CHAPTER 22 - RED
CHAPTER
Red
“SO, YOU COME round here unannounced and risk being fucking followed? You’re prepared to give away the location of this safe house just to give me a round of abuse about why I’m not at the casino?”
I want to smash Oscar’s teeth down his throat for this. “I’m using all of my power, every single second, protecting that woman up there - my wife - who I love, yes, fucking love, from further harm, and you’re moaning about decisions about a delivery that’s due?”
I pace the small section of kitchen floor space. The place is driving me crazy. The whole thing is driving me crazy.
“If you’d given me or Liam the clout to close deals with the fucking Irish, then we wouldn’t have that bastard mick on our case about only dealing with the ‘organ grinder’!
” Oscar’s arms fold across his chest; his very stance aggravates me.
“The delivery of semi-autos is due tomorrow, Red - tomorrow, yet I can’t sign the fucking thing off!
We have customers lined up waiting for this drop!
Have you any idea how that will look? Yet all you care about is. ..”
“Fuck the customers!” I roar. “They can wait for their weapons.” Snatching my cigarettes from my pocket, I fumble with my lighter, but I’m so angry I can barely hold the fucking thing straight.
“You’re allowing the Scorpio to go down the pan, and I ain’t having it! Don’t insult Dad’s hard work by letting things slip by the wayside and...”
“Insult Dad?” Throwing my cigarette to the floor, I lurch at Oscar. Grabbing him by the lapels of his suit, I yank him against me. “I insult no one, least of all, Dad! He’d understand exactly why I’m not at the casino right now, so don’t even go there.”
“Fuck’s sake,” Oscar mutters, jerking out of my grip.
He smooths his jacket down. “Have you seen yourself? You look like shit. You don’t smell much better either and you’re sweating like a pig.
Are you ill? I told you to get that bullet wound properly treated by one of our quacks. If it’s infected...”
“It’s not infected! I’ve taken several bullets in my life as you know, and it’s not infected.
I don’t care what I look like either. That’s the least of my fucking concerns.
Do you not understand anything? What’s the matter with you?
” Liam’s usually the one to play his face about my decisions, not Oscar.
Now they’re both on my case? Well, I don’t fucking need it. I don’t need any of this shit.
“There’s nothing the matter with me,” Oscar continues, his face creased with a fury I seldom see.
“It’s what’s the matter with you is that’s our concern.
Putting yourself up to Matteo Galvatore as decoy was one thing but allowing him to shoot you first was plain crazy!
” Oscar pulls his hand over his face, pausing as his fingers reach his chin.
“Jesus Christ, Red. That cunt almost killed you. Even when you had him cornered, you didn’t kill him.
Why was honoring your word to that lying old bastard so important that you wouldn’t strike until he’d talked to his son?
You knew the old cunt would take Matteo’s word over yours. ”
“I told you it was the only way to get Matteo’s address. However, honoring my word after that is something I’ve come to seriously regret,” I admit.
Oscar sighs, slightly relenting. “Look, I know you’re cut up about Arianna.
Fuck me, I saw with my own eyes that she’d had a bad time, but she’s back now.
Surely she can’t expect you to babysit her forever?
You’ve taken a bullet, sold your fucking soul and nearly ruined our firm in order to get her back.
How much further are you willing to go?”
“As far as I have to,” I mutter. “I’ll do whatever I need to do to keep her safe, even if that means losing everything else I have and everything I’ve worked for.”
“Then you’re not being fair to anyone.” Oscar’s temper flares once more.
“Cal Bennett is doing the job of ten men. Liam and I are snowed under running the different arms of the business while people demand to speak to you and you only. People are talking about your absence. They need to see you at the Scorpio, not AWOL. There’s only so long a honeymoon period you can expect everyone to swallow. ”
I stare at Oscar. Honeymoon period? My frayed temper, lack of sleep and general frustration overflow and before I can stop myself, I swing for my brother, clumping him straight in the jaw. “Shut the fuck up!”
Caught off guard, Oscar crashes into the small kitchen table. The weight of his muscular frame breaks the front legs, and both he and the table end up on the kitchen lino.
