Chapter Fourteen
Mara
I could have kicked myself. Of course my father would have been tracking my mother, and I couldn’t believe I was stupid enough to overlook the attention he’d paid to my necklace and his obsession with replacing it.
My father didn’t have family. He had possessions. My mother had been one of them until he no longer found her useful or amusing, and I was another.
My father walked up to Salvatore and punched him in the jaw. My heart raced as I watched the man who’d made me a woman. He didn’t flinch. In fact, Salvatore looked up and smiled at my father.
“I’ve got a whole list of fun activities planned for the two of you,” Father said. “I’ll ask this once, and I expect an honest response. Lie to me, and I’ll torture my darling daughter to death while you watch.” The hate in his eyes as he spoke to Salvatore could have set a person aflame. “Is my daughter pure?”
“Daddy, please,” I begged, but he put up a hand to shush me.
“I’ll deal with you once I know whether or not you’re worth my time,” he said. “Now, Salvatore, which is it? Is she still my precious baby girl, or is my darling Mara just another filthy whore?” Salvatore just glared at him, and my father punched him again. “Is she pure?” he spat.
“No,” Salvatore responded. “She’s mine. Call her a filthy whore again, and I’ll make sure that you die a slow, painful death.”
My father laughed so hard that he choked for a moment. “Oh dear. You’ve fallen for the girl. I must issue you my deepest condolences. You have no idea who you’ve gotten yourself into bed with. She is nothing more than a liability. I’d hoped to sell her off to whichever of my rivals thought they could tame her. I figured it would be an excellent way to forge a new alliance and get some revenge at the same time. She’s such an ungrateful little bitch. You know, if you’d have survived this thing, you’d have found out. I’m actually doing you a favor. I’m saving you from a terrible fate.”
I’d had enough. “You know what, Daddy, I’m not the problem. You are. You’re a monster. You could have saved my mother. You had the money.” I fought back tears at the memory of my mother suffering. “I would have been a loving and dutiful daughter if you’d just helped her.”
My father laughed again. “I think we both know you’d never be anything close to loving or dutiful. Perhaps you wouldn’t have attempted to steal from me, but loving and dutiful are impossible for you. As far as your mother went, it would have been a waste of money. Nothing could save her. She was doomed as soon as she was diagnosed. Better treatment would have only delayed the inevitable. You think I’m a monster, but I’m just pragmatic.”
“Even if you couldn’t save her, you could have helped me pay for a better hospice. She didn’t have to die in as much agony. I begged you to help me so that Mom could at least die comfortable and with dignity. You weren’t there to see what the end was like for her,” I said.
“As far as your mother’s suffering, all I can say is that she got what she deserved,” he snarled. “We all get what we deserve in the end.”
“You know she didn’t do anything to bring that pain on herself. Whatever. Let’s just get on with this,” I said.
It was then that I noticed another man that stood quietly behind my father. He’d been observing everything in silence. I barely recognized his face, but I knew who he was. Well, I didn’t know his real name. He was Luigi Farelli. The man was a legend, and he was the only person higher in organized crime than my father that I’d ever seen. Father was the head of our family, but Luigi Farelli was a high-ranking official in an organization that tied the Italian families together.
“Anthony, take your souvenir and then get your whore daughter so we can leave,” Luigi said. “Salvatore and I have things to discuss.”
Luigi handed my father a knife, and two men grabbed Salvatore.
“I’ll only take an ear as a souvenir,” my father said. “But don’t worry. I’m sure whatever Mr. Farelli has planned for you will be much worse.” He looked at me. “As for you. I’m taking you home, but there’s nothing left to do with you but make an example for other daughters.”
Salvatore and I exchanged a look. We were out of options. It was either die fighting or get dragged off and face a torturous death. I’d made my decision. I’d rather be shot trying to escape than live through what my father had planned.
I nodded to Sal and pulled the gun from my waistband. Father didn’t know that I could use a weapon. My first shot ricocheted off the door frame at the top of the stairs, but my second hit its mark. Luigi wasn’t wearing a vest, and I hit him dead in the heart.
Salvatore stood up, knocking one of the men holding him back. In a flash of motion, he reached out and broke the other’s neck with one fluid movement. In under a second, Salvatore had that man’s gun in his hand and he used it to shoot two more. I took aim and picked off anyone that Salvatore hadn’t gotten to yet.
When everyone but my father was dead, I aimed my gun at him. “Make the transfer,” I said. “I know you have it. Transfer the money.”
“Mara, you know it will raise suspicions if I reinitiate the transfer after I pulled it back,” he said. “That will shine a whole lot of light on you that you don’t want.”
“The accounts are offshore, aren’t they?” I asked Salvatore.
“They are,” he responded. “I don’t think your father means the government or the police. He means the bank will want extra confirmation.”
“Fine. Let’s all go upstairs, and you can wire the money to the accounts I tell you,” I said. “Salvatore isn’t the only one with foreign bank accounts.”
“Mara, that’s not a good idea,” Salvatore said.
“Do you have a better idea? I don’t think you do. Don’t worry so much. I’ll send the money from my accounts to yours as soon as we’re done with Daddy here. It’s one hiccup. We’ll get everything back on track,” I assured him.
My father sat at the laptop and wired the money to the account numbers I fed him. Fortunately, I’d had them all memorized just in case something like this happened. I learned a long time ago not to count on men.
Once the deposits were made, I confirmed with the bank that the money had gone through. It didn’t take as long for the transfers to finalize because I didn’t have the same protections in place that Salvatore had. It was a concern, but nothing that couldn’t be dealt with once my father was out of the picture.
“I don’t want to shoot you, so you’re going to leave and forget that you ever had a daughter,” I said.
He laughed. “You’re more like me than you want to believe, but you’re not very bright. You think if you walk out of here with the money it’s over? You killed Luigi Farelli. You’ve forced my hand. I’ll have no choice but to hunt you down, and I won’t be the only one.”
“You’re going to make sure that no one actually finds me,” I said. “I’ve put together a little information packet for your friends at the Department of Justice. If you come after me, I’ll have no choice but to make sure it gets to the right hands.”
“Princess, you’ve made a serious mistake. I have plenty of friends at the Department of Justice. There is nothing you can do to me. You can delay the inevitable, but you can’t stop what I’m going to do to you,” he said.
“You’ve got your gun on him, right?’ I asked Salvatore.
“Yep.”
I put the gun Salvatore had given me back in my waistband and walked over to one of my father’s men. I leaned down and plucked his gun from his hand.
“No one will ever know that Salvatore and I were here. It will just look like you clashed with Luigi Farelli and nobody made it out alive,” I said and aimed my gun at my father.
“Mara, please,” my father said, but it wasn’t a plea. He was mocking me. “You should let me go. I’m sure we could work something out.”
“If I let you go now, it will just be delaying the inevitable,” I said and pulled the trigger.