Pay Off: Accidental Marriage Mafia Romance (The Ferrari Family Book 5)

by Hazel Parker

  “Gio,” I snarled into the phone. “Why does my mom suddenly have ten million in her bank account? What the fuck happened?”

  A pause came.

  “I’m sorry, I don’t know what you’re talking about, Brad, I—”

  “Gio, do not fuck with me,” I said. “You know ever since Eddie died that I’ve been in charge of the finances of this family. If that’s going to be the case, then I need to know where the fucking ten million came from. And don’t you dare play dumb with me, Gio. I already know you were involved somehow.”

  I might have been the only person who could talk to Gio like this and get away with it. And I fully intended to leverage that fact.

  “Take that up with your mother.”

  “You were fucking involved, weren’t you?” I said, fully aware that I already knew the answer to that.

  “Yes, I was,” Gio said. “But it’s not my story to tell. That’s up to her.”

  “Did you murder anyone?”

  “No, well…no.”

  The fuck does that mean? You “technically” didn’t murder someone?

  “You need to talk to your mother. But go easy on her. It’s not an easy story.”

  “Gio, I swear—”

  “Your mother is safe, Brad. Treat her kindly.”

  He hung up right there. At least I had the assurance that no one was going to come for my mother in the middle of the night.

  But just because I knew she wasn’t going to be murdered didn’t mean I had all my questions answered. I could just now ask them without feeling like a piece of shit.

  I stormed back into the living room. My mother had her head bowed, her arms crossed, and her nostrils flared. I could tell she was on the verge of crying. After hearing what Gio had said, I took a couple of breaths myself.

  But I wasn’t going to let her off the hook. I needed some fucking answers.

  “Talk,” I said. “Tell me everything about this money and how it came to you. And don’t hide anything—because if I find out you are, that ten million is going to me.”

  Chapter 16: Megan

  “Yes…yes, I am Mario Adam’s daughter.”

  A creeping horror was filling me. No one called to ask if I was next of kin unless something terrible had happened. I didn’t want to believe it was the worst. I didn’t know if I could handle the worst after the way this week had gone. But I wouldn’t have much choice in the matter, would I?

  “Who is calling?”

  “Megan, this is Amanda from New York-Presbyterian Hospital,” she said, sinking my heart even lower. “I’m terribly sorry to be calling you at this time of night, but your father died tonight of a heart attack.”

  Died…

  Heart attack…

  Just like that…

  No warning. No notice. He was even happy and smiling this week. And now…

  He’s gone.

  There had never really been a great moment in my relationship with my father. Some moments weren’t as tense as others, but there had never been a time when it felt like we had a classic father-daughter relationship. And yet, all the same, a part of me always held out hope that it was never too late. I always believed that at some point, we’d find it in ourselves to apologize for our past transgressions and make things better.

  But now?

  That would never happen.

  Our relationship would forever be defined by our stubbornness and our refusal to engage each other properly. There would be no evolving or changing what had happened. My father would go to the grave with an imperfect relationship with his daughter.

  And suddenly, I was very aware I was alone.

  “Megan?”

  The nurse’s voice snapped me back to the present, but the force of my spinning mind did not let me completely exit. In fact, much like a roller coaster that had buckled you in, I knew I wasn’t getting out of my head for a while. Nor did I want to.

  “I’m here,” I said, which was only true in the physical sense.

  “Can you get a taxi or friend to drive you to the hospital, as we need you to come in and verify the body, unless you can send someone else.”

  The body…

  That was all my father was. Not CEO. Not my father. Just a corpse. A body to be dissected for medical research, to be burned for cremation, or to be buried six feet under.

  Had he known? Was that why he was so happy and so willing to give me the company on Tuesday? That seemed impossible. Heart attacks couldn’t be predicted like the weather.

  But…

  Something had changed. Had he subconsciously known?

  “OK,” I said weakly. “I…I will.”

  I hung up as the person from the hospital, whose name had not registered with me, said she was sorry. I let the phone fall to the couch. I got up, walked to the window, and just stared out blankly.

  My vision started to blur. Blood pulsed through my ears. My senses were starting to become a mess, and I felt like I was on the verge of collapse. And sure enough, moments later, I fell to my knees in tears.

  Even this morning, my father seemed fine. Granted, he was an old man who ate poorly and never really took care of himself, but it wasn’t like he’d walked in complaining about shortness of breath or had warned me of a terminal diagnosis. He was fine, all things considered.

  And in the span of a couple minutes, he’d gone from fine to dead.

  He. My only family member.

  And now, I was completely alone. No father. No mother. No husband. No siblings. No cousins that I had any sort of connection to.

  I only had the business, but never had that felt like such a shallow thing to have. I could always get more money and more power and more prestige, but I would never get my father back. I would never get any of that back.

  I was not just alone. I was alone without anyone to fill the void right now.

  I hailed the Uber and forced myself up. I put on headphones, not so I could listen to music, but so that no one would try and talk to me on the way over. The Uber arrived five minutes later, and I got in, my only words to confirm the location I was headed toward.

  I looked out the window and couldn’t help but wonder what Brad was thinking or doing right now.

