Dirty Pool

by Bethany-Kris

  Shouting.

  Talking.

  Begging.

  Nothing worked.

  So, if he didn’t want to hear her, then she had little to no desire to hear him, either. Besides, if he wanted to treat her like a child by taking away her freedom, hiding her phone, and deciding who she could and could not be with, then she might as well prove him right and act like the child he thought she was.

  He wouldn’t hear her when she tried to explain that Michel wasn’t the bad guy Charles thought he was—to her father, he was just that feckin’ Italian gobshite. Just another Italian for her father to see as a problem to his business, and life.

  Certainly not the man she loved.

  It was killing Gabbie. It killed her that she didn’t know what was happening outside of her father’s house. Not with his business, his men, or the people on the other side. Including Michel. Charles was so careful now about what he said around Gabbie, and he no longer allowed his men to freely come in and out to discuss the current happenings in the city.

  She didn’t know anything.

  Was Michel even okay?

  Charles wouldn’t entertain Gabbie’s questions, either. Not when they came to what was happening between the Italians and the Irish, and certainly not about Michel. If she did dare to ask him a question about one of those two topics, he quickly shut her down and made it clear that it wasn’t for her to be concerned about.

  She was a woman.

  Not one of his men.

  She was to remember that.

  Oh, it had never been clearer.

  Apparently, her father’s patience was running particularly thin with her at the moment. Maybe the lack of conversation, and awkward dinners was finally starting to get to him.

  Who knew?

  Grand.

  Maybe he’d finally get the feckin’ point.

  “Lass.”

  “You know, the more annoyed you get … it’s not going to change the fact I don’t want to speak to you,” she told her father, finishing the last bit of her chapter. Setting the book aside, she finally did look at her father then. Not because he wanted her to, but rather, because she was done with the pretenses. “You can’t actually hold me here forever, Da.”

  Charles arched a brow. “On the contrary, Gabbie, I can do exactly that if I want to. I have managed just fine for these last weeks. Please, go ahead and tell me how you think if you throw enough fits and say more horrible things to me that it will get you what you want when so far, that hasn’t worked out for you. Go on, I will wait.”

  She scowled.

  Her father remained cold.

  That was the whole problem.

  Since this conversation was clearly going to get her nowhere, Gabbie picked up the book she’d discarded earlier, and flipped to the page where she left off. Her father let out another heavy sigh at her choice, but she didn’t give a damn.

  It was hard to care about him.

  After all, he didn’t care about her.

  Not really.

  Charles proved that again and again by doing things that hurt her. Before, Gabbie was more than willing to overlook the things about her overbearing father that bothered her because he was literally all she had. Sure, she had uncles and aunts … cousins, too. Friends from school, and things like that.

  But those closest to her?

  No.

  Just her da.

  He was the man who used to tuck her in night after night as a young girl, and would play tea party with her no matter how many times she asked. He was the man who she remembered vividly next to her bedside in the hospital when she was five, and her sugars were so out of control that they thought it might do organ damage because they couldn’t get it stabilized. He cried for her then, too.

  But he was also the same man who wouldn’t let her grow up. He was the same man who made choices for her when she was perfectly capable of making them herself. He was her father, and she loved him entirely, but she couldn’t love the part of him that wanted to control every aspect of her life more than he wanted to see her flourish on her own.

  And right now?

  He was hurting her in a new way.

  She wasn’t okay with that.

  “Gabbie—”

  “Unless you’re going to give me my phone so that I can talk to Michel, or let me go home, then I don’t want to speak to you, Da.”

  Silence echoed.

  She got her answer.

  Gabbie went back to reading her book, all the while, quite aware that her father was still lingering in the doorway of the living room. He stayed there, too, as she read through a whole chapter of her book. He didn’t move or say anything the entire time. She almost wondered if he was just going to stay there all day because she had no plans to speak to him again.

  Not now, anyway.

  “I only want what’s best for you,” her father murmured. “That’s all I have ever wanted, Gabbie.”

  Dammit.

  She didn’t want to talk to him, but … “The problem with that is you think what’s best for me are things you chose for me, and that’s not how it works.”

  “I think you’re wrong. I don’t think you understand the dynamics I face day to day with a single child … a woman who people constantly look to because I have not yet chosen a path for you in this life.”

  Gabbie stilled on the couch. “What?”

  “See, I tried to let you be as normal as you could possibly be, lass. You deserved as much freedom as you could have, and I gave you that, didn’t I? But that does not change the fact that we both live a life where expectations come along with it. I was fine to let you go on like you were, until you stepped out of line, and people looked to me for the answers as to why.”

  “You can’t really mean—”

  “Had you just picked an Irish lad,” her father said, his tone thick with something she couldn’t decipher. Glancing up, she found her father’s gaze to be dark and pained, but he was still cold in every other aspect. The same way he was to the rest of his people, she knew. And now, it was her turn to see this side of him and face it. He had to be this man to her now, too. “But you didn’t … and I couldn’t let you pick when you wouldn’t pick someone that was appropriate to our people, too. You forced my hand.”

