Total pages in book: 100
Estimated words: 94048 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 470(@200wpm)___ 376(@250wpm)___ 313(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 94048 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 470(@200wpm)___ 376(@250wpm)___ 313(@300wpm)
“Don’t do that,” I say before she can say it. “I made my choice.”
She comes to me and leans into my chest. I kiss her, cupping her ass with one hand, smiling at the warmth of her. It’s strange how my life is so bleak right now, but having her here makes it all okay.
Rock bottom with Emily is better than achieving all my damn wildest dreams. That’s probably not healthy, but it’s how I feel.
I kiss her, and I’m about to drag her upstairs, when my phone starts buzzing in my pocket. It’s my mom.
I answer right away. “Is everything okay?” Normally, she’d just come over if she wanted to talk.
She’s whispering now though. “I’m just warning you, your father is talking about trying to evict you. I’m talking him down—”
“He can’t do that.” I stare outside at the oasis, the only home I’ve ever known, and feel my body go cold.
My father’s trying to evict me.
I knew things might reach this point, but I had hoped I’d get more time to show Dad that I have his best interests at heart.
Instead, he’s escalating, and I haven’t secured my power base yet.
Mom sounds uncertain and scared when she says, “I’m working on him, okay? Just hang tight, and lock your doors.”
Chapter 35
Simon
I deadbolt every door and make sure all the windows are locked, but the whole exercise feels fucking surreal. Emily flutters after me, wringing her hands, looking worried, and I have to pull her into my arms and tell her everything’s going to be okay. She believes me; that makes me fall for her even more than I already am.
Dad’s going too far. It’s one thing to be pissed and to punish me for disobeying him, and it’s another to cross this line. Evicting me from the oasis is tantamount to throwing me from the Famiglia, but nobody gets kicked out, not alive anyway. I know far too much to release into the wild.
It makes no fucking sense. But lately, Dad’s been unhinged and in pain, and I suspect he’s taking more medication than he’s letting on to manage everything. Which means not only is he pushing himself past his limits, but he might be abusing opiates on top of all this fucking stuff, compromising his decision-making even further.
I put Emily in our room and tell her not to move, and she agrees after I kiss her and promise I’ll handle it. Then I pace around the living room making calls. I reach out to loyal soldiers and lieutenants and let them know what’s happening. I have to warn them in case Dad decides this isn’t only directed at me, but anyone associated with me—if he turns this into a purge, my people are in trouble. I start consolidating my forces, getting a roll call of everyone I can rely on, and it’s not enough, not fucking enough, because I haven’t had enough time.
There are a few Capos that will back me. They’re the top line of the Famiglia’s forces, a step below the core Bianco family, but important in their own right. They control the ground forces and run the territories and take orders from us, and if I can sway more of them to my side than Dad can, this little problem will resolve itself very quickly. Our power rests on the shoulders of the men that believe in us, and the second they decide we’re no longer worth following, the whole operation crumbles.
But I don’t have enough. Dad’s been in control of the Famiglia for a very long time and he chose these Capos because they’re fiercely loyal to him. Some know what he’s going through and can see that it’s time for him to step aside, but most still think of Don Alessandro Bianco as the iron-fisted warrior that put the Famiglia on top of Chicago.
“This has to be some fucking joke,” Davide says when I finally reach out to him. “I don’t understand what Dad’s fucking thinking.”
I want to say I don’t either but it’s not entirely true. “He knows I’ve been talking to the Capos about him. He thinks I’m trying to stage a coup.”
I haven’t said that out loud yet, not even to Angelo when I visited him in prison, but a coup has been on my mind ever since Dad tried to make me marry Luciano Santoro’s daughter. He’s too far gone to reason with, and if I can forcibly remove him from power, ideally without any bloodshed, then I’ll do it for his sake and for the entire Famiglia. I don’t want to do it, not even a little bit, but it’s one of my options.
Davide curses and I can hear him saying something muffled to Stefania in the background. Then he comes back on the line. “Stef says there are guys amassing in the street outside your house. She’s looking out the window right now.”