As far as dinners with my family went, this one didn’t even rank in the top three worst. Yet. But the night was young, and from the way Dad kept glancing between me and Lauren, there was still plenty of time for it to go off the rails. Everyone else seemed to understand that, too, taking longer to eat than usual, dragging the meal out with idle chatter.
Despite the forced levity, the tension just kept building, brewing out of sight like a storm on the horizon. Dad’s answers became increasingly terse. A deep groove formed between his brows as he frowned down at his plate.
“Maria!” he finally snapped, and in swept my family’s housekeeper and cook.
“Sì?” she said, wiping her hands on her apron.
“We’re done.” He waved at the table. “You can clear the plates.”
Silence descended as she gathered our dishes. Beside me, I could feel Lauren tensing up, and I reached out beneath the tablecloth and put my hand on her thigh. Her skin was smooth and warm beneath my touch, and I couldn’t help but stroke my thumb over it, squeezing once to let her know that everything would be okay. Because it would. One way or another.
Calm descended upon me as we waited. My entire family was here, blood and found, and I knew that I wasn’t about to face my dad alone.
“So,” he said when the last plate was cleared, and Maria shut the kitchen door behind herself. His gaze rose to mine, and I could already see the anger building in his eyes. “What is it you wanted to talk to me about? Lauren?” His focus shifted from her to me and back again. “Is she who I would have chosen for you? No.”
I waited a beat, giving him a chance to say more, maybe add a But I won’t stand in your way, or even a But I realize my mistake now that I see you two together. The words didn’t come, and I decided that this was the last family dinner I would attend until he came to terms with my relationship and apologized to Lauren. No way in hell was I subjecting her to his censure again, and I wouldn’t go anywhere she wasn’t welcome with open arms.
Lauren’s hand landed on top of mine, squeezing, reassuring, like she was more worried about how I felt than anything else, reminding me what a lucky bastard I was that she’d chosen to be with me.
“Nico,” Mom said, low and warning.
Dad ignored her, eyes still locked on me, and from the way Mom stared daggers into the side of his head, he was going to regret it. “What is this all about?” he demanded.
Lauren squeezed my hand again, and I braced myself for whatever was about to happen.
“I bought a building,” I said.
Surprise rippled through my brothers, but I kept my gaze on my father.
“From who?” Dad said, expression inscrutable.
“Patrick McKinney.”
He frowned. “I don’t know the name.”
“He’s no one important.”
“Is that so?” Dad asked, eyeing me, and I knew that the second I left this house, he’d have every single one of his cronies looking into McKinney. He tipped his head sideways. “A whole building.”
It wasn’t a question, but I answered anyway. “Yes.”
“Where is it?”
“Downtown. West Side.”
“Where’d you get the money?” he asked, tone deadly calm.
My hackles rose, but I kept my anger out of my voice. “I didn’t steal it from you, if that’s what you’re implying.”
“Then where, Junior?”
“From my savings and investments.”
“Bullshit,” he spat. “You don’t have downtown money.”
“I don’t need to because I bought out his debt from a bookie and then blackmailed him with it.”
Mom’s eyes flashed wide, straying toward Aly and Josh. “No shoptalk at the din—”
Dad shushed her.
Mom turned back to him, slowly, à la The Exorcist. He was going to need to hide in their panic room at this point.
“What kind of building is it?” Dad asked.
Here we fucking go.
“It’s commercial,” I said. “Rented out by a members-only club.”
His gaze shifted to Lauren. “You plan on running girls out of it? Is that what this is? You’re a wannabe pimp now?”
Lauren’s fingernails dug into the back of my hand.
Across from us, Aly made a low, angry sound, and I could see my brothers shifting in their seats out of my periphery. “No. It’s a legal club, and I plan to let them keep operating out of the building for as long as they like.”
“You want to use them to help launder money?” Dad asked.
I shook my head.
“Move drugs?”
Another head shake.
“Then what, Junior? What’s the con?” he demanded, because to him, there always was one.
