“Heathcliff. It’s good to see you, son.” My father patted my back, interrupting the conversation I was in the middle of with Gerald Horvath, my grandfather’s attorney and always the only friendly face in the room toward me.
“Edward.” I nodded.
My father and brother hated my existence, but appearances were important to them. Disdain hid under a masked smile when anyone was around. Especially when that anyone had voting power, as Gerald did.
Grandfather’s attorney had just given me the dirty details of the purpose of today’s meeting. Vanderhaus owned commercial real estate all over Manhattan, and today’s vote was to approve a large property sale without disclosing certain things to the buyer. The board was at odds. My brother, Elliott, and father held forty-nine percent of the company’s voting power and were always a united front. I held twenty-five percent, something I’m sure Grandfather had decided on strategically. Individually, my brother and father each held twenty-four-and-a-half percent, so my vote outweighed theirs. But united, they could bulldoze their way through many votes since they only needed to snag one percent to have a majority. Apparently, the vote today was David vs. Goliath, and they hadn’t been able to secure anyone’s commitment to vote with them yet.
“Your brother and I would love to catch up, if I could steal you away from Gerald for a few minutes.”
Gerald knew the blood between the three of us ran thin, but bowed out graciously as always. “Sure. No problem. I see a cheese danish calling my name over there before we start anyway.”
Once Gerald was out of earshot, my loving father’s mask slipped down just as Elliott joined us. “How much will it take for you to vote with us?”
My father had always assumed me and my mother were all about money. It was incomprehensible to him that someone without any would put their morals and self-respect ahead of making a quick buck.
I sipped a bottled water. “Let me get this straight. You bought a flailing nursing home that the community very much needed.” I pointed to my brother. “I’m guessing you’re the one who negotiated the purchase by promising the seller that you had every intention of keeping the facility open, but somehow that promise didn’t make its way into the contract. Then you demolished the place, along with a few other houses you bought surrounding it. All to make room for an eight-story mall that you could fill with a bunch of overpriced chain stores.”
My brother looked me up and down. He must’ve sucked on a lemon that left his face like that right before he walked over to our lovely chat. “I’ll tell you what…” he said, “…you swing your vote our way, and I’ll make sure we rent space to a decent, moderately priced, men’s suit chain and see to it that you get a twenty-five percent discount.”
I smiled and continued, not bothering to trade personal jabs with my arrogant half-brother. “I wasn’t quite finished with my story. Then you find out that the soil underneath the building you just tore down is contaminated with lead and a whole list of other toxins. That it will cost you upwards of a million bucks to clean it up, not to mention building delays and dealing with the DEP. Now that the mall is out of the question, you want to sell the property to another nursing home company that is interested in building a new facility on the site, and you have no plans to disclose what you’ve found to the buyer.”
“Don’t be naïve,” my father scolded. “This is the business world we’re in. Not some tattoo parlor where you decide not to mar the skin on a drunken girl’s ass because she isn’t in the right frame of mind to have that rose she’s always wanted tattooed on her left cheek. It’s caveat emptor—buyer beware—we have no legal obligation to coddle a buyer.”
“No legal obligation. What about an ethical one?”
“You’re being ridiculous. Do you know how much money we all stand to lose if we are forced to keep this land and go through with this cleanup?”
“It was the company’s mistake in buying the land without testing the soil. It’s the company that should pay for it. From what I heard, the nursing home that sold you the property had an environmental study done before they built the place sixty years ago. They’d have no way of knowing what seeped into the soil from the surrounding gas stations over the years. And if you would’ve kept the property a nursing home—like you told the community you’d planned to—the issue wouldn’t have reared its ugly head either.”
My brother buttoned his jacket and looked at our father. “I told you it was a waste of time to try to make him understand business. You can take the tattooed boy out of the hood, but you’ll never take the hood out of the boy.” He turned to me. “With this type of loss, and the way I’m sure you’ll run the other businesses Grandfather left you into the ground, you’ll be back to tattooing criminals in no time.”
I winked at my brother. “Not the drunk ones. Remember, I’m the upstanding brother who believes in not tattooing roses on their asses.”
