by Jade Kuzma
“Yes. Of course. Well… I don’t see the harm in that.”
He reached into his pocket. It was hard for me not to laugh at the grin on his face.
“A little romance it is,” he said.
He pulled a small black box from his jacket then fell down on his knees before me. I took a step back to give him some of the space he needed.
It was strange. For the first time since I met him, it almost seemed like there was some sincerity in his eyes. I would’ve believed him if I didn’t already know the truth.
“Mia Palazzo—”
Arthur was interrupted by the unmistakable rumble of an engine. We were so far outside of Ivory that I knew we were alone. Nobody else was here to witness what was about to happen.
I turned to the side and saw the bright headlights coming up the road. Arthur’s smirk disappeared. A bit of concern appeared on his face as he got back up to his feet. We stood next to one another and watched as a car approached.
Arthur squinted and moved his face forward to get a better look at the car that parked in front of us.
“Is that…”
He got the answer to the question he didn’t finish when the driver stepped out. He moved to the backseat and opened it. I watched the heel of a shoe dig into the dirt. The rest of the man attached to it appeared from behind the door.
My father inched forward with the two men who’d accompanied him. Security who’d been working with my father ever since he’d become a made man. Even though he looked as old as he was, my dad was as intimidating as any man you could ever come across. I was fortunate that he would always be on my side.
“Mr. Palazzo,” Arthur greeted him. “What a pleasant surprise.”
“How are you doing, Burke?” my father said.
“I’m doing quite splendid.”
Arthur turned to me. I was holding everything back, trying not to let on what was happening.
“You planned this?” he said to me. “You wanted me to propose and you invited your father out to see it.”
“Not exactly,” I said. “I did invite my father out here. But not for him to see you propose to me.”
Arthur was still confused, switching back between my father and me.
“What’s going on?” he said with a nervous chuckle.
I walked over to my father. I looked up at him and he smiled down at me.
“I love you, Mia.”
“I love you, too.”
I reached out and squeezed my arms around him. He patted me on the top of my head like I was a little girl.
“It’s all right,” he said. “I’ll take it from here.”
I pulled away from him and took a step back.
Arthur stood by himself at the edge of the hillside, his arms out in confusion.
“Don’t keep me in suspense,” he said.
My father raised his head and puffed his chest out proudly.
“When I first met you, I saw a lot in you,” he said to Arthur. “I saw a man with a lot of ambition. I saw a hard-worker. A man who wouldn’t take no for an answer. It’s not a surprise to me that you were able to make a deal with all of the powers in Ivory and fund a drug deal that would give you a monopoly over every ounce of weight that moved through here.”
“Thank you for your kind words, Mr. Palazzo.”
“You’re just the kind of man I envisioned my daughter marrying. A man worthy of being a part of the Palazzo family.”
“The highest praise, coming from you.”
“But…”
My father began pacing back and forth calmly, his hands behind his back.
“…I knew there was a risk. I knew that a man like you could let his ambition get to his ego. Now I know that’s the case.”
“I don’t know what you’re getting at—”
“You’re just waiting for me to die,” my father interrupted him.
“I don’t think that’s happening for a long time.”
“Don’t lie to me. A man as ambitious as you wouldn’t let a drug deal in Ivory be enough. You’d want more. You’d want all of the power that came from being married to the sole heir of the Palazzo family. You’d want it so bad that you’d be willing to kill me to get to it. You wouldn’t wait it out.”
Arthur shook his head. He looked like he was trying to hold back a growing frustration.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said. “I have no intention of killing or hurting you. The thought never even crossed my mind.”
Silence filled the hillside. It was so quiet that I could hear another engine coming up the road toward us. I’d been in Ivory long enough to know what a chopper sounded like.
Everybody turned to the unpaved road and watched the lone headlight grow brighter as it approached us. The bike parked right next to my father’s car and a familiar-looking man walked toward us.
“I’m sorry I’m late,” Sebastian said.
“You’re right on time,” I said.
“Cain,” Arthur said. “Are you going to tell me what’s going on?”
“I think you already know,” Sebastian replied.
My father took another step toward Arthur.
“I know what it’s like,” my dad said. “To claw your way to the top. I’ve done some unspeakable things. Things I’m not proud of. But if you ask me if I’d do them again, I wouldn’t hesitate. I’m not ashamed of the way I’ve lived my life. I fell in love with a beautiful woman who gave birth to the loveliest daughter a man could ever have.”
Arthur stood motionless as my father kept moving toward him.
“You could’ve been a part of all this,” my father continued. “You could’ve had it all. But you just had to try and manipulate me like I was another man on your way to the top. There’s just one problem, Burke.”
My father stopped in his tracks.
I’m not ready to leave the summit.”
“Mr. Palazzo, whatever it is you’re thinking, I can assure you it’s not true. I’m not interested in taking your place. I only wanted—”
“Did you or did you not order my daughter’s abduction?”