  It would have been nice for me to be able to reach out to him and connect. It would have been nice for us to be each other’s shoulder to lean on. It would have been nice for us to drop the facade of how we thought we were supposed to act and just treat each other with love and kindness.

  But apparently, in this world, “would have been nice” was not actually what happened.

  The Uber pulled up to the hospital, and I again got out. I went to the front desk, said I was there to identify Mario Adams, and was led to a hospital room by a nurse who was empathetic enough, but none of what she said registered with me. My stomach flipped on itself as I walked through the hallways. There was something ominous and terrible about being in this environment; hospitals made me feel like I was in the Grim Reaper’s territory.

  “He’s right in here,” the nurse, whose name I had also forgotten, said. “Take all the time that you need, and let us know if you have any questions.”

  I gulped, took a breath, and walked around the corner.

  And there he was.

  Lifeless.

  Motionless.

  Eyes closed.

  Perhaps, for the first time since my mother had died, at peace.

  There was no mistaking the fact that it was my father. His skin was a hair paler than it had been before, but he already had such pale skin that it made no difference.

  “Dad…” I said, sobbing.

  I’d expected to come in here and maybe collapse completely, to just turn into a sobbing hot mess of tears. But there was nothing to that effect. I guess I’d already had my “break down” moment at my apartment when I’d first heard the news.

  “Dad, I’m sorry,” I said. “I…”

  I cut myself off. What good was it going to be to say anything? I knew people had share
d stories about hearing their loved ones in a coma or in a deep sleep. That wasn’t the case here.

  Dad was gone.

  Period.

  He couldn’t hear, he couldn’t see, he couldn’t think, he couldn’t do or be. He just wasn’t.

  “I’ll do right,” I said, less to him and more to myself. “I’ll make the most of this. That is my promise.”

  But was it a promise I could really fulfill? My history to date didn’t suggest a strong likelihood of that. College, boys, Brad…

  Brad wasn’t my fault.

  Although, it kind of was. Maybe you got drunk and married him because you didn’t think it would work any other way.

  I shook the thought from my mind. Brad didn’t matter a damn at this point. The only thing that mattered was picking up the pieces of my life.

  I walked out of the room, confirmed it was my father to the nurse, and stood there numbly for a good few minutes while she handed me his personal belongings. I didn’t know what to do.

  When the staff came and put the sheet over my father’s face, I knew what the answer was. I walked out of the hospital, barely aware of my surroundings. I didn’t even call an Uber or hail a taxi. I just started walking all the way home.

  The time home was over half an hour, but I didn’t really have any notion of how far or how long of a walk it was. I just…moved forward. One foot at a time. Other pedestrians, the honking taxi cabs, the sewer smell…many of the typical New York City experiences never registered with me. I might as well have been walking in my own nightmare.

  It wasn’t until I got home that I finally collapsed onto the couch and let the tears fall out in full. The only reason I knew I fell asleep was because when the morning came, I didn’t remember getting there.

  And that was one night I was more than happy to forget. But just like the last one that had flown by without any memory, it would resonate with me for a long, long time.

  If the last forgotten night had given me a chance at my forever, this forgotten night had reminded me that I was forever alone now.

  Chapter 17: Brad

  I loved my mom, but the way that she was refusing to divulge anything more to me, it was making me feel very isolated and very pissed off.

  Growing up, my mother and father didn’t reveal much about their backgrounds. I had pieced together some things, such as how Uncle Gio had mob connections and how he’d helped my mother from time to time, but for the most part, we operated under a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. And for most of my life, it had worked.

  But when I became the man of the family ten years ago—a title explicitly given to me by my mother despite my resistance, despite the fact that I didn’t want to be responsible for things I wasn’t adapted to handle at the time—that respect for privacy went out the window. If I was going to be the man of the family, I deserved to know things. And right now, my mother’s refusal to say anything was wearing very, very, very fucking thin.

  “You’re my son, not my boss, I don’t need to tell you anything.”

  “Christ almighty, Mom, I’m not asking you about a ten-dollar luxury coffee you bought, I’m asking where the fuck ten million dollars just came from. That’s not something that falls from the sky every day!”

  She folded her arms and glared at me. I started to wonder who, exactly, was the adult here.

  “Don’t make me make this difficult,” I said. “I control the family finances. I can find out on my own, or you can just tell me where this came from.”

  “You wouldn’t dare,” my mother growled.

  “I would, especially since now I know Uncle Gio was involved,” I said. “If you’d won the lottery or gotten a settlement check from somewhere, I’m pretty sure you’d be telling me about it right now. The fact that you won’t say a word tells me everything I need to fucking know.”

  “Don’t—”

  “Uncle Gio may not break, but I can figure out what the hell this Perocheau Principal Holdings shit is,” I said. “I have connections. I can—”

  “You want the fucking truth!” my mother yelled, her voice rising with every single word she said. “You want the fucking truth? Fine, Brad, here’s the fucking truth. I’m the bastard daughter of a gangster, Alf Ferrari.”

  What the fuck…

  That’s my grandfather? The fucking founder of Ferrari Wines?