Luckily for me, the secretary called the board meeting to order. For the next two hours we all sat around listening to my father and brother bullshit everyone. I had to hand it to them. They spun such a good tale, for a minute, I almost believed that voting with them to endorse the sale without disclosing the property contamination was in the best interest of the community.
We broke for a break before the formal vote, and I went outside to have a cigarette. Oddly, it was easier to breathe with nicotine-laced, thick smoke filling my lungs than it was in that fancy boardroom.
On the way back to the meeting, I found my brother down a quiet hall with a woman. I almost didn’t notice it was him, seeing as his entire face was buried in the woman’s neck—a woman who wasn’t his wife. Such a piece of shit.
He strolled into the meeting at the last minute chatting with a board member and wearing his usual smug smile. I’d seen the board member a few times. I remembered she was the heir to some fortune her dead husband had left and had a British accent—Maribel something was her name. They both took their seats, diagonally across from each other, and the meeting resumed. Not having gotten a good look at the woman from the hall, I really hoped it wasn’t her, and he wasn’t screwing a board member.
“Alright, let’s get this over with,” my father said. “This is a public vote. The secretary here has everyone’s voting power on his laptop, so all we need to do is hear a yay or a nay on the sale. He’ll tally up the results when we’re done.”
The secretary then proceeded to call off names and people voted.
“No.”
“No.”
“No.”
“No.”
After the fourth member voted no, I looked over at my brother. He didn’t look at all concerned. When it was my turn, my father shot me a look of disgust for voting my conscience.
Every member voted no, until we got to the one remaining vote, aside from my father and brother—the woman who walked in with my brother. She looked over at him before casting her vote. Fuck. Her eyes hooded and, upon closer look, her swollen lips confirmed she was the woman from the hall.
“Maribel Stewart? Your vote?”
“Yes.”
Fuck.
All they needed was one person to vote with them.
I stayed in my seat until everyone but my brother and father cleared out of the room. My brother’s face was so self-righteous, I had the urge to rearrange it for him.
“I don’t know how you sleep at night,” I said.
“I have a ten-thousand-dollar bed fit for a king.” Elliot grinned.
I stood. “I’d rather sleep on the floor and have a clear conscience.”
He fixed his tie and looked up at me. “Fitting, the floor is where you belong.”
All worked up after the encounter with my dysfunctional family, I texted Gia to see where she was at.
Rush: Where are you?
She responded a few seconds later.
Gia: At Ellen’s Stardust Diner on Broadway. Having some lunch. They have the best French toast.
Rush: I’m heading over there.
Since I’d parked my car in a garage for the day, I hopped a cab to the restaurant. The meeting with my father and Elliot was still running through my mind, and I needed to calm the fuck down.
I needed to see Gia.
I knew she’d make me feel better, even though it was frustrating to admit that to myself. Having to curb the urge to smoke in the cab, I rolled down the window and let the cool air hit my face.
I thought about Gia’s conning me into telling her my name. That little witch knew my weakness. She knew my jealousy knew no bounds, and she knew exactly how to manipulate that. That was a dangerous talent.
But damn, it worked.
I couldn’t help but laugh to myself.
She got me.
Well played, Gia. Well played.
The cabbie was looking at me through the rearview mirror. “Something funny?” he asked in a Jamaican accent.
Busted.
“Nah. Just thinking about a woman who makes me a little crazy.”
Nodded in understanding, he said, “Yeah, mon. Don’t they all.”
He dropped me off, and I entered the diner, which was retro-themed with vinyl red booths and neon lights. One of the servers, dressed in a poodle skirt from the fifties, was standing on top of one of the booths singing. She was probably a wannabe Broadway actress.
It didn’t surprise me one bit that Gia had chosen this place. It was eccentric, just like her. What did surprise me was to find her sitting in a booth across from an NYPD officer. Before I could draw the conclusion that she was getting herself in trouble for doing something stupid, I noticed she seemed to be smiling and laughing.
A cop? What the hell?
My fists tightened. A rush of adrenaline hit me until I got closer and realized who it was from the resemblance alone. She had said she was planning to meet her father.
