yeah, my boy. You been digging round in my business, you think I don’t know all you’ve found out? You think I haven’t been a step ahead of you every step you’ve taken? There’s something you haven’t figured out yet, son. A kitten can’t fuck a tomcat.”
“So, what now? You ending my life, Tomcat?” Tommy shrugged. “That’s how little I matter to you? What about Dare? What’s his punishment gonna be? Gonna fuck with the brakes in his car?”
Tom Sr. snickered again.
I stared at Tommy’s gun that he’d dropped. It was two feet from me. I could lunge for it and put a stop to this. I looked up at Tommy, tears in my eyes. He still wasn’t looking at me. I wanted to get a message to him with my eyes, to tell him I could grab for the gun, but he wasn’t looking at me. It was like I was invisible. Tom and Tommy were in a faceoff and they were staring one another down.
“You out of the picture, your brother’ll come back into the fold.” Tom shrugged.
“He’s no puppet,” Tommy answered.
“He looked up to you, but he was jealous of you. Jealous you were my namesake, jealous you were getting the keys to the kingdom. Jealous you got the girl,” Tom Sr. motioned to me with his chin. “You outta the way, he’ll be happy with all he’ll get. Maybe I’ll gift her to him.”
Tommy glanced at me and I glanced at the gun. I saw something in his eyes shift, a flare of his eyes in warning. He didn’t want me reaching for it. But how else were we getting out of this?
Tom casually wandered over to the bar and as he did I inched a little toward the gun. Tom didn’t seem to notice. He poured another drink and drank some, his gun still pointed at his son.
I looked at Tommy’s face and he didn’t look at me but he jerked his head in a ‘no’. He knew my plan to reach for the gun. I moistened my lips and decided on another tactic.
“Tom?” I called out. Tommy’s father’s attention snapped to me. I shifted ahead on my knees and sat back on my heels. My back was to Tommy and now the gun was behind me, between Tommy and me.
“Did you kill my mother?” I asked.
The color seemed to drain out of his face.
“No,” he said softly. “I did not. She won the game the only way she knew how. I refused let her go so she took herself from me.”
I covered my face with my hands and pushed away my emotions. The look of pain on his face when he’d said those words made me think it could distract him.
“I loved her like no other woman, would’ve forgiven her for anything. I forgave her for leaving me, for your father, for the abortion. She was it for me. Everything. But she didn’t feel the same. She couldn’t take me as I was.”
A chill slithered up my spine. The silence in the room was near deafening.
“I love your son unconditionally,” I whispered, taking my hands off my face, tears burning in my eyes, my chest, my throat.
Tom looked at me and shook his head, with pain, with skepticism, jealousy; I didn’t know. I couldn’t read his expression.
“Let us go. Don’t take it from him. You said you wanted to give him what you didn’t have. If you meant that, really meant it… he has it. He has it. Let us go. Maybe in time you and your family can heal from this.”
“Tia, don’t,” Tommy answered behind me but his voice was hoarse.
Tom looked at me with tears glistening in his eyes and after a moment, he said, “Go.”
He shrugged. The hand with his gun in his hand dropped to his side but as I got to my feet a sneer spread across his face and he raised the gun in my direction.
“Tia; fuck!” Tommy’s voice was urgent behind me and suddenly he hauled me behind himself and at the same time produced a gun from somewhere on his body and he fired in his father’s direction.
A split second after I fired my gun and hit my father in the forehead with a bullet, Tia went almost limp in my arms. I knew my speed and my aim was better than his. He always had others do his dirty work, so he was out of practice. I also had two guns on my body, not just the one in my hand when I walked in.
She was staring at my father’s body there on the floor in a pool of blood.
I jerked her out of the daze by pulling her hand. “C’mon.”
We left the building. She looked numb, looked like she was in a trance. I led her outside toward the Jeep where Nino, Dario, and Dex sat. The guards were all dead on the front porch.
I got into the back seat with her; my brother was back there, too.
“Call JC for cleanup,” I told Nino, who was in the passenger seat. Dex drove away. Dario and I exchanged looks. My brother’s expression softened for the first time in weeks and then he looked out the window.
She didn’t completely lose it until we were back at the farm. I had the guys drop us off there, knowing it’s where we’d need to be.
When we got up the stairs, she walked ahead of me to the sofa and sat down on it stiffly, staring off into space.
I went to the fridge and pulled out two bottles of water and then sat down beside her, putting the bottles on the floor in front of us.
“Baby?” I whispered and her eyes traveled up my body to my face. The fog seemed to lift and when she fell against me, I crumbled.