“There’s no con. They are a legitimate business. This is me striking out on my own. I don’t want to do this anymore,” I said, gesturing between us. “I don’t want to run oil or any of the other shit you want me to.”
He shot forward in his chair. “Are you fucking—” His gaze slid past me, to Lauren, and then over to Aly and Josh, reminded of our audience, silenced by their presence. Dad’s number one rule was that we never discussed mob shit in front of people who weren’t in the know.
“Get out,” he spat at Aly.
She lifted her glass and took a sip of her wine, unperturbed. “Nah, I think I’ll stay right where I am.”
“You were so quick to run out of here the last time things got tense,” Dad said. “Now you want to stay?”
Aly settled back in her seat. “Yeah, I do.”
Josh wrapped an arm around her shoulders, smiling ear to ear, and I’d never been more grateful to have these two assholes in my life.
Dad shifted his focus to Lauren.
“Don’t,” I said. “She stays.”
Fury crawled over his face, and he jabbed a finger toward her. “I fucking knew this little whore would be trouble.”
Aly swore. Greg drained his drink and set his glass down hard enough to rattle the table. And Mom . . . God help Dad after we all left and she had him alone to herself. Josh was the only one as still as I was, likely gone to that empty place in his head that he’d tried to explain to me a few months ago. My own quiet was much calmer. This wasn’t anything I hadn’t anticipated. My father wasn’t stupid. Like Mom, he probably sensed that this was the “big one,” and I knew that meant he would be at his worst.
“Are you okay?” I asked Lauren.
She surprised me by laughing. “I’m fine. That is the least creative way to insult me he could have chosen.” She leaned past me, looking at my father. “If you were a sub, I would respond by inviting you to a private chat so you could find out just how big a whore I am.” She added a wink for good measure, and my love for her swelled.
My father’s expression shifted into disgust. “This is who you choose to be with? Someone who says shit like that at the dinner table? Think of your future. How will you ever be able to bring her around your friends? Your family?”
Aly leaned forward. “You literally just called her a whore at the dinner table, you fucking hypocrite.”
A glance at Lauren revealed her looking unconcerned, but I’d felt her tense up, knew that Dad’s words had struck deep, hit some lingering vulnerability. I squeezed her leg, telling her that I was here, that I had her, that I wasn’t about to let my father get away with speaking to her this way. I’d warned her how bad his temper was, how cruel he could be, and that he might turn his fury on her. She’d remained determined to come tonight, assuring me that there was nothing he could say that she hadn’t heard before, which led to me asking her for names, which led to her telling me to stop acting so crazy.
I lifted my gaze back to my father’s. “Don’t ever speak about my girlfriend like that again.”
“Or what, Junior?” Dad bit out “What are you going to do?”
This was the moment I needed to stand my ground. My father only seemed to understand downside, only responded to strength. And it had taken me nearly ten years to realize I held the trump card all along.
“Never speak to you again,” I told him. “Carve you out like a cancer and never look back.” As far as threats went, this was the worst one I could make. I’d considered blackmail. Lord knew I had enough of it. But after my talk with Josh, I’d realized that threatening to break up our family like this was the biggest weapon in my arsenal.
Dad didn’t say anything in response, but his fingers tightened around his wineglass, and I could tell from the look in his eyes that if we had been alone, we’d be having a much different conversation. This was why Josh and I had come up with the plan to do this out in the open for everyone to see. To not let Dad hide his abuse and vitriol behind a closed door anymore. To have witnesses to this exchange so everyone knew I wanted out, making it harder for Dad to force me back in without drawing suspicion and pissing off the whole family, risking all his relationships.
“So that’s it?” he said, cocking his head sideways. “This is how you tell me you’re done?”
“Yes,” I said.
He threw his glass at my head.
I barely ducked in time to keep from getting hit, but there was no stopping the ruby red liquid from soaking me and Lauren.
She gasped, pushing back from the table, and then everything was happening at once. Aly, on her feet, yelling; Josh holding her back; Mom shoving Dad so hard he went tipping over sideways in his chair; Stefan slipping out of the room; Greg and Alec exchanging looks like they didn’t know whether or not they should follow after him.
