11. Basilio #2
And most importantly, I’d keep Wynter away from my father at all costs.
He destroyed everything he touched, young women in particular.
He thought them only good for fucking and breaking.
If he ever dared to touch her, I’d kill him.
My hands curled into tight fists itching to cut him piece by fucking piece, to kill him, consequences be damned.
“You know one of these days we’ll have to kill him.” It was the first time I uttered those words out loud.
Dante met my gaze.
“Don’t bring your woman around him,” he warned, reflecting my exact thoughts. “Why do you think I’m avoiding the whole idea of commitment?”
I knew it. Until Wynter, it was exactly how I felt about commitments and marriage. When she fell into my arms three months ago, something clicked in my chest. I still let her walk away from me. But then life threw her right back into my arms.
It had to mean something. That she was mine to keep.
I got up and headed out of the room with ghosts at my tail.
“I’m taking a shower and then hitting the sheets. You should try and get some rest.”
Neither of us slept much. I supposed it was a result of years of training .
As I readied for my shower, those old ghosts came calling and my mind wandered to the past that I never visited willingly.
I watched my mother rush, scurrying away with little Emory in her arms, wailing. She was still a baby and cried a lot. She needed a lot of attention, but I was okay with it. As long as mother kept me with her. Sometimes she’d send me with Dad to his club. I didn’t like it.
Standing still in the park full of happiness and laughter, all I felt was my racing heart. I kept waiting for her to turn around. She never did. Not fucking once.
Minutes turned into hours. Strangers threw curious glances my way. So did the other children, but I never left my spot, staring in the direction my mother left.
“She’ll be back,” I whispered under my breath. “She’ll be back for me. She loves me.”
My eyes stung, my head throbbed, my mouth dried.
The humid August air made it hard to breathe. It was hot, my forehead sticky. My stomach rumbled with hunger. But I didn’t move. I refused. I needed to be here when she came back. One moment and I could miss her.
It took me years to understand she couldn’t bear to look at me. She saw my father every time her eyes landed on me and taking me with her, I would have been her reminder of what she endured with him every single fucking day.
A dark shadow cast over me, and I slowly looked up to find my father’s furious face glaring down at me.
“Where is your mother?” he hissed.
I blinked up at my father, not having the answer for him. He seemed kind of blurry so I blinked again.
He gripped me by the collar and carried me away from there. Like I was a piece of garbage. Once we got to his car, he shook me and threw me into the car.
“Stop crying or I’ll give you something to cry about!”
For some stupid reason, the five year old in me noted he didn’t put me in the car seat. Mamma always put me in the car seat.
My father got behind the wheel and hit the gas so hard, I flew out of my seat and my forehead hit the back of the front seat. I struggled getting up, then climbed up back on the seat, then reached for the seat belt and pulled it over my chest to click it.
I had no idea how long we drove. My father barked a few times for me to stop, but I wasn’t sure what to stop.
My eyes followed the passing cars and buildings, then the highway.
The drive took too long and not long enough.
My stomach lurched, threatening to empty contents out, but deep down, I knew that’d earn me a beating.
Mamma wasn’t here to stop him.
The car came to a sudden stop. Before I could blink, the car door opened and Father hit me hard across the face.
“Stop crying!”
He gripped me by my shirt, glaring at me, but I must have still been crying because he hit me even harder.
“Let’s go,” he ordered, yanking me by my arm. The neighborhood was rough, glances thrown our way quickly averted.
“That whore thinks she can run away from me,” he hissed, his face twisted with rage. “Take my daughter.” He gripped my arm tighter, wrenching me along. My shoulder hurt, his fingers dug into my arms, but I didn’t dare to make a sound.
We came to a ragged looking door, the familiar cry of a baby sounding through it. Father didn’t bother knocking. He kicked the door open and familiar dark brown eyes full of fear met Father and I.
Screaming filled the small, dirty space.
My father’s body collided into my mother’s, then the pitch of her screams rose a few notches.
So did my baby sister’s. I ran to her, took her off the floor and sat her down on my lap.
Just the way my mother taught me. It was the only way she’d ever let me hold my baby sister, and while her screams pitched, I tried hard to soothe her.
I watched with tight lungs as Father hit Mamma again. “Stop,” I yelled at him, my voice wobbly. “Stop, Papà. Please.”
