3. — the prodigal problem. #3
He’d decided years ago that he liked Sal.
The same night he hugged a broken, sad boy, told him it was okay, and tried to apologize.
Something no other man in his life had done for him up until that moment.
Walking into that same man’s office to see the photographs of his daughter proudly displayed only cemented Nico’s feelings.
Salvatore grinned. “I don’t need you to like me. What I need from you boils down to three things. If you care to hear them.”
Nico considered it. “I’m a taker, Sal. I rarely give, and if I do, I’m gonna take to make up for it.”
“A bargain, then?”
That piqued his interest. “What do you mean?”
Sal put his pointer finger up to his lips and then tipped it like a bullet coming in Nico’s direction. “Give me three reasonable things that you want, and I’ll tell you three equally reasonable things I expect in return for you to earn them.”
“Earn—”
“Are we bargaining or bitching?”
Nico drank the last gulp of coffee from his cup. “Any restrictions?”
It took Salvatore a moment to respond. “If your name doesn’t control access to it, then I’m shit out of luck. Or you are, whatever.”
“I want my vehicles. For obvious reasons. Also, I’d like to see my sister. That one might not be so easy, given my father won’t even speak to me, but I can work up to it.”
“All right. And your last thing?”
Nico didn’t even have to think about it. It was a pipe dream, and he knew it. A carrot that hadn’t even been dangled for him when the chaos of his life dominated what he could have been if things were different.
“The button.”
He wanted his in. He wanted to be made. A made man.
“In that order?” Salvatore asked.
Nico laughed. “Any order.”
A nod answered him back. “Okay, here are mine. These aren’t in any order because they’re all equally important, and there are no exceptions. Are we clear?”
“Like crystal.”
“One—respect.”
“Could have guessed it,” Nico said.
Sal didn’t even smile. “The way you behave reflects on me. Perhaps you don’t care that people see your father through a view of your making, and maybe he’s earned it, but I’m not him. I don’t care if you hate the person looking you straight in the face, you keep that shit to yourself. Understood?”
“Got it. Two?”
“Stop, drop, and roll, kiddo. If I say jump, you ask how high. No questions asked.”
Nico’s jaw clenched. “I’m not a child.”
“Do you think you’re ever gonna get the button if you can’t follow a simple order, hmm?”
He had a point. “And three?” Nico asked, opting to leave number two up to his own discretion.
“Three is the one that matters, personally, to me the most.”
“Okay.”
Sal exhaled slowly. “No lying. Ever. Again, no exceptions. If I ask, you tell. If something’s happened, I need to know.
Omission is still lying. Changing a detail for whatever reason is still a lie.
I need honesty. I’ve got enough bullshit on my plate coming from every corner of life, be the one thing that I don’t have to worry about catching me up in something I could have done without. Simple.”
“Yeah, simple,” he echoed.
“Good. Let’s test it.”
Nico straightened in the chair, placing the mug to the glass coffee table. “How?”
“Last night,” Sal stated, “what were you doing?”
“Scouting. It took thirty minutes before I got bored, and you didn’t say I couldn’t go outside. You just said I couldn’t leave the walled-in section.”
“Yet, you did jump over the wall.”
Nico shrugged. “I thought I had a good reason to.”
“Yes, my daughter. Remember what I said, omitting is still a lie.”
His chest became tighter. Nico sucked on his teeth before asking, “What, do you want a play by play of what went down, or...?”
“I’m just trying to figure out the details that Larkin couldn’t fill in for me this morning.”
“Who’s omitting now?”
Surprise flitted across Salvatore’s face. “Excuse me?”
“What you’re not saying, and what I already figured out last night while scouting, is that you have a blind spot in your cameras back there.”
At that, Salvatore sat back in the leather chair and wove his fingers together, staying silent.
“Right in the area I chose to be. The two closest cameras weren’t moving like others I saw, and so I figured the gate between the two sections, nearby hose, and the pin cherry tree all happened to be in that blind spot.
I wondered how long it would take before someone came looking.
They had to know I was outside; I needed to use the fob to open the door leading to the back, after all. ”
“All because you were bored, huh?”
