I couldn’t be more blunt than I was.
Paxton knows about the Gallos and that there’s no love lost between them and me.
He doesn’t know everything, for obvious reasons. No one does.
He is one of my few friends, as I said before.
I wouldn’t call himmy bestfriend––I don’t believe in having anyonethatclose to me anyway––but he’s not my enemy.
Paxton and I have done business many times before.
He knows me from before I became a fixture in the Gallo family.
He is acquainted with the straightforward, often harsh side of me. The man who’s fair in business, and fearless and feared in any kind of war.
We’ve never shared trite details about women over a glass of scotch, although at times we’ve crossed paths and found ourselves seeking the company of the same ladies.
That’s not the case here.
This is way more complicated than him chasing some skirt, looking for some good time.
This is not the place or time.
He is familiar with the world I’m living in, and normally, he doesn’t get involved with these people, staying away from them as much as he can, avoiding the unsavory aspects that no one particularly likes.
He’s smart enough not to get killed over a woman, but when the woman in question is Leilani Gallo, all bets are off somehow.
Just now, he looked at me with glassy eyes as I explained to him that her family is a vipers’ nest, and their precious heiress is as mad as, if not worse than, her late mother.
At least Bianca Gallo came with some life experience.
She did stupid things, but her family was quick to fix what their beloved daughter savagely destroyed.
That’s not the case here.
Leilani Gallo has no one on her side.
Her family regards her as some pesky liability they have no need for or care for.
Bianca was stubborn and entitled all her life, but had a large variety of ways to cope with her frustrations.
Can’t say the same about her daughter.
The more I ponder her childish ways, the more I get lost in a storm of dark emotions.
As a rule, I wouldn’t glance in her direction, and most of the time, I’d ignore her.
I wouldn’t feel either way about her.
Up until tonight, I never looked at her straight.
I know the crazy power women like her have.
It's nicely tucked between their legs and lodged between their ears.
What their brains might not easily extract from you, their flesh could surely summon, and sometimes, it's the other way around.
For some inexplicable reason, it kills me to see her make a fool of herself.
