All my life, the people around that manor looked at me with relief in their eyes. Thank god it was the weak Varasso coming, there was nothing to be afraid of. I wanted people to fear me like they feared my brothers or my father. Maybe if they did, Stacy wouldn’t have a thousand cords sticking out of her right now.
I carried myself up the two flights of stairs to the third floor of the Varasso estate, where all of our business took place. At the end of a long hallway was Luca’s office, the one that used to be my dad’s. I stormed towards it, grabbed the door, and pushed the door aside without knocking. Inside, Luca, Alessandro, Marco, and Molly were scattered around. Their voices broke across briefly when I opened the door but ceased immediately at the sight of me.
“Where the hell have you been?” Luca barked. “I’ve been calling.”
I didn’t respond. My gaze had already landed on Alessandro in a leer I was hoping would ignite him.
“What the fuck are you looking at?” he asked, deep darkness in his voice.
I had no idea what impulse I was acting on, but all of a sudden, my gun was in my hand, cocked and aimed at Alessandro’s face. Marco was up a second later with his gun pointed at me, while Luca and Molly sat in silent shock. I felt like the real me was out there amongst them somewhere, standing and watching the scene unfold with just as much surprise.
“Gabe, what the fuck?” Marco asked. He took a step towards me, and my head whipped towards him.
“Don’t! Stay away from me!”
Alessandro looked up at me with not an ounce of fear in his eyes. A vicious smile curled across his face. “You gonna shoot me, Gabe?”
He stood up in spite of the danger. My gun followed his movements. He pressed his forehead against the barrel and carried it to stand with him at full height. “Go ahead.”
“Don’t antagonize him, Alessandro,” Luca warned, but if Alessandro heard him, he didn’t react.
“I don’t know whether to be angry or proud,” Alessandro said. “Looks like you finally found your dick. Glad you see you have one.”
“Sandro.” Marco didn’t move and kept his gun trained on me, but his glare was on Alessandro. “He’s hurting right now.”
My gun shifted to Marco. “Don’t pretend to know what I’m going through. How’s that pretty wife of yours, Marco? When are you headed back to California to be the Petersons. Tell me, do you meet up with the Johnsons for barbecues on Sundays? How is that? I bet that’s nice. Don’t act—”
I didn’t get the rest of the sentence out before I was knocked to the ground with my gun flying across the room. Alessandro struggled to get me around to my back, but the second I had the space to do so, I sent a punch right for his face. It knocked him across the cheek. The feeling of another person’s flesh caving in around my fist was strange but not unwelcome. I wanted to hurt Alessandro. If
all I could cause was a microscopic version of the hurt he’d brought on Stacy, I’d be happy if he buried lead into my chest a moment later. I tried to get another swing out, but Alessandro held down one of my arms with his knee and the other with his left hand. His right cocked back above his head and came smashing across my cheek, sending a flare of pain through me and filling my mouth with the metallic taste of blood.
I was smaller than Alessandro, so I had a wider range of movement. I dug my boots into the ground and used all the force I had to throw my head up. I got just enough momentum to bring my torso up off the ground, even under Alessandro’s weight, and my head collided with his, dragging out another flash of searing hurt. Alessandro fell backward, and I clamored to my feet. I stood over him and with no remorse, jumped off the ground and brought one of my black boots down hard into his stomach. He let out a loud groan as blood trickled down from his forehead to match that I could feel seeping down my own. It was a good thing my gun had been knocked away because I might have shot at the stupid smile on his face on impulse. Instead, I settled for another boot to the stomach.
At lightning speed, Alessandro’s hands clamped around my ankle and pulled. It was almost enough to take my feet out from under me, but I grabbed the wall next to me for bracing and stayed upright. I kicked my foot forward, crashing it against Alessandro’s chin, and hearing an unruly crunch. I backed away. The sound was enough to bring me to my senses. Alessandro sat up and spit off to his left, creating a new pool of blood where the patches he’d brought from Luca when he snapped had already dried nearby. With the spittle of red came a small white dot—the corner of a tooth. Alessandro cracked his head to the left, and my stomach turned over. It looked just like my dad.
“Marco.” Luca’s voice was barely audible, but Marco stepped between us, his gun in one hand pointing at Alessandro and my gun in the other, aimed for me.
Luca looked at me with a fierceness in his eyes I’d never seen before. “Enough.”
“Keep pointing that gun at me, and you’re next,” Alessandro hissed at Marco.
Luca’s hands slammed down on his desk as he stood up. “I said enough!” He walked around the desk, cocked his fist back, and punched me right across the face, knocking me back onto the couch against his wall.
“You know better than to turn your gun and your fucking fist against your brother,” Luca growled at me in a guttural tone I’d never heard escape his lips before. “Don’t think for a second that I’m going to let you come in here and start doing whatever the fuck you want just because you’re grieving. That’s now how we do shit, and you know that.”
“He went rogue,” I said back to Luca. “He compromised our entire operation and got your wife and children threatened in a grocery store. What if he’d gotten the jump on Molly? Where would Anna and Antonio be?”
“Knock it off.”
I looked past him at Marco. “The stress must be wearing on Kelly. Do you think the baby will be okay?”
Luca took a step towards me, looming over me. “Stop it. Now.”
“What do the unwritten rules say about dogs off leashes, brother?” I asked, no longer fearing for what would happen to me. “What would Dad do if Alessandro ran off and had a meeting with a major boss without consulting with him first? What do you think he’d do if that led to someone threatening your mom? Do you think Dad would get mad at me for checking that wild arrogance, or would he be mad at you for not doing it first?”
Luca reached down and bunched my shirt in his fist. When he dragged me to my feet, my body moved as if it were no heavier than a piece of paper. “Don’t preach to me about what my dad would do. Each one of us knows better than you, you fucking half-breed.”
“Luca!” Molly’s voice screeched out. “Let him go.”