Antonio
“There,” Horatio, the medic, mutters, as he finishes stitching up my arm, leaning back to inspect his work. “That should hold for now.”
I grimace as I roll my shoulder, checking to see how my range of movement is after the shot I took from my son.
It hurts like a bitch, but it’s not in my dominant arm and didn’t manage to bury itself too deeply, so Horatio was able to remove it pretty easily and repair the worst of the damage, at least for now.
The same can’t be said, of course, for everything else that suffered due to that attack on the mansion. The place has been all but destroyed, nearly a dozen of my guards losing their lives and another handful struggling to so much as walk after the assaults they took.
I’ve moved into an apartment block overlooking the city, somewhere I’m sure Andreo doesn’t know about, but at this point, it’s hard to parse what he’s aware of and what he isn’t.
With Salamanca at his side, he has more influence and power than ever before, and it’s clear that Salamanca loaned him the men to lead that attack on the house, knowing it would destabilize me and my business in the process.
But the business is the last thing on my mind right now, if I’m being honest. No, all I can think about is Julia—Julia, pregnant with my child, no doubt terrified for her life, and probably thinking that I’m dead.
After Andreo walked away from her like that, it’s beyond me why he decided to come back and try to claim her once more—jealousy?
Couldn’t let me have something that he had decided was his?
Whatever the reason, it makes me sick thinking of her caught up in this mess, and there’s nothing I wouldn’t do to get her out.
My first instinct was to gather my remaining forces and send them after him at the first chance I got, but Cesc, mercifully, stopped me.
Pointed out that they would be ready for whatever we threw at them, and that we’d need tactics and skill to track him down and catch him off guard, get Julia out, and close down the threat Andreo posed to the business once and for all.
Which means, of course, killing him.
Something I’ve been trying not to think about, though I know I’m eventually going to have to.
Killing my own son? It feels like something out of a Greek fucking tragedy, but if I let him live, he has proven that he will be a threat to me and the people I care about, and I just can’t let that happen.
He made his choice to betray me, and I have to choose my other child, my second child, over him.
Give them the chance to be part of this family that he has so totally rejected…
Even if the thought turns my fucking stomach.
I dismiss Horatio, and Cesc appears in the doorway again. He was recuperating at the time of the attack, so he didn’t have to face off against Andreo’s forces, and has been leading my scouts across the city ever since. I gesture for him to come inside, and he does so.
I’ve told him everything. I couldn’t hold it back any longer.
I have to tell him the truth. No point trying to hide it from him now, and he didn’t judge me, much to my relief.
Not that it would have mattered if he did.
All that matters now is getting Julia and the baby back in one piece, and I’m willing to do just about anything in my power to make it happen.
“Anything?” I ask, as Cesc takes a seat opposite me, and I tug down my shirt sleeve to cover the wound.
It’s still aching, but as I flex my fingers, I know that I can handle it.
I’ve been shot a few times over the course of this line of work, usually glancing blows, but even still—this will not stop me.
He shakes his head. “No sign of Andreo yet,” he replies with a sigh, pushing a hand through his hair.
I can’t help but notice how exhausted he looks, and my heart sinks.
No wonder he’s struggling. Like me, he’s trying to wrap his head around the fact that a person he watched grow from a boy to a man has turned against us, and in such brutal form.
“But we have eyes on Salamanca. Looks like he took off out of the city for a few days before this all went down. Probably didn’t want to be caught up in the crossfire… ”
I let out a mirthless laugh. Of course.
That fucking coward likely signed his men over to Andreo in exchange for the information he had already gotten from him, and then ducked out, hoping that he could keep his hands clean of whatever it was my son was intending to do.
Did Andreo tell him that he was going to pull an innocent woman into the middle of this?
I fucking doubt it. And even if he did, I have a hard time believing that would be a hard line for Salamanca.
He has already turned my son against me, so it’s clear he doesn’t have any line in the sand when it comes to what he will and won’t do.
No doubt this is just his way of forcing my hand so I have to play by his rules.
“Well, at least he’s out of the picture for now,” I mutter, reaching for the vodka on my desk that I’ve been sipping to handle the pain.
I don’t do pills, they make me slow—the only thing I need to handle a wound like this is a stiff drink, and I’ll get through it alright.
The real pain is in my chest, knowing Julia is out there, knowing that she’s probably frightened for her life—for our baby’s life too.
Fuck. Our baby.
When I think of it in those terms, it’s like something has taken hold of me and won’t let go. Up until this moment, I’ve been unsure how I felt about her pregnancy—guilt still nagging at me, knowing that I wasn’t the one she initially intended to marry.
But now? Now, all bets are off, and I’m willing to do whatever it goddamn takes to get her out.
“I’m heading out again,” Cesc tells me. “I’ll report back as soon as I have anything.”
I grunt in acknowledgement and watch him leave. I would be out there myself, but I don’t want Andreo knowing that I made it out alive. No, when he faces me down again, I need it to be a shock. I want the element of surprise on my side in any way I can get it.
The door falls shut behind Cesc, leaving me alone with my thoughts once more, and I’m struck by just how crazy this entire situation is.
I’m planning an attack on my son. My own fucking son.
I can’t believe he has pushed me to this point, but I have no choice but to do what I have to now—no choice but to force myself through with a parent’s worst nightmare, taking out the very child you thought you would give everything to.
But he has turned his back on everything. That much is clear. Everything that I wanted for him, all I had to give him.
When I built this business, I did so much of it with him in mind, picturing what his future would look like at the helm of this empire.
But he decided he was getting a better offer elsewhere, and chose to do what he could to make the most of that.
It’s enough to make me feel sick, but I have to turn my attention to what lies ahead now.
If I let emotion, some foolish blood connection, get the better of me, I might not be able to do what needs to be done when the time is right.
And when it comes down to it—I have more loyalty to my wife and child than to the bastard son who betrayed me.
I pour myself another glass of vodka. Partly to distract from the pain of my arm, but partly because I don’t want to be alone in my head any longer.
I pray that, soon enough, I will have Julia back at my side again, where she belongs.
No matter what I have to sacrifice to make it happen.