My favorite performances were the more intimate venues. Not the performances held at the Dresden Dance Company Theater, but the private shows we did for some of our most cherished clientele. I’d often been featured, spinning in circles for a small audience that gave us their undivided attention. Often they’d pause in the middle of their drinks and conversation.
So captivated. So tuned into us.
Me.
Intense, piercing eyes I’ll never forget….
I’m on the cusp of a new thought—I can feel it forming—when a hand clamps down hard on my shoulder from behind.
I’m not alone anymore.
TWENTY
Caelian
The lies stop tonight.
I’ve always been the outcast in my family. I’ve preferred things that way. From a young age, I understood I wasn’t like the others. Coreno’s desperation to ascend to his position was never relatable. Neither were Cristian’s potbellied cries as he whined petulantly about why he should be the heir.
And then there was Carmelo, the even-keeled neutral who pretended he didn’t want power but craved it more than anyone.
I’ve never seen myself in Pa’s drunken, irrational behavior. He’d driven my mother away with his antics. She was willing to accept his many infidelities, but she drew the line at his slovenliness.
Rumor is he sent hitmen days after she walked out the door for good. I haven’t seen her since I was seven years old…
As I race into the city, I’m thinking about these family dynamics that have shaped the outcomes of our lives. I retreated into the mountains as soon as I was old enough and able.
I’ve largely remained a distant presence in the family tree.
Yet, somehow, I’ve become the focus of attention anyway. An occurrence I should be used to after childhood—my illness rendered me so different from the others, it was a weakness routinely spoken of.
For much of my youth, Pa had no problem disparaging me. Acting as if I were nothing more than a brute. I wasn’t calculated like Coreno or the reasonable one like Carmelo. I didn’t even care as much as a whiny motherfucker like Cristian…
I was just the son who was sick and ailing. The son with a broken heart that hasn’t worked well from the time I was a kid.
Perhaps I isolated myself because I felt like an outcast by default. It’s a possibility I’ve considered before. Driving into Dresden late at night, I decide it doesn’t fucking matter either way.
Whatever my father’s grand plan is, it ends tonight. I’m not being taken out and won’t be used as a pawn. I’ll ring his neck ’til no air’s left in his body before I ever let either happen.
Pa lives in a fancy twenty-million-dollar home that’s securely behind the Dresden Gate—the great divide between the haves and have nots in the city. Close to ninety-seven percent of citizens reside outside the Dresden Gate. The three percent that live inside typically have million-dollar homes.
Quiet as it’s kept, Nero lives inside the gates too. He’s only a few blocks away from being neighbors with Pa. Yet these two swear the animosity between their rival families is deadly. If only one of them had the fucking guts to take the other out cold.
I’ll have the guts to do so and then some. I’m not playing games anymore with anyone involved in this war. I’ll do what I need to do if it means survival. If it means protecting my interests and assets.
Nevaeh being one of those assets. The baby she’ll give me another.
My fucking legacy that’ll live on long after my weak heart gives out.
I don’t need to sneak into Pa’s private abode. I don’t respect him enough to put forth that level of effort. I drive up to the wrought-iron gate that cordons off his property from the other million-dollar homes and I flash my headlights for the guards to open.
They spend a moment deliberating over what to do. Should they let Carmine Ziccardi’s son in like so many times in the past? Or should recent tensions and turmoil dictate my level of access?
In the end, they wave me through. It’s late enough in the night that Pa must be in the middle of preparing for bed. He’s likely belligerent after an evening of indulging in cigars and alcoholic drinks of his choice.
I discover the truth in my assumption within minutes.
Pa’s settled down in his bedroom as I blow through the lofty mansion like a tornado. Several of his men attempt to stop me, but they’re met with swift ends—either I clobber them the instant they come toward me or the deadly glare I give them is so bone-chilling, they stand down. They know better than to do anything else.
