Page 73 of Saving Grace
When he’d first entered my life he’d seemed larger than life to me. Untouchable. I’d been too gullible back then to see that was just an evil old man, who had inherited too much power. I had admired and respected him. Put my life in his hands and he betrayed me. I would rectify my mistake.
As if he could feel my eyes on him, suddenly his gaze shifted away from Chino and fell on me. A slight smile rose on his lips, then fell. I didn’t know if it was the gun I had pointed at him or the look of disgust on my face but it took him only seconds to figure out I wasn't there to save him. Tank being there should have been his first clue.
His eyes dimmed.
He pointed an accusatory finger in my direction. “You, you’re responsible for this?” He spat. Spittle flew past his lips.
He waved his hand around the office; three more dead bodies littered the floor.
"Why Roman?” he asked looking taken aback as I stepped into his office. I stepped next to Tank and gave him a nod to relax. He lowered his gun.
“Atticus.” I growled, “My name is Atticus and you did this to yourself. I gave you more than ten years, ten miserable fucking years of my life and you’ve been lying to my face on each and every one of those days. I know everything.”
He scoffed, his eyes narrowing. “I don’t give a damn what you think you know… and I gave you my name, money, power. You owed me more than ten years; you owe me your entire fucking life. Your fucking soul.” His chest rose and fell quickly as he damn near growled his words.
I shrugged, not at all affected by his outburst. “That’s something you’ll never get me to agree with you on. You came looking for me. You brought me in. I asked you for nothing, so I owed you nothing. But let’s not dwell in the past. The present is what’s important and I want to know why am I here? It’s become obvious you don’t even like me."
He smirked. “You said you know everything, you tell me why,” he spat nastily.
Sighing I turned my attention to Chino. Who was looking all too pleased with what was going on.
“Aye Chino.” I called out drawing his attention to me. “What did you say my cousins address was?”
I was floored when I found out my sixty-eight-year-old grandfather had a twelve-year-old he was hiding away.
I turned away from Chino in time to watch my grandfather’s confident demeanor slip, his eyes grew big as saucers as he bolted up from his chair.
The sound of him bringing his hand down on the desk reverberated throughout the room. “You will not touch him.”
I chuckled, “I’m not a monster. I would never hurt a child. But I would extend to him the same courtesy you extended to me. Bring him into the fold, teach him the family business.” I taunted. “You want your precious, innocent son in the family business, pappa? Isn’t that what he calls you when you visit him on Mondays and Saturdays?”
He glared at me for a moment before cursing in Italian. “Cazzo!” He narrowed his eyes, then sat back down.
He shook his head. “You want to know why you’re here? Because you look like me and someone noticed. It’s not complicated.”
His eyes fell to his desk. “I should have cut your fucking eyes out of your head the day I found out you existed and left you to die in the piece of shit metal box you lived in.” he spat and then literally turned his head and spat on the floor in disgust
“You wouldn’t be here in my fucking house disrespecting me, ruining every fucking thing I built if it wasn’t for those fucking eyes.” He raged.
Interesting. Here I was thinking he hadn’t known I was alive until I ended up in prison.
“How long?”
He scoffed.
I knew about you, my son's bastardo-- since you were four years old. I knew about you and I knew where he was and I left you and him there to rot, because that’s what he deserved for his disloyalty.” He shook his head.
“A fool! That’s what my son was. He chose to live the life of a fucking pauper all because of that half breedbaldracca. Gave up all he was and could have been for a whore. He chose a cunt over us La famiglia” He seethed.
“It was my own fault though. I brought her for him. He’d seen her at a strip club in New York. Had to have her.” He chuckled. “I paid for her to fuck him, but somehow he thought it was love.
The day he left with her he told me he would make it without me. Told me to go to hell when I told him to let her go and marry a good girl, he could have had anybody, but he chose her and in return she tainted him. But even after he forsake me I was prepared to forgive him and bring him back into the fold, but I wouldn’t help, not while he was with her. I had him watched for a while, the first two years. Getting reports that he was turning into a drunken hillbilly broke my heart.
He was better than that. Born from good stock, descendants of warriors and kings and he was living in a trailer park in the middle of nowhere all because of her, so I let him be. I didn’t hear about him or from him for years, then she left him and that was when he called me.”
He sighed.
“I thought he’d learned his lesson, but no, he wanted me to find that bitch and bring her back to him. At first I refused, then my curiosity got the best of me— why did she leave I wondered. They were supposedly so in love. When I found out she was living happily without him, I wanted him to know. I wanted him to hurt, to beg for my forgiveness, and to do what he should have from the beginning.