Arthur looked at me. His throat bobbed up and down with a nervous swallow.
“You had men attack Mia to make it seem like you would protect her.”
“Ridiculous!” Arthur scoffed. “That’s a bunch of nonsense.”
“I don’t think so. You know that my daughter is more important to me than anything. Making it appear like you would protect her would only get you in my good graces. And when you did, you would be close enough to strike.”
“Please… I don’t know what you’re thinking…”
“It’s exactly what I would have done.”
“I’m not a Mafioso,” Arthur pleaded, his voice shaking. “I’m only a businessman. We don’t think the same. I would never do something so cutthroat like take a woman’s hand and kill her father.”
“It’s true,” Sebastian’s voice suddenly joined in.
Roman’s friend took a step toward and held his hands out.
“As soon as you married Mia, you planned on taking Palazzo out,” Sebastian said.
“Wild assumptions, Cain.”
“Are they? You have a short memory. I was there. I was the only man watching over you during those negotiations to make sure you didn’t get killed. I remember everybody else there. They were more than willing to give me the details of what you were up to.”
Arthur clenched his jaw. The concern on his face had turned into anger as he glared at Sebastian.
“Who are you going to believe?” Arthur said. “Are you going to take the word of some biker? Some petty thug?”
“Normally, I would agree with you,” my father said. “But you’ve been unable to prove the accusations against you are false.”
“You haven’t been able to prove that they’re true!”
“Roman,” Sebastian said. “Roman told me. Funny thing about getting him locked up for violating his parole. It made things worse for you
. It gave you the arrogance to tell him exactly what you did to Mia because you didn’t think he would be able to act on it.”
“Lies!”
Sebastian shook his head defiantly.
“Roman left the MC. He might not be eager to wear the patch that I do. But he did at one time. It never goes away. He’ll always be my brother. I’ll take his word over anybody else’s.”
Arthur looked at all of us. His lips started to quiver. His body was shaking so much that I would’ve thought he’d been replaced by someone else.
“You could’ve had it all,” my father said. “You could’ve been comfortable being married to my daughter. You would’ve been a made man… just like me. I would’ve respected you for trying to take me out. But getting my sweet girl involved… That was the mistake that sealed your fate.”
My father turned to me.
“We’re alone,” I said. “I convinced him to leave his personal security behind.”
My dad nodded then looked back at Arthur.
“I’m an old man,” my father said. “I get forgetful at times. I don’t move as quickly as I used to. But I’m still breathing. Something you were eager to put an end to.”
Arthur was breathing so hard and fast that I could hear it. He clenched his jaw then suddenly fell to his knees.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry that I had Mia attacked. I’m sorry that I threatened your life.”
“I would’ve let you walk away,” my father said. “A threat from me is enough to make most men think twice about trying to retaliate.”
“Then you’ll let me go? I promise that you’ll never have to worry about me. I’m on your side!”
“I’ve had threats on my life before. The mistake you made, Burke, was trying to hurt my daughter. That, I can never forgive.”
My father held his hand out. One of his bodyguards placed a pistol in his palm. Arthur started breathing furiously, his end becoming more and more unavoidable.
“I got you into this danger, Mia,” my father sighed. “As long as Arthur is around, you’ll always be in danger. I wouldn’t be much of a daughter if I didn’t get you out of it.”
“You should’ve walked away when Roman told you to,” Sebastian said. “That was the best offer you were ever going to get.”
He raised the gun up and pointed it right at Arthur.
“Wait—”
Bang.
The silence of the night was broken by a gunshot that cracked into the air. Smoke rose from the barrel of my father’s gun.
“Make him disappear,” my father said.
His two security guards got to work handling Arthur’s motionless body. My father turned to me and rested a hand on my shoulder.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry I put you through that.”
“It’s all right,” I sighed. “It’s… It’s over…”
“Yes… Yes, it is.”
I squeezed my arms around him. His embrace made me feel like I was floating on air. I sighed a deep breath.
“Let’s go home,” my father said.
I turned and looked out on the town below. The view of Ivory had never looked so beautiful. A smile came to my lips as I replied.
“I think I’m already there…”
Chapter 27
MIA
The mood in the bar was as calm as most of the other places I’d been to in Ivory. There weren’t many people and those who were here just wanted to mind their own business while they enjoyed their drinks. It seemed like there was no end to the number of bars where someone could drown their sorrows.
I wasn’t as down as most of the other people in the bar might’ve been but I wasn’t thrilled either. I didn’t try hiding it. My chin resting in my palm, I stared off into the distance as a tattooed biker took a seat at the table in front of me.
“I got you a beer,” Sebastian said as he placed it down in front of me.
“I’m not drinking,” I said.
“You gotta drink. It’ll put you in a better mood. I promise.”
“It’s not that I don’t want to drink. I… I can’t…”
“What do you mean…”
Sebastian’s eyes widened when he realized what I was getting at. He pushed his tongue against the inside of his cheek, trying and failing to hide his smile.
