Chapter 196: It’s Boss Today
- LUCIANO -
Rory looks more like herself. During breakfast, she purposely cuts me annoyed looks with those flinty eyes, but all I can really see is the soft curiosity from this morning when I woke up in her arms. I look forward to enduring the coals she is going to make me walk over in order to get back to that part of her again.
The two sisters are talking about the upcoming wedding—where it’s taking place and who is coming—and it’s interesting to watch their interaction. Rory softens to Raya. If I hadn’t witnessed them together in the past, it might be surprising. I can imagine an annoyed version of Rory with little patience, because that’s how she acts with me. But that’s not how she is with her older sister.
"Will you come help me pick out a dress?" I hear Raya ask. "Dex says there’s shops not far from here."
"You know I will." Rory smiles.
My phone rings, drawing everyone’s attention at the table. When I see who is calling, I wink at Rory and excuse myself before answering.
Out under the canopy of the trees I don’t even get a chance to say ’good morning’ before my father’s thundering voice is cutting through the phone. Pop very rarely raises his voice with me anymore, and my thoughts go flitting back through the things I set in motion last night before running anything by him.
He has every right to be upset with me. I don’t overstep like that. Ever. Decisions are always weighed carefully. Things are run by him when I’m not certain he would back me or when they are of serious consequence. But I didn’t take those careful steps last night.
When I was pacing through the rainforest with the knowledge of yet another threat bearing down on Rory that I wasn’t aware of, this time in the form of a possible heart condition, I didn’t have time to wait for my father’s approval. It seemed important to put all things into place right away—all the protections I should have brought with me to begin with.
"You can’t send men to Costa Rica without consulting me."
That’s the first thing I hear. There was a string of shouted curses before that, but this calmer statement is the first that registers and draws me back to the conversation I should really be focusing on.
"Pa..."
"It’s ’Boss’ today, Lucio. Do you have any idea how it makes me look to wake up and not know why my men are headed to another fucking country?"
His voice grows louder and angrier by the end of the question, and I have to pull the phone away until he’s finished.
"I fucked up," I say, more to myself than to him, but he readily agrees with me.
"You don’t have the power yet, Luciano."
"You’re right."
"Of course I’m right!"
This seems to enrage him further, and I interrupt him with an "I’m sorry" that promptly stops the next tirade that he was about to unleash.
My jaw tenses with the rare apology. I hate being wrong. And I wasn’t wrong in the decisions I made this time—just in not consulting him first.
"What the fuck is going on down there?" He asks, the Boss in him blending with the father. I can hear it—the forgiveness that he’s already offering even though a true Boss never would. Not when someone has bypassed his authority. "Your mother mentioned something more about this girl. Is that what’s made you stupid?"
I reply with a chuckle and rake a hand over my face like I can scrub away the truth, but I can’t. It’s here to stay. I can’t even hide it from my father, and I shouldn’t want to. If anyone would understand this protective instinct, it’s him.
"You can’t make decisions this way," his voice drops lower. If I didn’t know him as well as I do, I would think he’s threatening me with that tone. "It exposes your weaknesses, Lucio. I’ve taught you better than this."
A heaviness drops into my gut, and I swallow roughly. He’s right.
I hear him sigh heavily in a way that makes him sound old and tired. I’ve disappointed him. "You’re a real scorchamend, you know that?"
"I know. I’m sorry," I say again, and this time I mean it more sincerely. "It’s just that..." I glance around, scanning my surroundings. It’s my second nature—to make sure no one is following or listening. To make sure I’m safe. Now that need for safety extends to someone else, and it’s unsettling. It’s terrifying. Because I can take care of myself just fine, but someone else who I’m not even sure wants to take care of herself...
"I’m listening." My father’s voice is deep and impatient.
"She’s different, Pop."
"Different," he repeats. "And apparently different includes needing not only two of my men but an old friend and his mistress? And our jet?" His anger flames again, and suddenly I’m the little boy in his office with my face and ears burning with shame. But when I realize that Dr. Reddy is coming after all, it makes the shame worth it.
"Yes," I grind out.
He laughs in contempt. "You’re not just thinking with your cazzetto, Luci?"
My father using the diminutive of my name along with the suggestion that I have a little dick in that thick, gravelly voice of his makes my lip curl back and teeth clench against the growl that wants to break free.
"No," I manage.
"This one might have the sweetest cookie of all, but that doesn’t mean..."
"Are you fucking kidding me? You think I would have been pacing the fucking jungle down here, going out of my fucking mind with worry if it was just about..." I do growl this time—with frustration, with anger. My own father talking about Rory that way? Like she’s just some piece of ass?
"Don’t ever..." I snarl, ready to deliver a threat, but then I think of what I did—how my father woke up to the shock of finding that I had made orders without his approval.
I pause with the threat on my tongue, chest heaving against the heat of it like a dragon rethinking the fire it’s about to release. It could burn everything. It could ruin everything.
"Don’t ever what? Act like your Boss?" He snarls back.
I huff out the angry fire from my lungs.
"I love her," I admit, scrubbing another hand over my face.
It’s a stunning admission—one I haven’t made to anyone yet. Not even to myself. But it doesn’t make it less true. I knew it already. I’ve known it since the moment I heard her screaming on that hill—it’s why I instinctively put a bullet into Lawson’s head when I saw him on top of her.
My father doesn’t reply, and why would he? He was expecting this. It’s exactly why he was antagonizing me.
"And if you ever mention her cookie again, I’ll give you an early fucking retirement old man."
With that—the first threat I’ve ever made against my father—I hang up. If he was antagonizing me to get this reaction, then I’m sure he expected that, too.
