Chapter 4
MICHAEL
There’s something dirty about killing one’s own brother, especially when it’s a brother you were once close with. Who’d die for you. Kill for you. But after what happened last year, and everything else in between, things have changed. For all of us.
Raphael is thirty-eight and two years older than me, and it would have been his rightful place to take over for my father as the head of the Messina family, but he didn’t want to. Neither did my father, and he wasn’t shy about telling Raph that.
Those two never got along. They hate each other.
So I knew, even before everything went to shit and Raph left, that one day the keys to the kingdom would be mine.
Raph still worked alongside Gio and I until he left, and I swore that one day, when I took over, he’d be my number two.
He deserved it more than anyone. He worked hard, but my father never saw it. Never cared.
“I won’t do it. Not yet.” I lean against the sofa in my home office.
My father sits across from me behind my desk. He may be the boss, but I’m second in command, and I don’t make decisions to suit anyone else.
He shakes his head and throws his hands in the air, staring up at the ceiling with a disapproving glower. Too bad for him, I couldn’t give two fucks about his disapproval.
His eyes snap to mine. “Then you’re a bigger fool than I thought. How do you expect to take over for me when you can’t even kill someone for going against the family?”
I fist a frustrated hand through my hair. “He isn’t just someone. He’s your son and our brother.”
Giovanni, my other brother—six years younger and my father’s consigliere—stands off to the side. His back’s against the door, arms over his chest as he observes wordlessly. He doesn’t want this either. But we all knew it was coming to this, didn’t we?
“He may be my son, but he’s ruining our business. And he almost put us at war with the Irish.” My father’s nostrils flare. “He’s proven he’s not on our side. I’m done. My hands are washed of him.”
He focuses hard on me, face tightening in the way it does when he gets angry.
“He’s an absolute embarrassment,” he continues. “And over a woman? I didn’t raise a pussy.” He shakes his head with revulsion. “He’s punishing us for what happened. He still blames us. Don’t you see that? He’ll never stop!”
He slams a fist against the desk, the pen holder tipping over, a single one scattering to the floor.
“Those men who came after you a week ago? Who the hell do you think sent them? You almost died!” He pounds another fist, his voice rising. “If you’re too weak to act, then I’ll handle it myself.”
“I’m not weak, and I’m not dead,” I practically growl, rising off my seat and nearing him, palms against the edge of the desk, my eyes set with a tight glare. “I will not kill my own brother without hearing from his mouth that he caused all of this.”
He throws his head back with a derisive laugh. “Are you listening to this, Gio?”
“Pop, he’s got a point. You don’t know for sure it’s him. It could be the Quinns wanting payback for what happened. We’ve gotta sit down with Patrick and find out what’s what before we assume Raph is fucking us over.”
“Not you too. Jesus fucking Christ! Did I raise men or a bunch of girls? The Irish have nothing to do with this.”
“I wouldn’t underestimate women these days, Pop,” Gio chuckles.
But his attempt at getting a laugh out of our father is fruitless. The man sees nothing beyond the opportunities we’ve lost on two occasions.
A few days ago, someone called up the feds to tip them off about the weapons we were buying from the Dominicans.
It was a bad fucking day. Lots of dead bodies on both sides, and I almost ended up being one of them.
Then yesterday, someone burned down the property we were going to buy for a new bar.
The fire captain we know said there was no doubt it was intentional.
Someone is fucking with us, and it’ll be a bad day for them when I finally enact my revenge.
Growing our legitimate empire has taken a lot of work, and no one will mess with what I’m trying to accomplish. I want my daughter to be proud of me and our name one day. This is for her as much as it is for us.
We own six restaurants and four bars right now, plus some hotels overseas, but we’ll be opening a lot more. I want the name Michael Marino to mean power. Legitimacy. There’s always more to accomplish, and it helps when you have the right individuals in your pocket.
Drugs, people…that’s not our thing. Gambling.
That’s where most of the dirty money first came from, especially online.
The family runs a few illegal underground casinos too, and that still brings in a lot of cash and a lot of trouble, especially when people can’t pay back what they owe.
And if they can’t pay, they do it with their life. It’s how it is.
“How do you know the Irish weren’t behind the hit on me?” I ask, straightening as I uncuff my shirt, pulling up the sleeves to my elbows.
The day plays in my head. That could’ve been it.
Sophia would be an orphan. The bullet came out of nowhere while I was in the parking lot of one of our bars after hours.
But it didn’t get me. I got lucky. But the son of a bitch ended up dead, tossed in the ocean where the sharks will have at him.
We couldn’t identify him. He wasn’t connected to any syndicate we knew of.
“I had a call with Patrick right after,” my father goes on. “And he personally assured me they weren’t behind it.”
“You believed him? Now you’re friends all of a sudden?” I laugh humorlessly, returning to my spot.
My father has never liked the Irish. Despises them. There’s history there he doesn’t talk about.
“Friends, no. But I know how to keep my enemies close. And yes, I can tell when the son of a bitch lies.” He rubs his chin with two fingers. “If he said it wasn’t them, then it wasn’t them.”
He curses under his breath.
