Page 24 of End It All

"Where's your mother?" he asked. "She kick you out?"

I bristled at the way he spoke so freely about my mother. She should never even be a subject that left his twisted lips. My mother was a fucking saint, she had done everything she could for us to stay afloat when she had been left with nothing. Hearing that mocking tone in his voice only irritated me more.

"No, she didn't," I bit out.

He grunted. "No need to get your panties in a bunch, son. Clearly, you love her."

Cesare’s thick smoke filled the car. I tried hard to bite my tongue, not to say something stupid. Clearly, he wasn’t a man you should fuck with. I felt it in the way he spoke to Quincy, and how Quincy had backed down. I’d always had a good sense of who you shouldn’t mess with or how far to push a person without going overboard and getting killed. But he rubbed me the wrong way. As the tension built in the car, I resumed bouncing my foot up and down.

"Did you?" I blurted out. “Love her. I mean, you did leave her with a child and nothing else.”

Cesare laughed. When he didn't answer me, my anger won out. Fuck him.

"I’m glad it’s so funny. Yeah, this must be normal for you. Going around, abandoning your kids, and being a deadbeat."

A hand wrapped around my throat and my face slammed against the window. I sucked in a shaky breath.

"Be careful what you say to me," he said, his voice so deep, it rumbled through me. "Whatever I've done in my life, I've had my reasons."

What was your reason for leaving us? What was your excuse for walking away from her?

I swallowed the words that stayed on the edge of my tongue. All of my anger built inside of me, and I forced myself not to flex my hand into a fist. Instead of answering him, I stayed still. Eventually, he pulled away and I was able to sit up straight again.

My father sighed. "My temper isn't what it used to be, Blake."

"Yeah. You never used to do that before," I mumbled as I touched my throat.

"Never." He sighed and shut his eyes. "It's been a rough year, son. I'm sorry. Let’s not talk about Veronica right now.”

My heart skipped a beat. Did he just say he was sorry? I searched his face. When he opened his eyes, I saw the pain in them. Immediately, all of my anger flew right out of the window. As much as he pissed me off, I had always assumed he just didn't care about us. Apparently, he did. He even seemed to care about my mother.

The car pulled to a stop in front of a hotel. We made our way inside, taking the elevator in silence. When we reached the top floor, he let us in and his men stayed in the hall, guarding the door. I stayed close to him, following deeper into the immaculate but sterile place until we reached the kitchen.

"Have you eaten?" he asked.

I nodded absentmindedly. "Yeah, at Silver Dreams. How did you know I was there?" I asked.

"Word gets around when someone uses the Vitale name. At first, I thought you were an imposter, and I was ready to take care of that," he said pointedly as he grabbed a bottle of dark alcohol and started pouring it into two glasses. "Until I saw you and that lighter."

“What if I’m not your son?” I ventured. “I could be lying.”

“You could be.” He shrugged. “But you would be dead quickly if I found out otherwise. And trust me, there will be a DNA test. But that lighter. I’ve never given it to anyone but you.” He paused. “And you still look the same.”

He remembers me?

I rolled the lighter between my fingers, the weight of it was heavy in my pocket. I wanted to throw it out of the window as we rode to the hotel, but after he'd grabbed me like that, I didn't have the nerve anymore. He pushed a glass of liquor across the counter to me and nodded.

"To us reuniting," he said. "Salute!"

"S-Salute," I repeated.

We both took the shot, him more elegantly than I could ever hope to. The liquor burned all the way down to my stomach. I ignored it and looked up to find him staring at me.

"What?" I asked.

"Your Italian is shit," he said. "Veronica didn't teach you?"

"She was too busy working after you left. There was no time."