  What the actual fuck is going on?

  “You want every fucking sordid detail, you’re going to get it.”

  This was not like my mother at all. But it was her speaking it, and I had to now fully admit I pushed her over the edge.

  “Alf Ferrari was a comrade of the Nimicos back in the day. He knew Gio’s father well,” she said. “He had a mistress on the side from his wife, who gave birth to a daughter. Me. But apparently, I was not supposed to happen and he abandoned me and your grandmother. He paid her hush money to go away. How do you think I fucking feel, growing up every day knowing that I was a secret, a mistake, that my father wanted nothing to do with me and to pretend I didn’t exist?”

  Jesus…

  My anger remained. But it was now guided at something very different.

  “Alf’s wife knew, actually, but the deal was that they would pay my mother and, when she died, me, a monthly sum to basically go the hell away. I don’t know if you realize this, Brad, but it is not a worthwhile trade when you trade in family for money, no matter how much it is.

  “In any case, this continued even when you were born. No one knew. Not even Eddie. Not even Uncle Gio. If I told anyone, even my husband, then the money would stop.”

  She sighed. I was now on the edge of the table, leaning forward, curious to know why this would happen. I’d seen monthly deposits of about ten grand, but in conjunction with my mother’s other assets and work, it had never rung alarm bells. Now, I wish I’d taken a closer glance at least on first visit, if not more frequently.

  “Well, recently, Alf’s wife died,” she said. “And for whatever reason, maybe Alf thought he could get away with it, the money stopped. I tried to get in touch with Alf, but the cold-hearted bastard never said a word to me. His own daughter! I guess his picture-perfect life didn’t need any smears or smudges, even if it came from his own offspring.”

  She sniffed and dabbed away a tear. But that was all it was, a single tear; she showed no other emotion. I still felt angry at being left out of the loop on this and for my mother’s initial refusal to say anything, but I had to admit, I felt some sorrow for her—her heart had probably become so jaded and cold that one tear was all she could muster for the whole fucked-up situation.

  And I thought my situation was a fucking mess.

  “I knew that Uncle Gio knew one of the Ferraris in Las Vegas well. I asked him to look into it and figure out what happened. Well, that’s when we found out that Alf’s wife died and Alf decided to just stop the payment. I hate to say it, Brad, but I can’t just not have the money. I’ll go broke otherwise.”

  “So what the fuck did Gio mean when I asked him if he’d murdered anyone and he said ‘no, well, no?’”

  My mother sighed.

  “I had Gio prepare a lawsuit. Truth be told, we both knew the lawsuit would never win in court. We never had a written contract; that’s not how that part of the world works. But we knew that the news would be a PR nightmare for the Ferrari family, so we pursued it.”

  I couldn’t say I was a connoisseur of wine, but I certainly knew the Ferrari brand. I’d always enjoyed their wine when I’d had it, but I had a feeling I wouldn’t be consuming more of it anytime soon.

  “When we delivered the news of the lawsuit, I learned that Alf had died a short while after receiving the case. I don’t think that Gio intended to kill him—at least, that wasn’t the primary goal—but it seems pretty obvious to me that the shattering of his picturesque life killed him. And I don’t have a damn bit of sympathy for that man. He abandoned my mother and me and thought that money would take care of it.”

  I bit my lip.
>
  “What a fucking nightmare,” I said. “That fucking sucks. But that still doesn’t explain why there’s ten million dollars in your account all of a—”

  “I’m getting to that if you’d just have a shred of patience,” she said.

  I was tempted to fire back. I held my tongue.

  “Alf’s death didn’t suddenly mean all his money burned up. It was going to go to his sons and to his grandkids, but I was still alive. So I had Gio file the lawsuit. He called me a short while ago, though, to say that he’d worked with the Ferrari grandkids and they’d reached a settlement.”

  “And ten million dollars to you to go away one last time and never bother them again, that was the settlement, huh?”

  My mother nodded.

  God, what a fucked-up world. I had no father, but at least I’d had him for my formative years before tragedy—albeit almost certainly malicious tragedy—had struck. To grow up in a world where your father paid you to leave him alone…

  And that’s when it occurred to me. Maybe Gio had meant to kill Alf. Maybe Alf was part of the plan behind my father’s death, and so Gio had taken this chance to deliver a retaliation blow.

  Hey, I could fucking get behind it. The bastard had ruined my mother’s life by refusing to be a father to her.

  As the thoughts swirled in my head, I could understand my mother not wanting to tell me when I was young. She’d just told me her father, my grandfather, had died when she was young. And I suppose you could say he was “dead to her” in that regard.

  But why the fuck did I not learn this information when my father had died? If I was going to be the man of the house, why didn’t I know about this?

  “I just don’t get why you never told me.”

  “Why the fuck would I?”

  This moment of empathy was dissolving rapidly. Emotions were too high. I should have detached.

  But I didn’t. I couldn’t. I was on fire for the probable dissolution of my own marriage. If I was going to have one bit of family drama, shit, why not have a whole lot more?

  “I don’t know, Mom, maybe because I’m in charge of this family now?”