27. Elio
Elio
T his fucking blows.
Maybe not eloquent, but it’s true. I haven’t been this busted-up and out of commission since recovering from my burns when I was fourteen.
Morelli’s got me pumped full of all kinds of shit, fluids and antibiotics and I’m certain there are some painkillers in the mix, because the agony has receded far quicker than it should have just based on my own healing.
For more than a week all I do is lie around, and that doesn’t even include those first blurred days when my fever was raging at its worst.
But I’ve avoided having all my organs shut down on me, so at least there’s that.
And there’s her. My Songbird. My fiancée .
She flits and flutters and hovers, running cool fingers over my skin, giving me prim, cute little commands about resting and drinking water and yadda yadda yadda.
She plays for me every night without being asked, then crawls like a kitten into bed beside me.
It takes a lot of cajoling, and the eventual threat of dragging myself out of bed, before I can convince her to start attending her classes again with Enzo and Curse alternating as her chaperones.
By February thirteenth, after more than two weeks of doing absolutely fuck-all, I decide I’m sick of this shit and leave the bedroom after showering and getting dressed in some real clothes. There are no more tubes in me, nothing keeping me stuck here.
“Are you supposed to be up?” Curse asks as soon as I emerge from the bedroom.
“I’ve got shit to do,” I tell him.
“Not quite what I asked.”
My brother and I head down the stairs together. I can tell I’m still recovering, but I feel a hell of a lot better than I did. My ribs are still healing, and my kidney isn’t back on track yet, but the infection has cleared and I can feel some of my old energy returning.
“What do you need to do?” Curse asks as we reach the main floor. “I can take care of it for you.”
“You can come with me. But I have to do it myself.”
Deirdre’s at school right now, so I figure now is as good a time as any to get this done. Might as well, since she’s not here to distract me.
“What is it, then?”
“You remember the lawyer I asked you to look into for me?”
“Course.”
“We’re heading to his office.”
I have another lawyer already, of course. He looks after all our family interests. Which is exactly why I don’t want to use him for this particular task. No, this new lawyer Curse has done some research on for me isn’t one of our family’s trusted contacts. He’s not even Sicilian.
His name is Gabriel Hades. And he is going to help me rewrite my will.
The law firm of Hades, Mason & Gould is located in the heart of Toronto’s financial district, taking up the whole upper half of a glittering glass office building.
Despite only having three guys listed in the name, it’s a massive operation with more than one hundred attorneys, associates, and paralegals employed here.
Several of them try to stop Curse and I as we stride right past their cubicles and offices, heading for the one with Gabriel Hades written on the door.
“Excuse me!” says a middle-aged blonde woman from a desk outside the sleek door. “Can I help you? Do you have an appointment?”
“No. But I’ve been in contact with him,” I tell her. “He’ll be expecting me.”
“Can I at least get your name so I can – excuse me! Sir!”
The woman’s voice fades to a spluttering chirp as Curse reaches for the office’s door handle. He doesn’t need to actually press down on it, though, because the door swings inward, opened from the inside.
The first thing I think is that this guy looks younger than someone who’s the earned the reputation he has. In Curse’s research on him, I’ve seen him called everything from shark to devil to demon. I guess his last name kind of fits.
“You Hades?” I ask. I want to make sure I haven’t gotten a hold of some junior lawyer who doesn’t know tits from ass.
The eyes behind his sleek glasses are a very pale, steely grey. They move meaningfully to the name listed on his door.
“If I’m not, then I imagine I’d have some explaining to do as to why I’m alone in this office.”
“Mr. Hades,” the woman says breathlessly as she hustles over in clicky shoes, her cheeks very red. “I’m so sorry. These men don’t have an appointment. And I tried to-”
“It’s alright, Margaret,” he cuts in. “After our correspondence earlier this month, I expected to see at least one of the young Titones show up here eventually.”
“Young?” I ask him. “I doubt you’re any older than I am.”
“I’m forty,” he replies coolly.
