Chapter 5 Leanna
LEANNA
My dad, Ezra, Vince, and I are scattered across the oversized sectional in Dad’s palatial living room, plates loaded with homemade pasta. The rich scent of garlic and tomatoes battles the blaring sound of the Reapers’ game on the TV.
“They get paid millions for that?” Dad barks, jabbing a saucy fork at the screen. “Missed passes. Sloppy shots. Bunch of overpaid clowns.”
Vince, the human echo chamber, nods like a bobblehead. “Exactly! I mean, seriously, Dad, who doesn’t see that coming? That shot was all wrong.”
I glance at him, brow raised. “Do you even know what you’re talking about, Vince? Or are you just repeating whatever sounds angry?”
Vince frowns but keeps nodding like he’s being deep. “I know enough to know they’re idiots. Right, Dad?”
Dad scoffs. “These guys are toddlers with skates.”
Vince chimes in again, “And the defense? Ugh. Completely useless. They just stand there, Dad. Just stand there.”
I lean back, smirking. “The only thing worse than these Reapers on ice is you giving a play-by-play while eating spaghetti. Seriously, the sauce is flying everywhere.”
Dad looks down at his plate, squints, and mutters, “The spaghetti has nothing on these overpaid lumps of flesh.”
Vince nods sagely. “Exactly. Nothing. Couldn’t agree more.”
I roll my eyes. “Aren’t you the one signing off on their contracts, Dad?”
“What’s that?” he asks absently, tearing his attention from the screen.
“You pay their contracts, right? You sign off on these guys as the owner?”
“Ultimately, yes,” he says. “The GM does most of the negotiating and sends everything up to me for approval. Why?”
“Well, you act like they’re worthless, but if you own the team and their contracts, it seems like you could make adjustments if you were unhappy.”
Vince scoffs. “It’s not like hiring and firing in a corporation, Leanna.”
“Isn’t it?” I counter. “There are trades all the time. Guy isn’t performing; trade him for a higher draft pick or another player. That’s the business. So why complain, especially when you’re the one pulling strings behind the scenes and ordering the coaching staff to throw games?”
“Leanna, Jesus…” my brother Ezra says, shaking his head.
“What?” I ask. “Like it’s a secret?”
Vince bares his teeth at me like a feral animal and mimes punching me. My dad smacks Vince on the back of the head in response, and my thirty-year-old brother’s face goes red like he’s about to throw a toddler-sized tantrum.
And this right here? This is why my father wants me to take over the family business when he retires or passes away.
I am intelligent and educated. Inconveniently curious. My dad always jokes that my first word was “why,” and honestly? It might be true.
My father did not amass the level of power he has by allowing people to question him. But with me, he’s always made an exception.
Maybe it’s because I’m his only daughter. Or perhaps it’s because I look like my mother—the one person he revered. She didn’t die in some mafia crossfire, no dramatic hit job, just a quiet, brutal war with cancer.
She was his queen. His rock. His conscience. The one person he actually listened to.
And somewhere along the way, I became a stand-in for that last part as his moral compass.
“It seems kind of unfair,” I say. “They’re competitors. They want to win. It’s got to suck to have to go down on behalf of the owners’ wallet.”
“Not just my wallet,” my dad says. “We’ve got a business to run, pumpkin, and it includes a wide array of sports betting.
Betting is an addiction, and it’s spurred on by a big win here and there.
If you lost all the time, you might walk away, right?
But if you win big every so often, just enough to keep you thinking you can win like that again, then you keep coming back. ”
“And those cogliones don’t know shit,” Vince scoffs. “They get their teeth knocked out for a living. There’s no intelligence to it.”
“I don’t think they’re all dumb,” Ezra offers. “Some of them go to college.”
“They’re not,” my dad cuts in. “But they don’t know the games are rigged.
It’s not like boxing, where you tell a guy to go down in the fourth.
In team sports, it’s more subtle—coaching decisions, refs on your payroll, strategic calls that tilt the game.
The players still hustle. And when they screw up? That’s on them, whether rigged or not.”
“I don’t know,” I say, and I mean it. “I feel kind of bad for these guys. They’re not playing under fair circumstances.”
“Don’t cry for these guys,” my dad says. “They make plenty of money. Get plenty of women. Drive fast cars. They’re fine.”
I shrug and stand up to take my plate to the kitchen. I rinse my plate and put it in the dishwasher.