“I could have done worse,” Nico admitted and to others, he had.
Salvatore rubbed at his mouth a little. “And Frankie just what, came upon you?”
Yeah, shit. Nico hadn’t thought this far. He’d just made a deal not to lie, too.
“Not really. I mean, you know she runs, right?” Nico asked, wondering if the man could fill in his own blanks regarding his daughter’s secret.
Salvatore said nothing.
“Because that’s what she was doing. For an hour. Maybe a little more or a little less. I wasn’t exactly trying to get her attention. That just happened to be where she stopped. My guess is, because she also knows your cameras aren’t picking her up there. You’re not seeing how the running ends.”
Without warning, Salvatore leaned forward and jammed a finger against the phone on the desk. Almost instantly, a buzz echoed, and a voice came over the speaker.
“Yes, Mr. Gallo?”
“Sissy, could I have a word?”
“Sure, I’ll be—”
“Now.”
Nico moved to stand. “Should I go or not?”
“Sit.”
He did. Stop, drop, and roll, after all.
Less than two minutes later, a knock echoed on the office doors. The maid, or whatever she was, given her comfortable, casual clothing, didn’t wait to be called in before she opened the door. As if she had done this very thing many times before and knew it wouldn’t be a problem.
Her dark eyes scanned the room, picking up on Nico quickly, and then moving onto Salvatore where she didn’t look away. “Yes?”
“When did Francesca get home yesterday?”
“Right after her game.”
“Who brought her home?”
“The boyfriend.”
Nico made a face that no one else noticed. A boyfriend? He bet that asshole played football and looked like a good face to punch.
“And then what did she do?” Salvatore questioned, steely eyes never wavering from their target.
“Had a snack while we chatted a bit.”
“About?”
“Is there a problem?”
Salvatore’s lips pursed, his expression fading into a blank canvas. “I don’t know, Sissy. Is there one? Is there something I should know?”
Nico glanced over his shoulder just in time to see the woman wring her hands together. “She’s been running again...she usually does when you’re gone. But you know that, you know she—”
“I know she’s ten pounds underweight, practices a minimum of four days a week, three hours a shot, and doesn’t have any fucking reason to be running herself sick. Just like you know it, too! We’ve been over this, Sissy. She needs to find better ways to cope.”
“And she does. When you’re home.”
A fist slammed against the desk. “Fuck!”
That was Nico’s cue. He stood up, scratching at the side of his cheek out of awkwardness. “I’m gonna go back to the guesthouse now, if that’s all right?”
Sal barely passed him a look. “I’ll call for Larkin. You stay in the hallway. I want one month where you do exactly as I say, and we’ll see about getting a start on what you want. Got it?”
Nico nodded fast. “Yeah, I got it.”
Then, his attention turned on Sissy again. “And you—you get my daughter up, right now.”
“But Sal—”
“Now.”
Even he moved his ass to get out of that office. Nico heard a lot of men use a certain type of voice to be heard and command attention. His own father had a special tone he reserved for Nico as well, but even that, fists and all, didn’t put the fear of God into him the way Salvatore just did.
Now he felt bad.
Except what Frankie did, it wasn’t good. Clearly, those around her understood as much, too. If she cared to hear it, then he would apologize for his part another time.
Nico still leaned against the wall outside the office, next to the opened door, waiting for Larkin to show up when Frankie appeared at the end of the hallway.
Still in silk pajama shorts and a tank, and pink slides, her hair looked slept in.
She seemed to have shrunk in on herself overnight.
With her head down, she picked at the side of her thumbnail and only stopped when she was close enough that her field of vision caught sight of Nico’s footwear.
She glanced up, wet eyes already rimmed with tears. The time to apologize was now. Nico chewed on his inner cheek, and mumbled, “I’m sorry.”
It wasn’t good enough. He could tell before she said a thing.
“Yeah, well, fuck you, too.”
He let her have that and took it in silence. She strolled past him with her chin up and headed inside Salvatore’s office. The yelling started immediately, carrying out where he heard every aching word.
One, hateful.
The other, pleading.
Nico got it, then. He understood. Sal’s common ground? His daughter. Sometimes she hated him. He loved her, anyway.