  She didn’t think so.

  Those expectations he talked about had never been a prominent figure in her life because he didn’t make it so. And now he expected her to just … fall in line?

  It wouldn’t happen.

  “And I know you have this wee idea in that crazy mind of yours that the Italian man is the person for you—that you love him—but he is a phase,” her father said, clearly not realizing how much he hurt her with every word that passed his lips. He was wrong … so wrong. “After a period of time, you will realize how silly this all was, and you will be grateful that I forced your hand to keep you from making another mistake.”

  Gabbie shook her head. “It’s not a phase, and he isn’t like my diabetes, Da. You can’t treat him like he’s a piece of food I might shove in my mouth, or a missed sugar check. He’s not something you can control. My feelings aren’t something for you to decide whether or not they are valid. I make those choices.”

  “Except you aren’t right now, are you?”

  She quieted.

  He wasn’t wrong.

  Charles cleared his throat, and turned to leave the living room. But not before tossing over his shoulder, “I have done my very best not to go to the last resort on this issue, Gabbie, but if you continue to push my line here … I will remove the man from your life permanently so that it’s clear. There is no choice. There is only my choice.”

  That killed her more.

  Because he would do it.

  She knew it.

  Gabbie was left with only one option. Just like her father said, really. His option. Because otherwise, it meant sacrificing Michel’s life simply because she wanted him.

  That was the thing …

  She couldn�
�t do that.

  Not when she loved him.

  • • •

  “Don’t move,” the man at Gabbie’s back hissed. His fingers tightened around her arm, forcing her to stay hidden in the shadows just beyond the entry hallway to her father’s home. Every part of her was screaming to fight, to go to the man in the doorway just ten feet away, but she couldn’t move at all. “Stay right where you are, lass. You heard the boss.”

  Right.

  Charles wasn’t even her da anymore.

  He was just the boss.

  “You have a death wish, lad,” her father said.

  For the first time in a month, Gabbie heard Michel’s voice. She had no idea what brought him here to her father’s home. They’d been in the midst of yet another awkward dinner when one of the men watching the house came rushing inside. His gaze had darted from her at one end of the table, to her father at the other side.

  Then, he uttered, “Michel.”

  Just like that.

  Her immediate thought was simply no. There was no way in hell Michel had come to her father. Not to look for her, or otherwise. He was not a stupid man. At the same time, she couldn’t say for sure if that was true.

  Because love was crazy.

  It made you do crazy things.

  Gabbie inched closer to the hallway, but the man kept his grip firm to keep her back. “Let me go.”

  “No way, Gabbie.”

  She closed her eyes, and willed the pain in her heart to go away so she could think. It was physically painful to be this close to Michel, yet not be able to look him in the eyes or speak to him. She’d had a whole month of worrying about him, and considering every single possible scenario that could be going on with him.

  Every bad, horrible thing.

  “Not a death wish,” she heard Michel say to her father, “more like a … an offer. Information, even. And you can do with it what you want, but I think you also have something I want, and I would like to talk about that. Because that’s the problem here, isn’t it? You think I picked the wrong side, when in fact, I haven’t taken any side. Yet.”

  Charles cleared his throat. “What kind of information?”

  “Your men—they said all the Italians want is a war. They weren’t wrong, but it’s got fuck all to do with what I was doing with your daughter, even if they want to spin it that way. It’s all about what they can get from you.”

  “That’s all it ever is with your kind of mutt.”

  Gabbie flinched at the insult.

  Michel kept talking like it didn’t bother him at all. “I was simply a reason they could use to cause an issue. And when that issue continued to spiral into a worse situation, well, what would be the harm of feeding into it? If it meant they could finally get a stronger hold on the city when it’s always been the Irish who had it before them?”

  “Your information isn’t something that helps me, lad,” Charles replied, unaffected, “but I suspect you already know that.”

  “Salvestro Vannozzo—goes by Sal.”

  “What about him?”

  “He’s the cousin to the Cosa Nostra boss, and the brains behind this whole … shitshow,” Michel explained. “And I know just enough about him, and his business to cause a real fucking problem for him. I have access, and know people around him to get close enough that he could be gone before anyone even knew what happened. He assumed just because he won’t see me or take a call that it’s the only in I have to his people and business, but he’s wrong. For a year, I followed him around and had access to his people before I even took up dealing for him on the side.”

  “Your point?”

  “It goes beyond getting rid of him … being as close as he is to the boss, it’s one stepping stone, if you get what I am saying. His work and loyalty is intricately tied to the head of the Italian organization in Detroit. He’s a domino—kick one out, and the rest of them will quickly follow the same path. Cosa Nostra isn’t like other Italian mafias. When you cut out at the head of it, the rest falls apart.”