I stand frozen, not following up with further punches. I shouldn’t have hit him. I’ve never lost my temper with Oscar like this before, but this is different. I’m cold, detached, unable to feel anything but the urge to kill. But the people I want to kill more badly than breathing aren’t here.
I speak, my level and low voice belying the burning hot rage for everything I can’t fix.
“The next person to tell me I should be in the casino and running the place, rather than protecting my wife, I will kill,” I seethe.
“That includes you, Liam, and any other fucker, do you understand? I’ll protect Arianna for as long as I live.
Until I extinguish Matteo Galvatore and Luca Bristoni, as well as everyone associated with them, I’ll be here 24/7. ”
Oscar remains lying on the table looking up at me like he’s never seen me before. He’s seen me angry plenty of times, but maybe I’m now physically exhibiting the possessed, psychotic look I feel within each of my cells.
I pull out a fresh cigarette, the previous one having seared a hole through the vinyl floor as it burned itself out. The room smells of burning plastic, sweat and rage.
Lighting up my smoke, I lean against the worktop and take regular breaths to reestablish equilibrium. “By your shitty comments, I take it Liam didn’t fill you in this morning about Matteo dropping a note off inviting me and Arianna to her sister’s wedding? The wedding to Luca Bristoni?”
Oscar frowns. “He didn’t say... I haven’t seen him since yest...”
“I phoned Emiliano Galvatore and demanded he tell me where Matteo and Luca are because he knows their exact location!” My eyes light up with pure rage.
“I also told him to call the wedding off. He refused on both counts, telling me in no uncertain terms that Matteo has done ‘nothing untoward’. He basically said what I’d told him about this pureblood shit involving both his daughters was bollocks.
Apparently, Maria and Arianna are political currency. ”
Oscar whistles through his teeth. “Fuck!”
“And,” I continue, “Matteo, the cunt, added a note along with the invite, reminding me that I haven’t ‘won’ and intends to reclaim what is ‘his’.”
Oscar blanches. “You mean...?”
“Yep.” I take a long drag of my cigarette, watching a curl of blue smoke wisping up to coil near the ceiling.
“He’ll come for Arianna again and as you can probably guess by the invite, the sister will be brought into this fucking ‘pureblood’ shit too, so if you think I’ll leave that woman upstairs even for one second until they’re dead and gone, then. ..”
“I’m sorry, bruv. I had no idea.” Oscar accepts the hand I offer, and I pull him up from the floor. “I wouldn’t have come here or said...”
“She hates me, you know?” I don’t look at Oscar.
If I do, he’ll see how much I bleed and how much I’ve died inside.
“Arianna has nightmares. She’s fucking utterly traumatized from what those bastards have done, and it’s killing me that there’s nothing I can do to help her.
She blames me and thinks I’m part of it.
” I crush the unsmoked half of my cigarette with my fingers, hoping it burns me.
“How can she think you’re part of it? You’ve done everything you could to...”
“I should have done more. I could have done more!” I bark, my voice cracking. I promised myself I wouldn’t speak of this, but the floodgates are now open. “If I’d checked the car or kept Arianna with me instead of sending her to the Mayfair apartment during that bomb scare, then...”
I’m back to pacing the room, my hair free of my ponytail to hang scraggy and unwashed around my shoulders.
Oscar weighs up what to say before speaking. He knows me well enough not to go over or question how I feel or to expect me to discuss it further than I already have. That I’ve said anything at all about this is an anomaly.
“What are you going to do about Matteo and Luca?”
I turn to Oscar, my eyes dark and unrelenting. “Kill them. As soon as I find where they’re hiding, I’m having them. In the interim, Arianna will not be left unguarded for a second.”
“When were you going to mention any of this to me?” Pushing open the kitchen door, Arianna appears in the doorway, her face white and pinched.
My eyes track to the wedding invitation and the note from Matteo clutched in her hand, along with the knowledge that she’s heard some, if not all, of what’s been said – the very opposite of what I want. “Oscar, could you leave us, please?”