When I turn around, Vince is there.
He creeps up like a shadow I can’t shake.
“Move it,” I say, brushing past him.
His fingers dig into the back of my arm and pinch hard.
Oh, that’s going to leave a bruise.
But I refuse to cry out or show pain or anything else that will make him satisfied that he’s hurt me.
Instead, I just stare him straight in the eye. He hates that, and usually looks away first.
“Stop asking stupid questions, you cocksucking whore,” he hisses, low enough so Dad won’t catch it.
“Stop being a fifth-grade bully,” I snap back, my voice calm but icy. “I hope you die in a fiery crash tonight.”
His eyes narrow. “I fucking hate you,” he spits. Another sharp pinch. He lets go, grinning like he thinks he’s won. “One of these days, I’ll kill you in your bed while you sleep.”
I roll my eyes. “You couldn’t kill a fly without screwing it up.”
“Don’t push me,” he warns, stepping closer. “You think you’re untouchable because Dad likes you more? That won’t save you when it matters.”
I chuckle. “You really think hurting me would make a difference? Dad’s approval isn’t a zero-sum game, Vince. You’re still just… you. Pathetic.”
“You think you’re smarter than me, huh? Smarter than all of us? You’re just his golden toy!”
I shrug, tilting my head. “Golden toy? Maybe. But I’m not the one pinching and whining because you can’t stand someone else getting the spotlight. You want Dad to pick you as head of the family? Grow up, stop acting like a toddler, and maybe you’ll earn it.”
His jaw tightens. “I will get there. You think you’ve got it all because you are his damn favorite? I’ll take it from you. You’ll see. I’ll make him choose me over you.”
I shake my head slowly, almost pitying him. “And until then, you settle for cheap shots and threats? That’s your grand plan, huh?”
His knuckles whiten as he grips the counter. “I’m warning you, Leanna, don’t think I won’t do it.”
I step closer, close enough to see the tiny flecks of spit on his lips when he snarls. “You might try. But you’re not smart enough to actually get away with it. And you know it. That’s why you scream and pinch and bite at shadows instead of going for the real thing.”
He freezes, chest heaving. There’s a slight fear there beneath the rage, but it’s enough to make him glance toward Dad, who hasn’t even looked up from the game.
“Let me give you a tip,” I continue, voice even and deliberate. “If you want to be my equal, if you want to matter in the family, start by controlling yourself. Not me.”
He opens his mouth, ready to fire another insult, but stops. His face twists, frustration giving way to something closer to helplessness. Finally, he steps back, muttering under his breath.
I brush past him, head held high, feeling the burn of his glare on my back. He’ll never stop trying. But I’ll never stop standing my ground.
Because in this family, power is a game, and I know how to play it.
Even though my arm throbs with pain, I grab my backpack and head over to kiss my dad on the cheek.
“Going before the game ends?” he asks.
“I have to study for a test,” I say.
“Should I call for a driver?”
I put up a hand. “No, I’m good. I prefer the train.”
My father’s handsome face contorts into a deep mask of disapproval. “It’s safer to use our drivers.”
“I’m fine, Dad. No one knows who I am. I get on that train and I’m just one more person trying to get from A to B.”
“I don’t like it,” he says.
“Love you! Bye!” I chirp as I make a beeline for the front door. I’m out and down the driveway before he can alert any of the security personnel.
When I wave cheerfully at Mack, the gate guard, he waves back with a smile and pushes the button to open the gates that lead to the street. It’s only a two-block walk to the train station from there.
It’s a lie of omission. Or, maybe, a mostly true statement. Usually, I’m right. No one knows who I am. Most people on the train are too absorbed in their phones, their books, or their dogs, or whatever, that Brad Pitt could ride unnoticed.
And who am I? Just a regular college girl.
My dad, though, loves a lesson in paranoia. When he’s feeling particularly conspiratorial, he sends guys to tail me just to prove how easy it is to follow someone without them even noticing.
Once, he had me “fake-abducted.” Big, burly men, dark SUVs, the whole cinematic nightmare. All to show me how utterly defenseless I’d be against the kind of muscle he employs.
After that little stunt, I got “upgrades.” Self-defense classes. A personal trainer. Strength drills. Not exactly the parenting style I would have picked for my own kid, but it worked.
Now, I can spot a tail a block away, and I can throw a punch that lands harder than most college guys ever could imagine.