  Gabbie inched closer to the hallway, but this time, the man let her go a little further. Not enough that she could be seen by Michel, but it was something. Her heart calmed for a split second at the idea she might be able to go to him, but then quickly realized she was still too feckin’ far away.

  And that hurt.

  “My father …” Michel made a noise under his breath, something harsh and painful. “My father would be sorely disappointed in me to know that I am using what I know about Cosa Nostra and their ways to help someone outside ruin a whole organization, but I don’t have a choice. I have to do what I have to do, so here I am. Is it a risk? Could you kill me before I stepped out of this house? Absolutely.”

  “Right on both accounts,” her father replied dryly. “And something I am seriously considering at the moment.”

  “Except, I have things you might want. The information on Sal, which will lead you right into the heart of the family to cull the organization. They’re so protected, it’s how Cosa Nostra works, that you’ll never get to the boss to cut the head from the snake without causing enough of an uproar that you’ll never be able to leave your home again. Police attention—the feds, too. And that’s before the rest of the Italians that will come after you from outside of Detroit. My family, for example. It’s a risk if you do it your way … not one I would want to take.”

  Michel sighed, before adding, “But my way, with the influence I could have outside of Detroit and the information I have to help you in the city … it would be cleaner, and far easier. That’s what you need, isn’t it? To get rid of all of them, and then you’ll never have this problem again?”

  “That’s interesting enough to make me listen to you instead of put a bullet in your brain, aye. The problem, Michel, is that you are under some assumption that this is a tit for tat. You think if you give me something, then I will give you another thing. Am I right?”

  “You’re not wrong,” Michel returned.

  “My daughter, you mean to say. You want her.”

  “I love her.”

  Gabbie’s heart clenched again.

  Her father made a dismissive noise. “It doesn’t matter how I go after the Italians because it all means the same thing in the end. A war I don’t want, Michel. Maybe a smaller war, sure, but there will still be one. I know who they would come after first—I know what they would try to take from me, and while she might hate me right now, I’ll never put her in danger. The Italians want a war, but I don’t.”

  “So, you plan to keep letting them attack you and ruining your source of income for your organization? What good does that do?”

  “It keeps her alive. They’re focused on instigating me, not hurting me. Do you see the difference?”

  “That could ruin you—ruin your entire organization.”

  “Men have done worse for blood, lad. I assure you.”

  She never considered that was why her father refused to go to war entirely with the Italians. She just thought … he was waiting for the final straw, and it had not yet come to break the proverbial camel’s back.

  She was that straw.

  For her father.

  And for Michel.

  The difference was …

  One of them reached their breaking point.

  Michel, that was.

  “Tell me what you want from me,” Michel said, “and I will—”

  “Nothing,” Charles replied quietly. “I want nothing from you.”

  A second passed.

  Then, two.

  Enough for her heart to pound hard in her chest, and make her stomach do flips. She was straining in the grip of the man holding her back again, but her eyes were blurry from the tears that she refused to let fall.

  She wanted him.

  God, she wanted Michel.

  More than anything.

  “Gabbie, come out here, lass,” she heard her father call. “Let her come, Conor.”

  The man who had been holding Gabbie back t
he entire time finally let her go. She was still straining to get out of his grip, so the second his fingers unfurled from her arm, she all but stumbled right into the hallway.

  Lifting her gaze, she found Michel ten feet away.

  There he stood.

  She had no doubt that the two of them were a mirror to one another in those moments. That pain she felt was reflected in him, and her racing heart seemed so loud, she almost wondered if he could possibly hear it.

  Her soul …

  It, too, screamed.

  She was so close to him.

  And not nearly close enough.

  “Lass, tell the young man what you’ve decided about him,” her father said, “and then maybe we have saved him from a worse fate, aye? No need for the man to go making an arse of himself over a woman who isn’t interested.”

  Then, Charles looked Gabbie’s way. His gaze narrowed, and she saw the warning flash in her father’s eyes. It was his silent reminder of their conversation a week before—his threats against Michel if she couldn’t drop him from her life.

  It was a war in her mind.

  Her heart, too.

  “Tell him,” her father said, “so this is one more thing I can finally put to rest before I move onto another, Gabbie. Unless, of course, you want to go the other way we discussed.”

  No.

  No, she didn’t want that.

  It meant Michel dead.

  She looked at Michel again, her hands twisting into the wool skirt of her sweater dress because she needed to do something with her hands when she lied to him. If she was going to lie to the love of her life—because it meant saving his—then she needed to make sure her hands were busy, or they might just reach out to him.

  “Gabbie?” Michel asked.

  Why was life like this?

  Why?

  SEVENTEEN

  This had been a risk.

  And maybe a mistake.

  Michel wasn’t willing to admit it had been a mistake, though, not even as Gabbie stared at him from where she stood at the end of the hallway, her eyes lined with unshed tears like she didn’t want to say the next thing that was about to come out of her mouth.