Chapter 498: Son Of A Bitch
"Son of a bitch!" David snapped, getting to his feet.
The chair scraped loudly against the floor. Well, looked like the ruse had come to an end. No more quiet watching. No more waiting behind fake smiles. No more letting Bianca improvise.
No one ever listened to him. This would have ended a long time ago.
*****
Marco was buried beneath a mountain of printouts. They covered the floor in uneven stacks, spilled across the bed, climbed over the bedside table, and spread beneath the windows. Bianca, it seemed, was not short of money, nor was she frightened of spending it. If anything, the figures suggested a woman who understood the power of wealth and wielded it without apology.
He had requested the financial statements in print because screens made everything feel too smooth, too easy to miss. Paper could be arranged, circled, pinned, compared. His bedroom had ceased to be a bedroom hours ago. It had become an investigation room. Notes were taped to the walls in slanted rows. Dates and names were scribbled on scraps of paper and pinned to the headboard. The closet doors were covered in lists, questions, and half-formed theories. Transfers were marked in red. Anything suspicious had been separated from the rest and placed near him.
Marco sat on the floor in the middle of it all, sleeves rolled up, his eyes gritty from hours of reading. His body ached from the position.
If there was something to find, he would find it. He owed himself that much. His fingers moved over the papers, sorting one stack into another, his mind working faster than his tired eyes could follow. He was so focused on the columns in front of him that he did not hear the footsteps outside his door. He only looked up when the handle turned and the door opened.
Carol stepped in and stopped. Her eyes travelled from the floor to the bed, from the bed to the walls, then back to her son, who looked as though he had been living inside a storm for days. "Whoosh!" she said, blinking at the chaos. "Looks like papers threw up in here."
Marco rubbed a hand over his face and tried to look less exhausted than he felt. "Hey, Ma. I’ll be down for breakfast in a bit."
"Breakfast? Marco, it’s evening already. I’m sure the kitchen is already making dinner."
He frowned, then turned toward the windows. The light had changed completely. The bright morning glare he thought he had been working under had given way to dusk. "What?" he looked up then, his stomach choosing that moment to growl.
"Marco, are you okay?" Carol asked quietly. She was no longer looking at the papers. She was looking at him. "This is worrying."
Marco’s gaze dropped back to the financial statements scattered around him. He picked up one sheet, stared at it, and tossed it aside with a harsh breath. "I’m trying to find out who the fuck Bianca is paying to do her dirty job. Who the fuck is she using?"
Carol sighed. "Are you sure," she asked, stepping farther into the room, "that you are not just trying to distract yourself because you miss your wife and child?"
Marco leaned back slowly until he was lying flat on the floor, his back to the rug, his face turned toward the ceiling. The papers crinkled beneath his shoulders. "I do miss them," he admitted. He turned his head slightly and glanced at Carol. "I am being driven by the same thing that drives Luca, Ma. The need to protect my family."
"I called Val," she said. "She seems off," Carol continued. "She tried to sound fine, but she isn’t. She needs you, Marco. See, you might think you hit the jackpot with being with a woman so young—"
"It has nothing to do with her age."
"Marco, I know how you men think, so don’t even argue." Carol made a small dismissive swing with her hand, batting away a lie.
"Ma, I love my wife."
"That’s not what I am saying," Carol said. She moved carefully through the papers. "But there is a thrill that comes with being with a young, beautiful woman. I know. Just ask Massimo."
Marco’s face twisted in instant discomfort. "I did not need to know that."
"No, but you needed to hear it." Carol folded her arms and looked down at him, all amusement fading from her eyes. "What I am saying is, as much as it makes you feel like a hunk that you"—she lifted both hands and made air quotes—"scored, there is another side to it."
Marco’s jaw tightened. "Ma—"
"Let me finish. The downside is that girls that young can bend under pressure. They can break in places they don’t even know how to name yet. Val has been through more than she should at her age. More than any woman should. And right now, when she is a new mother, newly married, frightened, exhausted, and trying to hold herself together, she doesn’t have you."
Marco looked away, but there was nowhere safe to rest his eyes. Every wall reflected the same thing back at him. This was how he loved them: by staying away long enough to destroy whatever threatened them.
Carol was right about one thing. Val was alone.
"I am doing all I can to get back to her," he said.
"How about get her to you?"
"Right now? Ma, we don’t even know when shit is going to hit the fan."
"Shit is always going to hit the fan, Marco. That is what this family is. One disaster after another. One enemy after another. Honestly, half the shit these girls have taken, I didn’t stay long enough to go through it. I didn’t have dead bodies trailing me. I didn’t have people taken from me." She swallowed, then looked back at him. "Only Julian’s mother gave me hell and she wasn’t anywhere as good at it as Bianca was."
"You were strong." Marco argued.
(400 power stones!)
