Flashback: The day after Adonis’s rescue…
“You’re back.” Miguel eyed me, taking a sip out of his whisky glass.
I couldn’t blame his attitude. If I were in his shoes, I’d be more hostile.
With the encounters and revelations that happened the day before, weariness was allowed. Especially since his long-lost daughter agreed to go back with me instead of staying with him.
But I also couldn’t care less.
After our intense discussions yesterday, a lot of questions began bugging my mind. Things didn’t add up, but I didn’t want to worry Cara by opening up another void she wouldn’t be able to fill.
“I have questions.”
One of his brows shot up, and amusement displayed across his face. He took another sip.
“That’s why I’m sitting here. You don’t think you have the power to summon me whenever you like, do you?”
I ignored the question, refusing to drop my hardened expression. Until I got the answers I wanted, this man still wasn’t to be trusted.
Cara’s father or not.
Suddenly, he sat up, downing the entire content of his glass in one go, before placing it down to clasp his hands together.
“I must confess. I thought you were foolish when you didn’t ask yesterday, yet you’re back to prove me wrong. So tell me, what do you want to know?”
“You said the war won’t end because the Greco brothers are dead.”
Miguel hummed.
“I get that Adonis’s mother might have had something to do with Sabestien and that another child being alive might cause more good than harm, but I do not understand how. The two women do not have the power to move a thing.” I reasoned with a frown.
It didn’t make sense to me.
We didn’t just take down the Greco army but all other oppositions. Adonis’s mother is all about crack and living wild; what could she do by herself?
Pushing the clasped hand beneath his chin, Miguel narrowed his eyes on me.
“You know who the child is.”
I avoided his gaze.
“You also know. You don’t think I believed your cock-and-bull story about being in the dark.”
A dry chuckle escaped the man.
“Does Dimitri boy also know?”
“He doesn’t, but he knows that he’d met the girl before.” My gaze met his empty eyes. “She’s Cara’s friend.”
“My Cara?” His voice rose.
“Yes. Adonis had instructed me to do a background check on her before she was allowed on the estate grounds, and a picture popped up. It was a picture of him in his teenage years, and a little girl represented her beside him. It was confusing. He couldn’t recollect ever meeting her, so Adonis asked that I dug in deeper.”
“And what did you find?”
“The truth we both know; however, I never had the chance to reveal it to him due to unfortunate… recent activities. Yet that wasn’t the shocker. The shocker was that the girl already knew about it.”
“She knows?” He asked me again, and I frowned.
What was with all these silly, repetitive questions?
My fist clenched together-I could see through his plan.
“Stop trying to push back the inevitable and tell me what’s going on.” I gritted out
Miguel smirked.
“Fine. I’ll tell you. Be warned…” His hardened face became even harder as he leaned forward.
The chill in his eyes told me I wasn’t going to like what he had to say.
“I don’t know how you guys have ruled the mafia since I took a step back, but this isn’t going to be a walk in the park. A lot of lives would be at stake for this, and we’ll need to tread carefully.”
Thread carefully? From a man like him?
A lump formed in my throat; I got the feeling that the chaos we’d seen during the last few months was nothing compared to the mayhem on the way.
“We are not new to this. It’s all we’ve ever known.”
He wiggled a finger in disagreement.
“No. You’ve never known a terror like this. It’s more than just killing. Dimitri would never mention something like this to anyone. We took a pact to keep it low.”
“What is it?”
His eyes darted around the empty room before coming back to rest on me.
“How much do you know about ‘the Pentagon’?”
I unconsciously stumbled two steps back. Left to me, I wouldn’t even want to show that that name brought terror, but it was like my brain was programmed to emanate fear at its mention.
And I never even got to know them-thankfully. All the fear originated from the stories I’d heard.
“The order of evil? Those demons are real?” The words flew out of my mouth.
What was wrong with me? Why couldn’t I control my actions today? A mafia man shouldn’t be easy to read. A mafia man shouldn’t be-
Oh, what the hell!
Forget the mafia; this was disturbing news.
“Judging from your reaction, I’m sure you’ve heard things?”
I nodded in reply.
“They’re the origin of the mafia themselves. The roots… the source from which our power stemmed and the source that fuelled and channelled people’s fear of the mafia. You were told that there are just three top mafias. That’s wrong.”
“The stories are true?”
Miguel tilted his head by an inch.
“100%. After all, their reign was cut off from our generation.”
I lowered my voice.
“What are you saying?”
“The reason why we have just three leading mafia gangs is because only three of us succeeded. The rest were squashed and had to rise from their ashes.”
I ran a hand through my hair in confusion. He was speaking in parables, making it hard for me to understand. My head was beginning to pound.
Mio Dio. Mio Dio. (My God. My God.)
“We all had to kill our elder brothers to take control.”
Time stopped.
“Be clear! Stop going around in circles.” I shouted, but it came out more like a plea.
“Have a seat, Luca.” Miguel coaxed, but I was too restless to do so. I shook my head negatory, encouraging him to continue, and with a deep sigh, he spoke.
“How do you think the mafia used to be?”
“A normal gang of power? We have our values, goals, and beliefs that do not sit well with the predominant society. We’re more and better than the crime lords people imagine us to be.” I recited, quoting what I’d been taught all my life in a few sentences.
“Then do you blame the world for seeing us the way they do?”
My brows furrowed.
Do I blame the world?
“I believe that’s their problem. Everyone wants to live in a shell hiding behind the word good when we’re all evil in our way. Look, the truth remains that someone has to do the things we do. This is a fucked-up world, and not everyone would make money or live the same way. We just have to remember to uphold value above everything else. But I doubt you’re asking me this for a lesson, so why?”
“We gave the world the notion they stand upon. In the days of the order. There was destruction. At the slightest twitch of a finger, heads roll. Life was thrown about like it were nothing but paper. The streets were always bathed in blood-
-Cannibalism…” I interrupted absentmindedly. “Human trafficking. Sexual sales. The selling of human body parts… all true?” I knew of the things he was speaking of, but the fact that they did happen was difficult to comprehend.
“Everything and more,” Miguel confirmed. “Those times were trying and desperate. Brutal. To claim a throne you have to inherit, you’d have to kill ten thousand to prove you’re worthy of it.”
I felt sick.
“Is that supposed to make sense?”
He chuckled bitterly.
“It did at that time. We were all blind to our wrongdoings; hence, we spent all our lives killing people at the slightest mistake in preparation for our takeover. I killed one thousand before I gave up.”
My face contorted in disgust. Not at the man but at the tradition. Closing my eyes, I drew in a shaky breath.
“Now tell me, how does it all link back to the matter at hand?”
“When I and the other younger brothers of the order came together to put an end to the madness, we decided to kill off everyone in support, but we were betrayed by one of us, and on the day of execution, our plan nearly backfired.”
I stared back, listening attentively.
“Salvatore’s son ended up getting away.”
This time, a gasp escaped my lips.
Salvatore Bernardi? The leader of the order and Nonno Dimitri’s elder brother?
“How? Why? When?”
“I have no answer to that. When he ran, we let him go. It wasn’t like we had the luxury of time to find him. We were busy trying to survive the battle. As long as he remained low, everyone could stay in their lane. But we did look for him and came to that conclusion when he was nowhere to be found.”
“I still don’t get how that’s related to us.”
Miguel’s lips pulled down into a disapproving pout.
“I believe Sabestien helped him run away.”