I was numb from the inside out. I felt like I could get stabbed or shot. When it came right down to it, it was actually pretty good for business. Things I cared about no longer made a difference to me, I was finally hardened enough to exist in the organization without hesitation. All those conversations I’d had with Luca about getting out and having a domestic, happy life were far in the distance now. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that those weren’t luxuries we were afforded as Varasso men. We’d taken the strength buff upon spawning and gave up the happiness trait in exchange. I supposed it was only fair. We couldn’t be as strong and powerful as we were and live happy, stress-free lives. That would be stacking the deck.
“Are you sure you’re up to dealing with the kids, still?” Luca asked.
“Why don’t I just go straight to Horatio?” I asked. “I don’t feel like babysitting.”
“Because if Horatio is working for the Binachis, he’d probably let you take his life to keep from turning on them, but if we have his kids, he has a reason to talk,” Luca explained.
“Yeah, I’ll get him to talk,” I replied flatly. “I know everything about his family. If I shove a gun down his throat and promise him that his lovely wife and cute kids won’t live if I don’t get the information I’m looking for, I’m guaranteeing you, he’ll talk.”
“You don’t sound like yourself,” Molly commented.
I shrugged. “So what? Isn’t this better?” I looked at Luca. “You said so yourself, we either do this all the way or not at all.”
“This isn’t what I meant,” Luca huffed.
“Isn’t it?” I said, standing up. “This is exactly what the business needs. I don’t know what the fuck I was thinking anyway. I’m not some weak-minded, lovey-dovey guy. I’ll go talk to Horatio, get what I need, put some steel in him for being a snitch, and then I’ll find whichever Binachi is threatening Marco and take him out, too.”
“Things aren’t that easy, and you know it,” Luca responded, then he shot a glare at Gabriel. “Will you talk some sense into him?”
Gabriel looked up at me. “He’s right, Sandro. If you get reckless, you could end up getting killed.”
“Whatever,” I said. “I’ll take them down with me.”
“Sandro,” Molly hummed.
“It’s not worth it. We’re trying to protect our brother, not lose one,” Gabriel said.
I looked down at him, saw that innocent expression in his eyes, and it pissed me off. “You’re barely our brother. So what does it matter to you?”
Gabriel recoiled and then dropped his head. “Sorry.”
Luca stood up from his desk, slamming his hands on it in the process. “That’s enough. You don’t believe that shit, and it isn’t true. Any blood is blood.”
I couldn’t believe him. To have the audacity to stand in my face and defend Gabriel like he hadn’t been horrible to him ever since my dad first brought Gabriel home. He sided with my mom and felt like Gabriel was a stain on our family. He abused him every day, leaving me to protect him. If it weren’t for me, Luca probably would have put a bullet in Gabriel the day my dad died. He didn’t give a shit about the stuff my dad stood for, only his own ego.
“Oh, now you’re going to defend him?” I said with a dark chortle. “Where has that been the entire time you’ve been running him around like a pack mule and degrading him to his face? Now you want to jump to his aid? Why? So you look strong in front of your wife? I’m the strongest of all four of us, and she knows it. If only I’d walked into her bedroom first.”
“Alessandro,” Gabriel huffed.
Luca walked around his desk, anger permeating off of him.
Molly stood up. “Luca, he’s just upset right now.”
He stepped up to me until we were nose to nose. “Say something about my wife again and see if I don’t cave your fucking skull in.”
“I stopped being afraid of you years ago, brother,” I growled. “If you had the balls to cave my skull in, you would have done it already. Now, if it’s quite all right with you, I’m going to go and do what a real leader would have done weeks ago. I’m going to go handle our business.”
I turned around and started walking out. I felt a hand on my shoulder, but I flipped around and pushed it away, sending Gabriel tumbling backward and tripping over the chair behind him. Molly jumped out and caught him just before his head made contact with the corner of Luca’s desk. Luca charged forward and tossed a punch at me, but I ducked it and swung in response, cracking the bones of his cheek beneath my knuckle. My hand stung, but Luca collapsed to the ground with his blood spattering across the carpet. With him out of the way, I continued out of the room, just barely hearing Luca say, “Let him go, if he gets a bullet in the back, that’s his fucking problem,” as I walked.
I made arrangements to have our dad’s private jet shuttle me to California. I already had all of the information I needed to take care of things myself. Luca still had a wife and children holding him back, but I had nothing. I looked at my dad’s rings on my fingers, thinking that he gave them to the right son. He’d known who would eventually need to sit at his desk. Luca was weak. He clung to joys that weren’t his to have, and that would ruin us. I felt the spirit of my dad situating itself among my bones. He was right to rule with an iron fist. It was the only thing that could get the job done. Emotions were for the broken, and as the jet touched down in California, it hit me. I was no Varasso prince. I was meant to be the true king of the family. My father knew it, and now I knew it, too.
I would take care of things with Marco first, and then when I got back to Philly. I would take my rightful seat on the throne. This organization and family belonged to me and me alone. I guess I had Willow to thank for that. If she hadn’t left, I would never have realized that. The last thing, the only good thing she did before she left me behind. Even with the death of our relationship, she’d made me stronger.
I headed to southern California, first to meet up with a few of our connections, and then I’d fully arm myself. There was every possibility that L.A. was crawling with Binachis, and I needed to be prepared if one of them tried to get the jump on me.
I scanned the vast array of weaponry our south dealer had. Assault rifles, pistols, gauges. If it shot bullets, he had it in his arsenal.
“I gotta say, you weren’t the Varasso I expected to be the first to come to see me,” the weapons dealer, Faci, grumbled, the huge stitched scar on his face shimmering in the light of his shack shop.