“Wow. I knew you and Roman were involved. Didn’t think it had gotten to that point.”
“It’s not something I planned. Believe me.”
“I don’t think you’ll have anything to worry about. Roman will be a good father…”
Sebastian took a big gulp of his beer. He was in the mood to celebrate but I was too distracted.
“…When he gets out,” Sebastian said.
“And how long will that be?”
“He’s got a record. They’ll probably pinch him for that fight outside of Finn’s the first night he was here.”
“It wasn’t much of a fight…”
“But with good behavior, it shouldn’t be that long. He’ll do what he needs to do to be there for his kid. You should know that by now.”
“Yeah, I do,” I sighed.
It was a relief that I no longer had to deal with Arthur.
“Figures,” I said. “Get rid of one thing stopping me from being with him and another thing pops up.”
“Burke was gonna hold that over Roman’s head. There was no other way.”
“What exactly did Roman say to you?”
Sebastian cleared his throat with another big gulp of beer.
“He told me that he was getting locked up for parole violation,” he said. “Before he headed in, he wanted to confront Burke one last time. Give him a chance to walk away.”
“What was Roman going to do?”
Sebastian paused for a moment.
“He confronted Arthur knowing that he was going to jail no matter what? Arthur could have just had his security kill him right there on the spot.”
“Roman was just planning on letting Arthur walk away. But he snapped when he heard Burke was behind the attempts to kidnap you. Couldn’t hold back. He was going to jail no matter what.”
“But that means he couldn’t have done anything else. Unless you…”
Sebastian gave me a nod.
“He left the rest up to me. Locked up or not, I was still out. He told me to start talking to some of the other people at the meeting. Start digging up as much dirt as I could. Remember everything I heard at the negotiations. Burke thought I was just some punk who would do his bidding but I was taking notes the whole time.”
“It seems like that was a big mistake by Arthur.”
“It was one he had to take. He couldn’t risk going into those meetings alone. Not with the people he was dealing with. An independent man like me wouldn’t have cared one way or the other about the deal. But with you and Roman… Then I had a reason to get involved.”
Sebastian seemed honest about everything. There was no reason for him to lie to me.
I leaned forward across the table and whispered to him.
“What about the deal?” I asked. “You were at that dinner party. With Arthur gone, aren’t you afraid that they’ll come after you? The deal will collapse without him.”
Sebastian chuckled softly. Seeing how sure of himself he was put me at ease.
“That’s exactly what they wanted,” he said. “Burke had the biggest piece of the pie. With him gone, they can split that slice between everybody else. They couldn’t wait to spill the details on what Burke was planning.”
“Was it true? Was he really going to try and kill my father?”
“Burke wanted it all. If he married you and your father died, he’d have everything. The problem with Burke is that he was on top. He just became a bigger target.”
“It’s a cutthroat business…”
“That’s why I’ll never get involved with drugs like that. Too much competition. Always having to watch your back. There are better ways to make money. Roman knows that, too.”
Everything Sebastian told me seemed to add up. I wouldn’t have to worry about anybody else coming after me now that Arthur was gone. Everybody else involved in his deal didn’t have any business with me or my father.
“What about Arthur’s people?” I said. “He has security.”
“What about them? They’re only loyal to the person that pays them. Burke won’t be able to pay them, so their loyalty is gone with it.”
Sebastian put his beer down and reached his hand out. He put it on top of mine like he was trying to console me.
“Listen, Mia. There’s nothing for you to worry about. The most dangerous guy you had to deal with is gone.”
“I know. It’s just—”
“Arthur Burke wasn’t just a threat to you. He was a threat to your father, too. Once your dad was able to see Burke for what he was, he knew that he didn’t have a choice. He was manipulating both of you.”
Sebastian squeezed my hand in his then pulled away. Just like Roman, Sebastian was surprisingly comforting despite how intimidating he was.
“I know you’re thinking about him,” he said. “I’m thinking about him, too.”
Sebastian looked a bit uncomfortable as he finished his beer. He took the one he’d gotten for me and quickly started swallowing it down.
“Roman told me,” I said. “Phillip. Frankie. Tommy. I can’t imagine what that was like. Losing so many people so close to you so quickly.”
I almost regretted bringing up something so personal but Sebastian just smirked at me.
“I took it hard,” he said. “I stopped caring just as much as Roman did. I didn’t get arrested but when he did, I wasn’t surprised.”
“The MC means a lot to you.”
“It does.”
Sebastian stared at me, his face as intense as I’d ever seen. He clenched his jaw like he was trying to hold everything back.
“I lost Phil… Tommy… Frankie… I lost four years waiting for Roman. I can wait as long as it takes if it means I get to see him again.”
Sebastian’s determination put me at ease in a way I didn’t think I would ever feel. I smiled softly at him and nodded.
“You’re right,” I said. “I… I don’t care how long it takes. I’ll wait for him.”
