From anyone.
“I assure you I can handle this.”
“Maybe I’m not worried about whether you can handle the situation, but about what you’ll do to Russo.”
She adjusted my tie as if it was necessary. “Perhaps he’ll learn not to piss off a powerful woman.”
“Perhaps you’re right.”
The two men guarding Russo’s house were none too happy to see us, acting as if they wouldn’t allow us in through the front door.
There was no reason to challenge them verbally. If I was refused entry, then I’d allow the Russians to gut the man and his business.
And Russo knew that.
Finally, both backed away from the door, one allowing us access.
“To think he lives a couple miles away from where you do,” Sinclair said from behind us.
“One big, happy family reunion,” I said in passing as we were led to a living room. Vitelli was convalescing, still attached to an IV, covered by a blanket, which couldn’t hide his frail condition.
While I approached first, he immediately noticed Catherine, the shock nothing I felt sorry about.
“Catherine,” he said, his voice shaking.
Her reaction was bland in comparison to the way she was feeling. In the two days since learning the truth, she’d gone through several emotions from disbelief to anger. Now she was unfettered by the fact she’d been spawned by a monster.
Soon to marry another.
“I hear you’re my father.” As expected, there was no emotion in her voice, just a benign assessment.
“Yes, I am. You are so…”
“Don’t say it,” she chastised. “Not that I’m beautiful or accomplished, talented or intelligent. While I am, that’s nothing you did. Your sperm created life and nothing else. My mother and father created the woman, one who’s kind and caring. And who follows the law.”
He appeared hurt, even angry, but noticed the moment I bristled. Thankfully for the man, he held his temper. “I never meant to hurt your mother. Or your… father.”
“Oh, really? You just raped my beautiful mother. Right? That is what you did. You were married, but that wasn’t enough.” Shedared walk closer to the man. “When she refused your advances, you took what didn’t belong to you.”
The man made a mistake by refusing to answer her quickly.
“Didn’t you?”
“That was a long time ago,” he finally offered. “I was a different man.”
“Which means you believe that near your death your admittance will garner you a ticket to heaven?” she snarled. “Trust me. It won’t.”
“You have no understanding of what my life is like.”
Her hard slap across his face echoed in the room. “How fucking dare you. Spawning me wasn’t enough. You arranged for my mother to be under your control, hiring the man I know as my father to marry her. Then you called him into service when you couldn’t force your hand with Alexander’s father, trying Baptiste in a court of law. Only you failed.” Her laugh was bitter and her frankness hit him harder than the crack of her hand.
“I had my reasons for doing so including the protection of my family.”
“Against what?” she demanded. “Another monstrous organization who wanted in on your narcotics territory? You wanted supreme control so badly, you were willing to sell off your own daughter. You disgust me.”
“Does she not understand what the Bratva is capable of?” Russo asked me, finally studying me with concern in his eyes.
“She knows enough, although she should never have been forced into this world.”