Shit.
Her father.
I felt like a dumbass now. With everything that happened back at Vanderhaus, I became distracted and had totally forgotten she was meeting him. I definitely wouldn’t have come here if I’d remembered she was with her dad.
It was too late to turn back. She spotted me. So did he.
You could have told me, Gia!
She was smiling from ear to ear and waved me over to their booth. Gia seemed completely comfortable with this situation, which was the opposite of how I was feeling right now.
“Hey!” she said.
Placing my hands in the pockets of my jeans, I nodded once. “Hi.”
“This must be Rush,” her father said.
She’d told him about me?
“Yes, Dad. This is Rush.” She turned to me. “Rush, this is my dad, Tony Mirabelli.”
Her father looked like he was in good shape for someone I’d put in his early fifties. They both had the same blue eyes that contrasted their dark hair and olive skin.
I took one hand out of my pocket and extended it. “Nice to meet you, sir.”
His handshake was firm while his eyes fell to the tattoos on my arm. He nudged his head toward the table. “Sit. Join us.”
I looked over at Gia. “I’m thinking maybe I should come back when you’re done with your dad. I don’t want to interrupt. I have a few errands I could run.”
Tony answered for her, “Nonsense. Take a seat.” His tone was not exactly casual. It was more demanding, like sit the fuck down, motherfucker.
I no longer felt that I could get out of this situation, so I conceded and planted myself next to Gia. There was a huge plate of half-eaten French toast in front of her. Her father’s plate was clean.
A waitress came by and placed a menu in front of me. “Can I get you anything?”
I hadn’t eaten all day but didn’t feel like making myself too comfortable here, so I said, “Just coffee. Black.”
My eyes landed on his. Tony was staring at me intently. For some reason, the theme to The Sopranos started playing in my head. Probably the name Tony triggered it. The opening sequence where Tony Soprano is driving over the bridge to Jersey flashed through my mind. That was exactly where I wanted to be—driving over a bridge to Jersey and not staring this man in the face right now.
There weren’t many things that made me nervous. But sitting across from a man who’s looking at you like he knows you want to spread his daughter’s legs apart and eat her out, is definitely one of them. Especially, when the dude is packing a pistol.
He folded his hands together and tilted his head to the side. His expression suddenly turned serious. In fact, he looked pissed. “My daughter tells me you punched her in the eye.”
My heart started to pound faster. A long moment of silence passed as I just sat there speechless.
She what?
What in the ever-living fuck?
Then…Gia snorted. Tony looked at her, and they both busted out into laughter.
Am I being punked?
“I’m just kidding, son.” He wiped his eyes. “It was a joke.”
They were both assholes. My pulse finally calmed down.
Can’t believe I fell for that.
“He knows the truth about what happened,” she said.
I looked him dead in the face. “If I had been there to monitor things, she wouldn’t have gotten that black eye. I’m sorry she got hurt.”
He simply nodded.
“We were just talking about you before you walked in,” Gia said.
“Must have been why my ears were ringing.”
Tony turned to me. “I hear you gave Gia a job and that you make sure she’s safe in getting home at night. I never really loved the idea of her moving out there all alone and so far away from me when I have no choice but to be here for work. But you know Gia. She has a mind of her own, couldn’t be stopped. So, I really appreciate any help I can get in looking out for her.”
I felt like a fraud. My thoughts when it came to Gia were far from “safe.”
Nevertheless, I took credit. “No problem. It’s my pleasure.”
He brushed a piece of food off his navy uniform. “I raised my daughter to be smart and independent. But there’s only so much she can do to protect herself. I worry about her, particularly because she can be hotheaded like her dad. She can be minding her own business one minute and breaking up a bar fight the next.”
“Well, I can definitely agree with you on that one.” I chuckled. “Gia is definitely…spirited.”
Gia winked at me. She seemed to be enjoying this interaction, whereas I was watching the clock, rearing to leave.
The waitress set a glass of water and a steaming mug of coffee in front of me. I took a sip of the hot liquid.
Tony was just watching me and then caught me off guard when he said, “So…that being said…in all seriousness, what exactly are your intentions when it comes to my daughter?”
