With that he puts his arm around Lola, pulls her in tight to him with a kiss on the top of her head, and leaves me standing here with envy. He’s able to hold his wife, while mine is out there somewhere with a man who must have done something beyond my wildest imagination for Salvatore to cast him out of the family. To make Royal want to take his brother and cause him harm, his own flesh and blood. I can only hope that Calla is as strong as we all believe her to be.
I jog quickly down the stairs, through the foyer, and down the long hallway to the back of the house to the kitchen after showering and changing into a pair of jeans, a black Sinners t-shirt, and my boots. Several people I do not recognize at all are standing or sitting in the kitchen, all of them with guns in holsters dangling at their waist or hints of the outline of a gun tucked in the back of their pants. A map is spread out on the table.
“Any luck?”
Several of them turn towards me, either shaking their heads ‘no’ or giving me a slight chin lift. Salvatore excuses himself from the table and makes his way toward me. With a squeeze on the back of my neck, he leads me out of the kitchen, down the hall, and into his office where he shuts the door behind him.
“Take a seat,” he tells me, indicating the chair directly across from his desk.
I sit. He shifts around the desk, sitting in his own chair.
“I’m going to get right to it. No bullshit. No lies. Although I will tell you this; what I’m about to tell you is not an easy thing to hear, nor is it easy to tell. I love both of my sons. But Royal, he’s not right. That boy has some demons inside of him.”
He pauses, looking out the window for a moment, his eyes glazing over. Finally, he speaks in a low, trembling voice.
“My oldest son is a killer. And I don’t mean a killer like John. I mean, he gets a thrill out of killing people. He gets off on it.”
“Jesus Christ! You mean to tell me he kills people for the hell of it?”
An unsettling numbness wells up inside of me. Panic instantly hits. Salvatore’s not telling me everything. He places his elbows on the desk, steepling his fingers and resting them on his chin.
“We haven’t heard from him in ten years, not since the day we kicked him out and told him he was no longer a part of this family.”
He closes his eyes. I can tell this is so hard for him to say. To discuss this with me.
“Royal works for Ivan Solokov. My son is now known by the name of... Scarface.”
I stand up abruptly, leaning forward.
“You have got to be fucking kidding me? Jesus Christ! He’s known to cut people up into tiny pieces with knives. He leaves them unrecognizable, and he has my wife!”
“Listen here, goddamnit. I feel your pain. I feel it here, in the pit of my soul. That man is not my son. He may have my blood running through his veins, but he is not my child. He’s the prodigy of the devil himself. And he has my son, too. He’s seeking revenge on Lola and me. The only way he can hurt me is to take away Manny. To leave us with nothing. He knows how strongly I feel about family. That may sound like a contradiction, but that monster… Fuck, he turned on this family, all for greed. All for power. He knew when the time came, I would turn the reins of the family over to Manny and not him. As far as Calla, I don’t know what he wants with her.”
I begin pacing the room, his words crippling me.
“Do you think he will kill them?”
I stop at the window, my hands shoved deep into my pockets. My mind is wandering all over the place. I should be out there looking for them, not stuck in here. I’m no use here. Not to them. The walls in this huge house are suffocating me.
“Do you want the truth?”
Salvatore is behind me now, his hand on my shoulder.
“I already know the answer. You don’t have to say a thing.”
“Ivan’s big into drugs. He always has been.”
Goddamnit, this is going to be worse than I’ve imagined.
“The first time Lola and I suspected he was on drugs, let’s just say that shit didn’t go over very well. He was only fifteen years old. I forced that boy to do a drug test and sure as shit, traces of heroin were found.”