“Surprised to see you like this,” he answered.
“Are you?”
“Don’t insinuate things, Sandro,” he hissed, leaning back in his chair and giving me a long onceover. “It’s rude.”
“Is it a shock to you that I’m alive?”
“What did I just tell you?”
“Do you want me dead?” I arched a brow and studied his face.
“Most of the time,” he answered, an amused smirk playing out across his mouth. “But not enough to pay for it.”
“Any colleagues?”
He clenched his jaw and angled his head to the side, giving my injuries a more thorough appraisal than he had initially. “No,” my father answered.
“Are you sure?”
“I said no.” He stood quickly, chair skittering backward and slamming into the shelving behind his desk.
I straightened and tensed, fingers flexing against my thighs.
“Family is everything,” he said, walking around the desk and coming to stand beside me.
I wanted to ask him how that was true if he’d been meeting with the Molinaros. I wanted to ask how family could mean everything when he treated me and my mama like we were disposable. There were so many things I wanted to ask, but the words refused to form. Instead I picked something out of a molar with the tip of my tongue, and I gave him a rough nod.
“When did this happen?” he asked.
“Last weekend.”
“Where have you been this whole time?”
“Safe,” I answered, the truth leaving my mouth without a second thought. I had no doubt Golden wanted to wring my neck until I died, but he wouldn’t. If he didn’t kill me in the cabin and he didn’t kill me last week, he wasn’t going to. I crossed my legs at the ankle, the cold hard feel of his piece pressing against my ankle bone. Golden didn’t want me dead. He wanted me alive because he wantedme.
He wasn’t a man that would give his gun to someone who didn’t matter, and while there’d been a whisper of that in the back of my head when he’d shoved it into my hand, I had ignored it. I couldn’t ignore it now. In my father’s office, almost convinced he wasn’t the one who’d ordered me dead, my only protection the gun of a man who used his actions to explain his feelings.
I’d been honest with Golden. Told him that I wanted him, and he’d admitted the same, that he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about me. But I’d been hurt and in pain and my brain had been scattered. I’d listened to the words he said to me, but not been able to assemble them into something I could coherently understand.
Of course I was with my father when the meaning clicked into place.
I adjusted my position and raised my ankle onto my knee. It wasn’t a secret that I always carried, and while I hadn’t wanted to be bold about it, I needed to touch Golden’s gun. I wanted to make sure it was still there. I wanted to touch him. I covered the holster with my hand and looked up at my father. It hadn’t been my intention for the motion to act as a threat. I’d done it to find comfort, but judging by the way my father squared his shoulders, he’d taken it differently.
“Sandro,” he said, his tone unreadable.
“Sir.”
“Who did this to you?”
I cracked my neck. “I was honestly hoping you would know,” I answered.
The slap cracked across my face before I registered his movement, as it generally went. Blood trickled against the corner of my mouth and I knew without touching it he’d torn open the gash on my cheek.
Too much.
It was too much.
I had Golden’s Ruger in my hand and my father against the wall with my forearm over his throat before I realized I’d moved. His eyes were wide, the first time I could remember seeing a recognizable feeling on his face and I pressed the gun against his temple.
