Total pages in book: 101
Estimated words: 93425 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 467(@200wpm)___ 374(@250wpm)___ 311(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 93425 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 467(@200wpm)___ 374(@250wpm)___ 311(@300wpm)
Irritation ticks at me. My father doesn’t owe him his loyalty, at least not the same loyalty he gives to his flesh and blood. My father had told me how he had become indebted to the mafia. He had become indebted because of me. He knew he wouldn’t be able to go to school and provide for me at the same time, and he had been about to drop out when the former Don, Enzo’s grandfather, had given him an offer. It was a debt to be worked off over a lifetime of dedication to the Lombardi family. In return, I would be taken care of.
Without me, my father had no reason to tie himself to the mafia. His first loyalty is with me, but that isn’t something acceptable in the Lombardi Famiglia.
“Grandpa!” Matteo says excitedly, launching himself into my father’s arms.
“Oh Emma, you never should have come back.”
Chapter Fifteen- Enzo
I have no intention of leaving Emma alone with her father, but my own is not one to be ignored. “It’s urgent,” Andy tells me as I watch the not-so-joyful reunion. The only one who is happy about the entire thing is Matteo, who launches himself into Eric’s arms. The jealousy makes me briefly consider ripping Eric's arms from his body. He shouldn’t have any kind of relationship with the child he has denied me access to. The desire is compounded when he opens his stupid mouth.
How fucking dare he? Emma is back where she belongs, and his first words are to chastise her. Fuck that. Once my ring is on her finger, he better watch his mouth. She’ll be a Lombardi, and no one speaks to Lombardis like that.
I keep my cool this time, mainly for Matteo. He adores his grandfather, and I don’t think it would do me any favors to be outwardly cruel towards the man.
The most obvious forms of torture are off the table. I can’t upset my future wife and my son too much. Happy wife, happy life, and all that shit. That doesn’t mean I can’t find more creative ways to torture the man. I can make him file the paperwork to officially change Matteo’s last name. It needs to match the blood that runs through his veins.
Or maybe I’ll make him file the paperwork for Emma’s and I’s marriage.
Eric is under 24-hour surveillance. He can’t so much as go to the bathroom without someone watching him. It surprised anyone who knows my father as the Don that he isn’t immobilized entirely. However, my father isn’t a stranger to the long game. If we’re going to win over Emma and Matteo, we need to keep the man intact. He’s not to be trusted. His intentions to keep my heir as far away from me as possible have not changed. We’re closely monitoring his every interaction, ensuring he does nothing reckless to get them away from me again.
I’m not sure what I’d prefer. At least in death, there is finality, but what Eric is facing is the monotonous life as a prisoner.
The heavy door to my father’s office closes behind me as I approach him. I don’t hide the annoyance on my face that business has interrupted my first day with my son. “You asked for me?”
“I hope you know I wouldn’t have called you if it wasn’t urgent, so you can cut the attitude.”
My father’s face is in a cruel sneer as he glares at me. My back stiffens. Very little has the capability of getting under my father’s skin. Years of working as the head of a crime family mean he has learned to let most things roll off his back. The stress would have killed him years ago otherwise.
“Chris may have screwed us over with the Russians. The Petrovs expect us to be proposing a marriage any day now and they have put a hold on any alliance until then,” he tells me.
Eric has an inflated sense of ego if he thought his plan to broker a marriage between Nina and me was going to work. He doesn’t have any kind of authority. It sounds like he has been making promises, putting ideas on the table that he had no business in doing. He must have felt the pressure of Emma’s impending graduation. Gotten desperate. I’d seen countless men get bolder when they were desperate. It can only be chalked up to human behavior.
“What is there to be done about it?” I ask.
“We’re meeting with them in three days. I will let Oleg Petrov know while I have nephews available for marriage, my son is not. I don’t think it will be good enough for him.”
“It is Oleg’s fault for taking the word of a lawyer to be the word of the Don.”
“And yet, the consequences are ours to bear.”
Irritation edges in. We've been working on this deal for a long time, and it's frustrating to see all of that work coming to a halt because of a lawyer running his mouth. Without this deal, there is something else hanging on the horizon.