“Anything, Father.”
“It’s time for a change,” he said. “I want you to see what it feels like to sit here, in the true position of power.” He stepped aside, smiling, and motioned for her to sit.
Looking curious, but smiling, she did.
He rested his hands on her shoulders. “How does it feel? Sitting here?”
He felt the tension drain from her. “Are you trying to tell me something, Father?”
He leaned in, close enough to smell her hair. “Sitting here, love. Being in charge. How does it make you feel?”
She didn’t answer at first. Weighing her options, no doubt.
Too bad she wasn’t as careful in all other areas of her life.
“I only wish to honor you and continue the family business. To build upon what you have created. That’s all I’ve ever wished to do. To make you proud of me.”
He gently squeezed her shoulders. “You have made me proud, my child. But there is a question I must ask you before we can move forward, and I wish for you to be completely honest with me.”
“Of course, Father.”
He leaned in, sliding his right arm around her neck, as if hugging her, resting his chin on her left shoulder. “Why did you meet with the Russian?”
When she started to sit up, he grabbed his right wrist with his left hand and clamped her throat in the crook of his right elbow.
“I know about your treachery,” he whispered as she struggled, trying to pry his arm free. But he’d worn a long-sleeved shirt with a long-sleeved T-shirt under it for just this reason.
She tried to push the chair back, but her high heels gave her no purchase, and the footwell was too deep for her to press against the inside of the front.
He shoved the chair forward with his weight, pinning her torso against the desk and further driving air from her lungs. “I know about the supposed Russian—I know everything about that. The only thing I don’t know is why. Why did you meet with the father of Carl Petersen without talking to me first? And why was he pretending to be a Russian?”
Strangled cries struggled free as he maintained pressure on her neck. He didn’t want her to die immediately.
That would be too easy.
“All you had to do was be obedient,” he said. “All you had to do was what I asked, and this conversation would be about me finalizing my plans to retire, sit back, and watch you prosper. But no. You had to get greedy. Just like my brothers. You had to put everything at risk, and for what? Some fool’s errand that already killed many good men—and Manuel—and could have brought the wrong attention to us.”
Regardless of her answers, there was only one outcome planned for tonight. In fact, this morning, as soon as she left for work, Armando led a team inside her condo to empty it and confiscate all her electronics and papers. By lunchtime, it looked like a vacant property ready to sell. The furniture and clothes were discarded at a charity, and her personal effects brought to the house for Abundio to go through at his leisure.
And his people were already trying to find out as much as possible about Jake and Carl Peterson’s histories.
“Ah, if only you had come to me, darling. If only you’d talked to me. Confided in me. I would have respected you for that. I would have allowed you to explore this. Safely. Smartly.” “But you have committed terminal acts of stupidity and treason to our family, my little one. Worse, you have possibly drawn attention to us. And now we may be in a battle with the true Russians.”
She continued struggling as he maintained the balance between letting her finally pass out and keeping her alive. “I never told you I had two other brothers, sweet one. The two youngest. Father strangled them himself when they attempted to betray him and take over the cartel. I watched him do it, tears in his eyes. I will never forget his words, that it was better he take their lives himself than live with the shame of their betrayal. He put breath into their bodies and he took it from them, and he made me look into their eyes as he did it.
“Berto threw up watching him do it. He never had the stomach for the hard work and relied on being a bully and making his men get their hands dirty. I think Father respected me for my stances. He knew I would not stay with the cartel upon his death. But while he was alive, I gave my all to the family, put it before myself.”
He pressed his face against hers, kissed her. “You silly, stupid child. So much potential. And yet so much ego. Where did I go wrong with you? Because of you, we may now be at war. I will do this in your memory, one last battle before I lie down and sleep, hmm? You should have had a long life, a husband, children. This and more could all have been yours even while running my company. But you had to have more. Your belly was always growling, never full. A bottomless pit inside your soul that nothing could fill because it was dug with greed. So much like my father. And worse, now you leave me without an heir.”
Her struggles weakened. He knew he needed to finish this. But he wanted to have his say first.
“I cherished your mother. When she died, I promised to protect you, keep you from harm, and perhaps the worst pain of all is that you’ve made me go back on that promise. I never expected this treachery from you. I wanted a houseful of grandchildren running around and playing at family dinners after you and I discussed business. That’s all I wanted. I longed for the simple pleasures earned from my age. I will be eighty-two, and I am now going into a battle with weapons I don’t understand against a foe I cannot identify, all because you chafed under a loose and soft leash when in a few more years it all would have been yours to do with as you pleased.”
He slowly shook his head. “And now there will be no legacy for you. Your name will be erased from the annals of our family history, much as my brothers’, and Raul’s and Manuel’s, shall be. I love you. May God have mercy upon you, because I cannot.”
Crying, he finished it, waiting long past when her struggles ceased and she went limp before finally releasing the choke hold and standing, pulling the chair back. He smoothed her hair back, tucking it behind her ears like he used to when she was a child.
He sniffled, cupping her face in his hands, kissing the tip of her nose.