His face twisted into an ugly and scary mask as his anger shifted to me.
I braced myself because I knew another blow was coming.
I shifted my body and sheltered my baby sister on my lap, right as my father backhanded me.
His palm connected with my right cheek, the burning sensation instant and tears stung my eyes.
Then his attention returned to my mother, as he pulled out a knife and gripped it tightly. I watched in horror as he took two strides, then sliced her throat before she even had a chance to open her mouth and beg for her life.
I froze, watching my mamma gurgle, choking on her own blood and her eyes wide with terror.
She gasped, despair in her eyes as she watched me.
No, not me… my baby sister. Father pushed her onto the floor and blood quickly pooled around her, each second taking her further and further away from me. From us.
The scent of copper mixed with Mamma's perfume and fragranced the air. I watched the light slowly extinguish her dark brown eyes, leaving frozen horror on her face. Sad and lonely, scared, staring at me.
Except she didn’t see me.
It was the first dead body I had seen and by no means the last one.
Eventually, I learned Father had a chip installed in my mother that allowed him to track her. She was doomed from the start.
* * *
Later that day, after only a few hours of sleep, I got a message from my father. He wanted to see Dante and me.
What crappy timing, I grumbled silently.
I hoped after the whole ordeal with The Eastside, there’d be no need to see him. At least for another few weeks.
Dante gave me a questioning look. “Why in the fuck does he want to see me ?”
I grimaced. “Would you like me to relay that message?”
He scoffed, though he looked like he swallowed a bitter pill. “No. We all know how much he likes to be questioned.” His voice held sarcasm as he made his remark. “I should have left last night, now I have to talk to him before going to the airport.”
“I’m sure your plane won’t leave without you,” I retorted dryly. “Let’s go so you can head back to Chicago.”
When we arrived in front of the mansion on Fifth Avenue, I had to fight the urge to torch the whole goddamn building to ashes. I hated this fucking place. I hated my fucking father. And most of all, I hated the darkness that thrived in the memories that this place evoked.
Parking my car at the bottom of the stairs leading to the double doors, just the way my father hated, Dante and I exited the car, then headed up the stairs. This place was secured better than the White House. There were high-tech cameras everywhere and guards.
We ran into Thalia, Emilia’s daughter and the woman my father purchased through the Belles and Mobsters auction from Benito King about five years back.
She lingered in the entrance hall, eyeing the exit longingly. Fuck, I wanted to take her out of this hell. Her face was smeared with tears and a black bruise marked the whole side of her right face.
She whimpered at seeing us, taking a step back. Both Dante and I stilled.
“Fuck,” he muttered.
She didn’t look good. Probably the reason she had stuck to the inside of the house. Waiting for her bruises to fade before she’d show her face in public.
Rage filled me at my own father’s brutality. It was one thing to beat men and torture traitors. It was something entirely different abusing the innocents that couldn’t fight back. My father was ten times stronger than Thalia, even at his age.
And Thalia was only twenty-five. She hadn’t done anything to deserve this.
He’d end up killing her one of these days, just as he killed Brennan’s sister. No wonder Liam hated our guts.
“Thalia, you should let us help you,” I whispered so low only she and Dante could hear.
She shook her head. “He’d kill my mother.”
I clenched my jaw. Thalia worried about her mother and that fucking bitch only thought about herself.
My phone buzzed and I slid the message open without checking who it’s from.
Wynter: I’m so sorry. I have to go out of town. Can we meet when I get back?
Me: Don’t be too long.
It had only been less than a half a day and I missed her already. I wanted her with me at all times. Albeit part of me knew that wouldn’t be possible. Not with my father around.
With the sound of footsteps that were unmistakably my father’s, I shoved the phone back into my pocket while Thalia quickly scurried away. She probably wanted to be anywhere but where my father was. Not that I could blame her.
“Ah, here you are.” His voice boomed over the large foyer. I really wasn’t in the mood to talk to him. This hate I had for him ran deep and it’ll never ease. Not until his dying breath.
He approached us, dressed in his three-piece-suit, no gun. He seemed so sure of himself that he believed he didn’t need it. It would be so damn easy to pull my gun and shoot him. Except, I knew his surveillance feed went directly to the Syndicate. Fucking sick bastard.