I nearly spit out my coffee.
A long moment of silence passed before they once again turned to each other and burst into laughter. These two were in cahoots—a couple of pranksters.
Tony cackled and pointed. “I loved the look on your face.”
“Don’t worry,” Gia said as she placed her hand on my forearm. “He knows you’re not interested in me and that you’re harmless, despite how dangerous you might look.” Leaning her shoulder against mine, she said, “Right, Rush? He has nothing to worry about?” She batted her eyelashes at me.
I swallowed. “That’s right.”
The better to eat you with, my dear,
Said the big bad wolf.
She addressed her father, “Rush says because he’s my boss, we can’t date.”
He took a sip of water then said, “Well, that’s smart, I suppose. Never hurts to keep things professional.”
I glared at Gia. “I completely agree.”
“Although, you’re probably kidding yourself,” Tony said. “I see the way you look at my daughter, and I’m not sure I like it, to be honest.”
My eyes narrowed.
Shit.
He must have sensed the worry on my face when he said, “Man, you’re gullible.”
He was fucking with me again. Gia and her dad were once again laughing at me. Two peas in a pod.
“You want to know the truth, son?”
I let out a long breath. “Sure…”
“I did my best to lead by example as far as my daughter is concerned, show her what a good, decent, hardworking man is like. I trust her judgment. So, if Gia feels that someone is worthy of her time and trust, then that’s enough for me, whether it’s a friend or more. Who she associates with…well, it’s not my decision to make anymore.”
I nodded once. “Alright…”
“Plus, I ran a full background check on you a little while ago as soon as she told me about you. Came up clear.” He grinned. “Heathcliff Rushmore. Interesting name.”
Thanks a fucking lot, Gia.
Gritting my teeth, I said, “It’s a family name.”
“Speaking of family...your father is Edward Vanderhaus…”
Hearing him mention that name made my skin crawl.
“I’m quite aware of that, yes. He’s my biological father, but he didn’t raise me.”
“I was on patrol once for a private event in the City that Vanderhaus booked. He’s kind of a dick. No offense.”
“None taken. And believe me, I’m quite aware of that.” I sighed. “What did he do?”
“It wasn’t so much what he did…just the way he spoke to people, you know? Just my observation.”
“Yup. I know exactly what you mean.”
“Gia was telling me everything—about your inheritance. You don’t have to go into it. Very interesting story, though, to say the least.”
I turned to her. “Did you talk about anything other than me today, Gia?”
She shrugged. “Sorry. But I tell my dad everything.”
“I can see that.” I offered a slight smile so she didn’t actually think I was mad at her. I could’ve cared less what her father knew. I had nothing to hide.
The waitress came by to refill my coffee and warmed Tony’s, too.
He gulped some of it down then said, “Sounds like you’ve done the best you can with all that you’ve been given, son—the good and the bad.”
“At heart, I’m still a blue-collar guy from Long Island. I saw how hard my mother struggled. I never expected things to be handed to me. I still work hard and don’t take anything for granted.”
“Well, this poor boy from Queens finds that admirable.”
Gia interrupted, “He’s fixing my car for me, too, Dad.”
“You know your way around cars?”
“Yeah. I used to work in an auto repair shop.”
Tony seemed impressed. “No kidding…”
“He also used to be a tattoo artist,” Gia said. “I asked him if he could ink me, but he refuses.”
“Sounds like he knows you can be a little impulsive. Good call, Rush.”
I almost wished Gia’s dad were more of a dick. It would give me another good reason to stay away from her. He’d raised her all on his own and seemed to have done a hell of a job. I hated to say it, but Tony was cool as shit, the kind of man I wished I had for a father.
He looked down at his watch. “Well, as much as I’d love to stay with you, sweetheart, work beckons. I’ve got to get back to the precinct.”
Gia pouted. “Alright, Daddy. I’m glad we got to see each other.” She stood up and gave him a hug.
He held out his hand. “Rush…it was a pleasure. Stay out of trouble.” He gave me a look and for some reason that one seemed serious.
Stay out of trouble.
Translation: Stay out of Gia.