Dad popped back to his feet surprisingly fast for a man of his age. “After everything I’ve fucking done for you?” he roared.
I positioned myself in front of Lauren. “Everything you’ve done for me?” I yelled back. “Like steal my entire goddamn childhood, groom me to become a thug, constantly put me in danger? You want me to keep going? Because I can.”
He stepped sideways, trying to look past me at Lauren. “This is your fucking fault, isn’t it?”
Josh materialized at my side. “Take another step toward her, Nico. I dare you.” He held something dark in his hand, and my stomach dropped, thinking he was about to shoot my father, before I realized it was just a cell phone.
Josh tapped its screen, and all the lights in the house flickered. “One. More. Step.”
Dad stopped moving, jaw clenched in fury. A foot away, Mom was staring at him with her hands balled into fists. We needed to end this before a full-on brawl broke out.
“You know,” Dad said, “Italy is just a phone call away. It wouldn’t be that hard to make Tommy disappear for real.”
“Woah,” Aly said. “Did you just threaten to have Lauren’s father killed?”
Dad jerked, unused to an audience to his outbursts, forgetting we were all pretending that Tommy was just missing. “No,” he ground out, but his mutinous expression said otherwise.
“I’m done,” I told him. “And nothing you say or do will ever change my mind.”
He laughed, the sound ugly. “You won’t last a fucking week without me.”
“Yes, I will,” I told him. “And I know that’s got to hurt, but you brought this on yourself.”
He lunged. It happened so fast and was so unexpected that I didn’t get my arms up in time to block him. For all the awful shit he’d said and done over the course of my lifetime, he’d never hit me, and it took me a moment to realize that his hands were around my neck, and he was squeezing, his expression a rictus of rage, black eyes burning with fury.
Time seemed to slow. I tried to drag in a breath and couldn’t, staring at him in disbelief, feeling like I was having an out-of-body experience. My own fucking father was strangling me in front of my girlfriend and entire family. I thought I’d known the worst of what he was capable of, but I’d never expected this.
With the last of my breath, I wheezed, “Dad.”
The word seemed to ricochet through him like a bullet. His fingers slackened on my neck. The fury bled from his eyes. I watched his lips part and horror creep into his expression like he finally realized what he was doing.
It was then that time righted itself. I saw several people rushing toward us, but Lauren got there first, electric blue flaring in my periphery. Dad jerked and let me go, and I dragged in a breath full of the smell of his searing flesh as Lauren ground the taser into his neck, following him to the floor when he went down.
Nearby, Josh retched and spun away, Aly racing after him.
“Lauren,” I said, wrapping my hands around her shoulders and gently pulling her back. From the look on her face, she wouldn’t have stopped otherwise. My very own white knight in a sundress.
“Nic,” Mom said, and I turned to see her openly weeping for the first time in memory. Her eyes met mine, voice hoarse like she’d been the one who was choked. “I’m so sorry.”
I shook my head. “None of this is your fault.”
Alec stepped into view and spat at Dad’s still twitching form. “Fucking bastard.” He turned to Mom. “You’re coming to stay with me. Enough is enough.”
Mom shook her head. “I’m staying here. Someone has to make sure he’s all right.”
“So call an ambulance after you leave,” Greg said, joining us. “He did this to himself. You don’t have to keep trying to fix everything for him.”
Determination crept into Mom’s expression. “You don’t understand. He wasn’t always like this.”
“But he’s like this now,” Greg said. “He’s been like this for years. And he isn’t going to get any better if nothing changes.”
Mom darted her glance among me, Alec, and Greg.
“He was about to release me,” I said. Not because I was defending my father but because I couldn’t bear to see the look of abject misery on my mother’s face, like the last of her hope was fading away. “When I said ‘Dad’ he seemed to come back to himself and realize what he was doing.”
“You should still go to teach him a lesson,” a low voice said. We turned to see Stefan standing nearby, a bag slung over his shoulder. “We all should.”
With that, he left, and for some reason, I had a feeling that none of us were going to see him for a long, long time.