“I didn’t raise an idiot, Michael. Have you learned nothing from me? No mercy for the enemy, and that’s who your brother is now.”
That’s my father’s favorite line. No mercy for the enemy. We’ve lived and breathed it like a code of honor. Our enemies always fall.
And if my brother is behind any of this, he’ll die for it. No one goes against the family and lives to tell about it.
“If he’s doing all of this, I’ll put the bullet in him myself,” I grit. “But I won’t harm him until I know it was him. We have lots of enemies. Any one of them could’ve done this.”
“Sure, we do. But only one we can confirm still hates us.” He sighs. “He’s not coming back to us, boys. It’s been a year since he threw his life to shit.” He looks at both of us. “If we don’t do it, someone else will. The Irish, for starters.”
Raph isn’t easy to kill. He’s living off the grid in a well-guarded house, surrounded by more trees and even more foot soldiers. We can’t just show up. His men are loyal to him, guarding the place twenty-four seven. If we come for him, we have to be prepared. We all know this.
My father pulls in a long inhale, shutting his eyes for a moment before he punctures me with another cold stare.
“Ever since it happened, he’s not well, Michael. You know it; you just don’t want to admit it. I know you love him.” His brows tug. “I do too.”
He pumps his fist against his chest.
“But he’s lost to us. He’s like a dying animal. It’s a mercy to end his life.” He slowly shakes his head. “He’s living like a recluse in that house, hiding out in those woods and doing what he can to ruin us. Soon enough no one will have respect for the name I worked hard for.”
He blows an exasperated breath, his gray mustache rising.
“By the time you take over, our name will mean nothing, and the men will not respect you.”
A long stretch of silence falls over the room while I think about a life without Raph in it. He’s right to blame us. It’s every bit our fault.
But the Irish denied it. We have no proof otherwise, and starting a war with no proof is not how I run business.
That’s when people stop respecting you, and fear and respect have to go hand in hand, or else the name my father fights so hard for will be known for cowardice. And I’m not a fucking coward.
“You’d better figure this out soon,” my father says. “I won’t wait until he ruins us so bad, we can’t climb out of it.”
“That won’t happen.” My tone is clipped.
“We’ll see.” He jerks a shoulder, staring hard at me and leaning back into the swivel chair.
Silence grabs the room as he focuses on the ceiling for a few seconds until he opens his mouth again.
“You find a wife yet?”
And for once, I’m glad we’ve changed topics, though this one irritates me just as much.
“Since Chiara is not an option, you have to decide, and soon.”
The muscle in my eyelid twitches. “Never wanted Chiara to begin with.”
Gio barks out a chuckle, and I flip my eyes up to him with a deathly glare.
Amusement plays in his eyes as he forces himself to shut up.
“You’d better find a wife quickly,” my father scoffs. “Or I’ll find one for you, and the last two times I tried, you rejected them. Your old man wants to retire already.”
It’s all he’s thought about in these last couple of months. Wanting to go buy a house somewhere abroad with Mom. Says he’s getting too old for this life and deserves to relax.
“I’m giving you two weeks,” he says. “That’s it.”
“What?” My voice rises in volume. “There’s no way I can find someone in two weeks.”
“Well…” He rises to his feet, fixing his black suit jacket and pulling it down. “You’d better, or you’ll marry the last one I chose.” He breathes in a deep sigh. “You need to show our people you’re a man, and a man has a family. You don’t have to love her.”
A leery grin creeps over his mouth.
“You can still do whatever you want with whoever you want. I did with your mother.”
“I don’t want to hear it.” My body stiffens like every other time he talks about Mom that way.
That’s not what I want from a marriage. Not that I want one at all.
Not anymore. Not in the world I’m in. I once thought I could have it all, find a wife good enough to be a mother to my Sophia, but that all changed a year ago.
There’s no place for a woman here. It’s either this life or a family.
I can’t have both. Life has proven that.
It’s enough that I have Sophia to protect, to constantly worry about.
But I have to do this. It’s the only way…
“Gross, Pop.” Gio grimaces.
“I’m just saying.” He chuckles. “That Valentina was a pretty thing. You saw her ass, right? I’d marry her just for that ass.”
“You’re fucking sixty-five.” I shake my head. “She’s twenty. Why are you looking at her ass?”
He shrugs, marching toward the door. “I may be old, but my eyes and my dick work just fine.”
“Okay, yeah, we’re not doing this.” Gio rubs his temple as he steps aside, giving our father room.
“Get it done, Michael.” He points at me. “Two weeks. That’s it.”
“I’ll get it done.”
Fuck me.
“Good.” He opens the door with a triumphant grin. “Now excuse me, I’ve got some business calls to make before I go and buy your mother some new jewelry.”
“What’d you do now, Pop?” Gio looks to him for an answer.
But instead, our father walks out the door.
“Think he had another affair?” Gio asks once we hear him leave.
“It’s our father.” I glare. “Of course he did. It’s what he does.” My head shakes with vitriol and disgust. “I don’t know how the hell she’s put up with it for this long.”
“Not like she can divorce him.”
“I don’t want that,” I tell him.
Gio plants himself on the opposite side of the sofa and looks hard at me. “What do you want, then?”