“Really? No shit,” I say.
Despite her boss’s assurances, Margaret looks like she’s about to blow a fucking gasket. If her cheeks get any more red I honestly think they might pop, like over-filled water balloons.
“Mr. Hades,” she huffs, “Your schedule today is very full. Perhaps if these… gentlemen … would like to make an appointment, I could-”
“We’re not in the habit of making appointments. Or being kept waiting,” I say.
“Reschedule Garrison Oil and Gas ,” Hades tells his assistant. She looks like she’s about to argue, but he silences her with a single look. It’s a look I recognize. A sort of look I’ve given countless times before. The kind of look I learned from men just like my uncle.
Gabriel Hades may be a swanky lawyer wearing a nice clean suit up here in his big shiny office, but there’s something brutal in him. Something that I recognize, that I can sniff out the way a dog goes digging for blood.
I’m not sure if it makes me trust him more…
Or less.
But either way, when he holds the door to his office open, Curse and I both go through it.
I flinch at blinding brightness. The whole far wall of his office is made of glass, and February sunlight, normally kind of sickly and weak this time of year, is blasting right through.
“How the fuck can you work in here?” I croak, holding up my splinted hand to shade my eyes. My head pings with pain as flame-like light glances off of every surface.
But then there’s instant relief. With the touch of a button, Hades has activated some kind of shading technology, darkening the windows. It turns the Toronto cityscape into a collection of silhouettes and shadows.
“I have to admit I was surprised to receive your correspondence, Mr. Titone,” Hades says. “I figured your family would have an army of lawyers at their beck and call.”
“We do,” I grunt in confirmation. “That’s exactly why I’m here. I don’t want any lawyers connected with my uncle touching my will with a ten-foot pole.”
“Why?”
I stare at him. Even with the glass tinted the way it is, plenty of light filters in. It gleams on his odd hair, the palest blond I think I’ve ever seen on a grown man. He’s tall, and pretty built for a guy who probably spends most of his time behind a desk.
“It’s been a long, long time since I’ve let a man working for me ask me why I do anything,” I say, more bemused than anything.
“We haven’t signed an agreement. You’re not my client and I don’t work for you. Yet.”
He removes his glasses, polishing the lenses with a cloth he pulls from…
somewhere. I have no clue where he got it.
This office is absurdly clean and clutter-free.
His desk has nothing on it but a computer monitor, and while there’s furniture in here, something tells me it’s more for clients than for him.
“Your name was enough to get you in my door without an appointment,” he goes on, “which is already a rare feat. But I have protocols and principles in place. To borrow your earlier language, I don’t touch any new work with a ten-foot pole, no matter how lucrative or how important to the client it may be, unless I have a full and transparent understanding of the client’s needs and motivations.
So, I will ask you again, and if you want to work together I expect you to actually answer me.
Why are you refusing to work with your current representation to craft your will? ”
He puts his glasses back on and gazes relentlessly at me with those gunmetal eyes. I can feel Curse shifting closer to the door, ready to lock it and smash Hades’ white-blond head into his desk as soon as I give the signal.
But I don’t. For some reason, Hades’ cold confidence isn’t pissing me off. I don’t think there’s much arrogance or ego involved. It’s just that…
He isn’t afraid of me at all.
Usually, I’d say that’s a sign of a very stupid man. But I already know that I’m not dealing with a stupid man right now.
A grudging tendril of respect for him takes root, and I decide to answer his question honestly. He’s probably smart enough to figure it out on his own anyway, when he sees who I’m leaving everything to.
“Our family’s lawyers have been working for our uncle since before I turned eighteen. They were his lawyers first, and when push comes to shove, I can’t count on them being loyal to me over him. I need fresh-”
“Blood?” Hades offers.
“I was going to say eyes, but yes. That’s the gist of it.”
“And do you expect push to come to shove?”
“I don’t necessarily expect my uncle to contest my will if I die before him, if that’s what you mean,” I say, shaking my head.