Mom met my eyes. “You go first. He could wake up, and if you’re still here, he might find a way to make everything worse than it already is.”
“Are you sure?” I said.
“Yes. I’ll be fine.” She wiped the tears from her cheeks and shook her head. “I’ve dealt with worse shite than this before.”
“Go,” Alec said.
Not needing to be told again, I grabbed Lauren’s hand and led her out of the room, feeling her fingers tremble in my grip. Or maybe it was mine that were shaking.
“Are you okay?” Lauren asked as we neared the front door.
I paused just long enough to pull her into a hug. “Yeah, you?”
“I think so?”
A grin tugged at my lips. “Thanks for saving my ass. It was hot. Maybe I am into taser play.”
She shook her head, tugging me down for a quick, hard kiss. “What can I say? My savior kink took over.”
We walked outside and found Josh and Aly near the far bushes, Josh bent over at the waist, Aly rubbing his back.
“He okay?” I called.
“Yeah,” she said, heading our way. “He’s just dry-heaving now.”
I eyed Josh’s back, wondering what in the fuck had happened to him that the smell of burning flesh made him puke. And then I recalled who his father was and immediately decided I didn’t want to know.
“I can’t fucking believe that piece of shit,” Aly said, glaring back toward the house. She turned, clutching Lauren’s face, taking in her ruined dress. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” Lauren said.
Aly released her and rounded on me. “Come here.”
I opened my mouth to tell her I was fine, too—his hands had only been on me for a few seconds—but she was already moving, tipping my head back so she could check me over, suddenly all business.
“Does this hurt?” she asked.
“No.”
“How about this?”
“No.”
She poked and prodded until I finally pulled away. “He didn’t really hurt me, I was just . . .”
Lauren threaded her fingers through mine. “Shocked?”
I looked down at her and nodded.
Aly gripped my shoulder. “I’m really sorry.”
“Don’t be. If I’d done that alone, it would have been much worse.”
I filled her in on how Dad had been about to let me go, but her gaze drifted back to the house while I spoke, and she still looked mad enough that I was worried she might storm back inside. Josh finally joined us then, popping a piece of gum into his mouth and then wrapping a preemptive arm around his fiancée’s waist.
Aly sighed, realizing her chance had passed. “Please tell me Moira isn’t staying.”
“She’s probably staying,” I said.
“Why has she put up with him for so long?” Aly asked.
I sighed. “He’s not always like this. You’ve seen that. He can be funny and charming, and most of that is reserved for Mom. She gets the best of him. Hell, I think she might be the only person he truly loves.”
Lauren made a small sound of distress and slipped her arms around me. “That’s so sad.”
I hugged her back. “And it’s true that he wasn’t always this bad. He’s gotten much worse over the years. I think a lot of it comes down to fear and perception. Me breaking away from him shows the people in our world that there’s weakness in his house, and there are plenty of others just like my dad looking to exploit that to their own advantage. He’s terrified of being usurped, of becoming expendable, because he knows better than anyone what happens when you are.”
Aly frowned. “Do you think he’s going to come after you?”
I shook my head. “No. Mom’s staying for more than herself. She’s staying for all of us. She’s Dad’s last tether to his humanity, and I’m sure she’ll spend the next several days reminding him that if he does anything to really hurt me, this family will be broken beyond repair and he’ll be the architect of his own demise, left completely alone in the world.”
Lauren frowned. “So, what? You think he’ll come back around? Try to make amends?”
I nodded. “Eventually. That split second before you tased him, I felt like I was looking at the old Dad. The one who taught me how to throw a baseball, the one who used to put Greg on his shoulders during parades so he could see over the crowd.”
Aly looked unconvinced. “Well, no matter what happens, I think we can all agree that we’re done with these dinners.”
“Oh, fuck, yeah,” I said.
Josh made a contemplative sound. “Maybe we start having our own family dinners instead.”
Aly beamed, looking to Lauren and me. “What do you think?”
“I like it,” Lauren said. “Nic?”
I grinned. “I’m in.”
