Chapter 28
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Fabien
The Present
Saint enters the attorney/client room, his face unreadable. “Is Angelo dead?” I cut straight to the chase.
“No. The King of Carnaval ceremony went off without a hitch,” he reports, taking his seat and opening his briefcase.
My fist pounds the table. “Kirksey is starting to piss me off.”
“Not that I’m defending your cellmate, but Angelo does have tight security around him,” Saint points out.
Former military is running my brother’s detail. It’s annoying.
“Have you made contact with Nic again?”
Saint slices his head. “I’m still putting the squeeze on him.”
“Fucking squeeze my cousin till he pops like an overripe grape from a Tuscany vineyard.” Having learned my lesson, I don’t fantasize about how the wine would taste. “Paper and pen.”
Saint produces those for me, and I scrawl out an angry letter.
Nic,
I haven’t forgotten your role in my girl being fished out of a dumpster. I also haven’t forgotten that I’m the rightful boss of this family. You’re either with me or against me.
Choose your side.
Fabien
“Deliver this to my cousin at gunpoint, and don’t leave until you get his reply.”
“Yes, boss. And your wife sent you this.” He produces a letter from his briefcase.
With a grin, I unfold it, but my excitement’s short-lived.
“Pen and paper.” Saint produces those, and I get to work on my defense.
Fabien
Eighteen-years-old
I knock briskly on my old man’s door, and I’m beckoned inside.
“You wanted to see me?” I ask Papà, who’s seated behind his desk.
He tents his fingers, eyeing me down, and I force myself not to squirm under his harsh gaze. “What’s this I hear about ice?”
My chest puffs out. “Opened my own company. Thought ice would be a good complementary business with our seafood company—”
“You thought. That was your first mistake,” he taunts, and I choke down the budding anger. “My seafood company has used the same ice vendor for nearly fifty years. You think I’m going to risk that working relationship because you thought?”
“No, Papà.” What I really thought was that for once, he’d be proud of my initiative.
“Muscle is your strong suit. Don’t forget it.” With the flick of his hand, I’m dismissed.
My annoying little brother is lingering in the hallway, and I have half a mind to bust his nose for eavesdropping.
“Don’t think about it.” Angelo tsks. “Not your strong suit.”
His nose remains unbroken, only because I don’t wanna hear about it from Mama, but I do give him a parting shoulder check as I storm out of the house.
Behind the wheel of my car, I let out my frustration with a shout, giving the steering wheel a few punches. My foot slams the pedal as I drive aimlessly, and eventually make my way to Hotel D’Amico.
Entering the bar, I reach behind it and grab myself a whiskey bottle and glass, helping myself. Fucking dare Michele to say anything to me right now.
“Rough day?” A working girl by the name of Chantelle bellies up next to me.
“You could say that.” I tip back the booze in one gulp.
She wraps her arms around mine. “I could help make it better. On the house.”
Haven’t told anyone I’m still a virgin; that’d be one more thing for my old man to haze me over.
“Let’s go,” I tell her, ushering her out and to the front desk.
After what I can only imagine was a mediocre fuck for her, I clean myself up, shove down my shame, and leave the hotel.
Arriving at my office, I fall into the chair behind my desk. My head lands in my hands. Having just pretended to be a man in bed, now I’m fooling myself by pretending to be a boss.
My phone buzzes, and I grab it from my pocket. There’s a video, and I open the thumbnail, the floor beneath my feet having disappeared.
It’s a recording of Chantelle and me fucking in the hotel room.
There’s nothing you do that I don’t see. You thought you were going to build your own Calvani empire and undercut mine? Who the fuck do you think you are? You’ll earn the scraps I give you, boy. Do you understand me?
Ever the good little bitch, I reply to Vitto.
Understood.
Fabien
The present
“Delivery of this letter takes priority; Sienna takes priority.” I fold the paper and pass it to Saint.
“Understood.”
Sadly, I’m the one who didn’t understand it, and here we are.
The meeting with my attorney comes to an end, and I get back to the mind-numbing schedule.
“Welcome back,” Kirksey greets me as I join him in the yard, and the pitiful excuse for a patch of grass.
“Tell me why the package wasn’t delivered at Lundi Gras?” I seethe.
He lifts his shoulder. “The good times did not roll?”
“Do I look fucking amused?” I tell him between my teeth.
“No, but you should be laughing.”
“Waiting for the punchline,” I tell him impatiently.
“Ahh, but the punchline will be Angelo when you deliver the message yourself, should you get an early release.”
I shake my head. “Not with the way my sentence was worded. I’m not eligible for parole.
” Vitto is getting the last laugh from the grave, having owned everyone in my case, including the judge and my former lawyer.
Yes, I fucked up in the way I handled Ringer, but I’m doing ten years because my old man declared it so.
“Trust me, my lawyer has already barked up that tree.”
“Might want to bark up that tree again. Word is the warden is itching for early retirement. ‘Recalculation’ of time served could be on the table, for the right price. No parole necessary.”
“Why tell me and not take the deal yourself?” I point out.
“Sadly, my pockets aren’t that deep, or I would’ve snatched it up. But say you get out early: a surprise family reunion.” He lays it out with the flourish of his hand, like a used car salesman.
My arms crossed, I consider. “I don’t have a crew to pull off that kind of delivery.” Ex-military security detail plus family soldiers? I’m not down for a suicide mission.
“But I do. For the right price,” Kirksey amends.
“And there it is,” I say dryly.
He holds up his hands. “Hey, you don’t think I got this far on my good looks?”
I chuckle. The man admittedly has an ugly mug. “What are your terms?”
“An introduction with your family’s ski instructor, and I keep the delivery payment as a show of goodwill.”
“The goodwill, I’m fine with, but no on the introduction.” No fucking way I’m giving up our supplier’s identity and losing my family’s place as solo distributor for the Gulf Coast. “But I’m happy to offload some ski equipment.”
“I’d be agreeable to that, but only if we created an alliance; an ongoing working and personal relationship,” he counters.
“Meaning?”
“Marriage alliance.”
Those two words send a chill down my spine. “Sorry, Kirksey, even if I wasn’t a married man, you’re not my type,” I joke, shrugging away the unease from my shoulders.
“Fuck off,” he snaps. “I’m talking about your sister.”
My eyes narrow to slits. “Al’s seventeen.”
“No shit? When she’s eighteen, then.”
Over my dead fucking body. And once I’m out of prison, over his.
“Deal.”
We shake on Kirksey’s death warrant, and I get to work issuing Angelo’s.