“Why? So you didn’t have to come see me? Huh?”
It’s true, but I don’t admit that.
Instead, I tell a half truth. “I wanted to pay for it. It’s for a girl.”
“Oh, young love, huh?” He laughs bitterly. “Well, son, I hope you’ve learned two lessons. One is that flying commercial means you can be tracked, and two, showing off is the fastest way to getting killed.”
“Flying commercial is only dangerous if someone is actively looking for you.”
“You don’t think my enemies monitor flight manifests?”
I frown. “Father, that would take a fucking army of workers to monitor all the daily flights in and out of Paris to see if you or any of your family are on them.”
He sighs, and, when he speaks again, he sounds weary. “Son, you have no idea how dangerous our enemy is. I sent you and your brother away for that reason and that reason alone, not whatever ideas you have concocted.”
Fuck. Have we got him wrong? Maybe he’d be open to our relationship if we laid it all out for him.
He huffs out another frustrated breath. “You need to get out of this city, right now.”
“I know. Can we have the plane?”
“Yes, it will be fueled and ready within the hour. But not from Charles De Gaulle airport. You’ll need a car. It’s an hour’s drive west to a private airstrip. I’ll send one of my men to drive you, and two armed guards.”
Suddenly, for the first time in a very, very long time, I miss him. Or maybe I miss the nostalgic memory of him from childhood. The scent of cigars and rum. My father loves rum and drinks it neat when all the other mafia heads are sipping at whisky or brandy. The way his short beard would prick my cheek when he kissed me goodnight.
All of that wasbefore. Before he slept with so many women I lost count and palmed us off on nannies to raise us. Not only raise us, but to break in our virginity, too. My heart palpitates at the memory, and I push it away, preferring not to think about it.
I’m remembering all the reasons I hate him.
“Thank you,” I say, my voice sounding thick and foreign.
“Next time you do something this fucking stupid, you’re on your own. You and your brother would do well to remember I have other heirs now.”
And… there he is. The fucker I remember from more recent times.
“Yes, Father.”
“Call me when you’re back on American soil. Don’t come here again unless I send for you.”
I hang up. “Fuck you, Father. You piece of shit. You fucking cunt.”
“Wow, sounds like the call went well?”
I turn to see Lex in the doorway. “It did, actually. He’s sending a car, some men, and there will be a plane waiting at an airstrip, but heisa cunt.”
Lex sighs. “This was stupid of us. We should never have come.”
“Yeah, but we always believed him saying we were in danger was just his way of getting rid of us. He never told us how severe the threat was, or that there’s a bounty on our heads just for being his sons.” Grief rips at the stitching of my already shattered heart. “We can’t come back to France, Lex. Not unlessthe threat lessens. We’re stuck over there, in that Godforsaken land.”
Lex laughs at my dramatics. “America isn’t so bad, Saint. And we have Vani now. What do we have here? Really?”
“Food. Art. Fashion.”
“So? Go to fucking New York for the fashion, or to the French Quarter in New Orleans for the food and art. You can get everything you need in America. Come on. This is not like you.”
“It’s our home,” I say simply. “And we can’t come back, not for a long time.”
“Maybe. Or maybe our father will kill them all, or they’ll kill him? One way or another, we will be free to return one day, but you know what?”
