Chapter 161
“Torq is going to be pissed with you, Mercurlo.”
*I’ll deal with it.” He tucked his weapon back into its holder.
“He’ll kill you.”
“He can try. He might succeed but you are clearly being manipulated and coerced. You won’t have a conversation with us. You won’t talk to us. He’s controlling you.”
“You shut me out!” she screamed at him, startling the driver of the car who swerved and then cursed under his breath. “You let Dad beat and humiliate me and you stood there watching and then you turned your back on me. You left me out in the streets, alone.”
“You weren’t alone.” He yelled back. “The Bianchi family was supporting you and I knew they’d keep you safe. If I went against Dad, then there was no way I’d ever be able to bring you back to Mama and to the family. I needed to wait until the right time to take him out. Jesus Christ, everything we did, we did to keep you out of Dad’s clutches. Sending you away from him was for your protection! We knew the Bianchi’s would keep you safe.”
“You’re joking, right?”
“No. He hated you, Alcee. He hated you with a burning passion.”
“Why? What did I ever do wrong to be born and for him to hate me?”
Mercurio sighed loudly and stretched his arm over the back of the car.
“He believed you weren’t his. Despite you looking like him and having his shitty temper, the fact you were conceived after his vasectomy, regardless of the DNA confirmation, he thought you were not his child. He accused mom more than once of cheating on him. He accused his brother for helping mom fudge the DNA results. He sold you off to The Grizzly before you even hit puberty thinking it would be an eventual end to you. Then you fucked it up and lost him a shit ton of cash and he hated you even more. I kept you alive by keeping my distance and making you stay away.”
“He really thought I wasn’t his daughter?”
“Yeah,” Mercurio looked out the window with a quiet frustrated grunt. “Only me, Mom and Panfilo knew he doubted your genetics. For quite a while he suspected Panfilo and Mom having an affair and that they faked the DNA results to pass you off as his. Panfilo needed to remind him more than once he couldn’t father children after his son was born because he got the mumps and became sterile. Dad was a jealous prick where Mom was concerned and thought everyone wanted to sleep with her. Maybe they did. I don’t know but Panfilo swears he never did anything untoward with her.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Tell you? Damn it Alcee you are the most confrontational person I met aside from Dad. You would have gone out, fudged your DNA report, and slapped it in his face like you weren’t really his and,” he pointed his finger at her, “don’t you dare say you wouldn’t. You would have posted it all over the fucking internet too. You’re spiteful as fuck.”
She huffed and folded her arms angrily over chest. “Bullshit.”
“It’s not bullshit, and you know it.”
“You really pushed me away to keep him from killing me?”
“Out of sight, out of mind. If he wasn’t looking at you or hearing your name then he forgot you because he was dealing with bigger things to worry about like failing the family. His father made a mess leaving it to him. His father should have done what Torquato Lozano’s family did and skipped a generation. Me and our brothers, we did what we needed to do to make sure you were alive.”
“Well, it doesn’t matter. The damage is done. You kicked me out of the family and I’m not coming back.”
“Stubborn as fuck.”
“Where are we going? Alcee finally realized they weren’t heading in the direction of the mansion where she’d grown up.
“The deli.”
Chapter 161
The one Michelo works at? Why?”
“Business meeting. Like it or not you’re part of our family now that Dad is dead, good riddance to the fucker. We are sitting down for a family meeting an he gave her a worried glance, “I want you to meet someone.”
“Meet who?” Instantly her hackles were raised. “Who Mercurio?”
“I’m giving you options, Alcee. Keep an open mind.”
“What kind of options. Jesus, Mercurio if you’ve done what I think you’ve done.”
“What do you think I’ve done?”
“Arranged a marriage?”
“It’s on the table.”
“Torq will never agree.”
“I don’t care if he agrees Alcee. I care if you do. This guy is as powerful as Torquato, and he can get you and Antero somewhere safe and give you a life you deserve. I failed you before. I’m not going to stand by and let you get hurt ever again.”
“You’ll forgive me if I don’t believe a word you’re saying considering you left me to rot before.” She shot him a furious sideways glance wondering if she could get his gun off him and shoot him in the kneecap for this bullshit, “how much do you get for selling me?”
“I’m not selling you. If money is exchanged it’s between you and him. Whether you agree to the marriage or not doesn’t affect our business. He expressed an interest when I voiced my concerns to him after that meeting with Torq in his office where he used you to irritate dad.”
“Why would you betray Torq like this?”
“Because he’s a bastard. You cannot convince me he didn’t know who you were the night he took your virginity.”
“He didn’t, Mercurio. I hid it all. I made a fake profile with fake background,info. Even if his guys tried to search me, they were getting only fake social media shit. The minute Mama locked me in my room, I went to my computer, and I erased every single detail about Aya Lombardi from the world.”
“He knew.”
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