“But I don’t want a lawyer connected with him helping to draft it.
I don’t want some stupid sneaky clause added in that I don’t know about, or some not-so-accidental mistake being made that renders the will null and void. ”
“I see,” he responds. “Well, it certainly makes sense for a man of your position, wealth, and, shall we say, liability-laden lifestyle to have a will in place.”
I snort, then instantly regret it as pain splinters through my ribs.
“Liability-laden?” I repeat, raising my brows. “That’s some real smooth lawyer-talk if I’ve ever heard it.”
Why, no, I’m not part of a violent crime family with enemies everywhere I turn. I just live a liability-laden lifestyle.
Cristo Santo.
“Anyway,” I say, “I already do have a will. Due to the aforementioned lifestyle and position and wealth. I own multiple corporations and have significant investments and property in my name. This would be a new will, to supersede the old one.”
“I see. And are you adding beneficiaries?”
“Adding one,” I confirm, “and removing another. Currently, everything I have is entailed upon my uncle, all of it to be rolled into the family estate. But I want to change that. Everything should now go to Deirdre Elizabeth O’Malley.”
“Soon to be Titone, I presume. That is your fiancée, correct? I saw the engagement announcement.”
“Yes. After February twenty-ninth, she’ll be my wife.
I want everything I have to go to her. Every cent.
And I want it done in such a way that nobody can touch it.
Not even my uncle. If we have to set up trusts, we’ll do it.
If we have to start funneling money out of the country and set up a safe haven for her in Panama or Switzerland or some shit, we’ll do that too. ”
“I see why you’re looking for discretion and some distance from your family’s usual representation.”
“I figured you would,” I reply. “No one ever accused you of being dense, I take it?”
“I doubt you’d be here if they had.”
“True.” I gesture towards my brother. “Curse will be the executor. He’s the only person in my family I fully trust around this issue.
If Deirdre needs help managing anything after the event of my death – winding down a corporation, for example, or if she decides she wants to sell some of my property later on – Curse can assist her with that. ”
“As Accursio also subscribes to the same liability-laden lifestyle that you do, who do you want to manage things in the case of his death?”
I mull on that for a moment. If Valentina weren’t Uncle Vinny’s daughter, then maybe her, but as it is she’s not the right choice.
“There’s no one else,” I say after a pause. “If Curse is unavailable then you will be the executor and will act as Deirdre’s lawyer and advisor. You can take your future pay out of the estate.”
He tilts his head slightly, making light gleam on the metal frames of his glasses.
“You should know that I typically bill more than two thousand dollars an hour. Even with your stipulations and investments and corporations, a will like yours wouldn’t be overly complex for one of our junior partners to take care of.”
“I didn’t come here to pass this off onto anybody that has junior in their title,” I snap. “I want perfection. And I am willing to pay for it.”
As evidenced by the millions I spent on my flawless fucking fiancée…
“Understood,” Hades says. “But I’m a corporate lawyer. I don’t typically do estate work like this. Why should I take this project on?”
“Double your usual fee. Quadruple it. I don’t give a shit. And don’t forget,” I add, “that having a Titone for a friend is a powerful fucking thing.”
“I don’t need any friends.”
“You might one day,” I counter. “There may come a time when you need an ally who has more than just money, one who didn’t come from a fancy office like this.”
His face is a smooth mask. I can’t really tell if my argument is swaying him, and I’ve already worked out that threats aren’t going to get me anywhere.
But then something shifts in those ghost-grey eyes of his.
“Acceptable,” Hades suddenly says.
He walks behind the desk he’s been standing in front of this whole time. Bending slightly, he activates a button I can’t see from here, but it must be for an intercom system, because then he says, “Margaret, bring me a client intake form for Mr. Titone.”
He releases the button then turns back to Curse and me.
“Alright, Mr. Titone,” he says. “I’ll help you draft your will. Not for quadruple, but quintuple the price of my usual fee, and...” His eyes glint. “One future favour.”