“Who?”
“The boy from the rumor.”
He narrowed his eyes at me. “I just told you it was just a rumor.”
“So what, they just said she was fucking a student and never mentioned who?”
“Whom.”
Anger spiked under my skin. “Fuck you.”
“What?”
“You speak just like her.” What were the odds?
He scoffed. “Here comes that sick shit again. What the fuck, Furore? She’s my English teacher. That was English grammar, which she taught me. Hello?”
Well, there was that. “Back to the boy. Who was he?” I had to know who he was. I had to wipe that son of a bitch off the face of the earth.
“They said…but it’s not true…Mark Chadwick and she hooked up. He’s my friend. If he did, he’d tell me, you know. Yes, he had a thing for her. He told me that before. He even commented on her ass. The things he wanted to do to—”
My palm slammed the table so hard it hurt. “Mark Chadwick, huh?”
“Like I said, a fucking rumor. A lot of guys have crushes on their teachers. You of all people should know. Not everybody acts on it, though. And she hated his guts. He was terrible in class. They always picked on each other.”
Sounded too familiar. Mark Chadwick was definitely the motherfucker that took her virginity, got her hung up on him, broke her heart and made her feel like a whore.I’m gonna kill that son of a bitch.But first things first. I had to keep Jo alive and safe first. “What did you tell Armando?”
“Nothing, I swear. I didn’t know anything anyway. Then he wanted me to do something awful. He told me that if she was fooling around with a student then…I should try with her. That way I can get him the info he wants.”
“Fucking shit.”
“I wouldn’t do it. I told him I’d try just to shut him up, but I wouldn’t. He sensed my stalling so he talked to Dad, telling him all kinds of shit about her. How she was in the mob, and she shouldn’t be teaching kids, whom she fucked. I didn’t believe any of it. He was basically scaring Dad so he’d force me into doing it. I still wouldn’t do it. That what got me into a fight with Dad.” He pursed his lips, his eyes darkening with a memory. “That’s why he hit me the other day. That’s why I dropped out.”
My blood simmered. “And you still took his side?”
“Even if he was a pussy who was so afraid of the big bad coyote that he’d do this to his son,” he directed a hateful gaze at me, “he’s still better than you.”
Bile rose to my throat. “If you hate me that much, and you found out the letter that brought you here wasn’t written by me, why aren’t you heading back to Frisco, why are you asking to patch in?”
“Do you want me to leave?”
Fuck no. Never. I just got him back. “No. But I want to know if you’re sticking around for real and not going to split any time soon. I want to know if I really got my son back, if he’d have my back.”
His chest puffed with a long breath. “Well, you did tell the Lanza boss to fuck off. In that part…you were better than Dad.”
Emotion tickled my chest out of nowhere. It was the nicest thing he’d ever said to me.
“I see the way you look at her. You never looked at Mom that way.”
“Listen, I loved Delilah. It’s just—”
“You don’t have to lie to please me. I’m just saying that with Miss Meneceo in your life, and me, you might… I don’t know.”
There was a moment between us that fell in silence. Then I couldn’t help it. I took my boy in my arms for the first time in fifteen years, and it felt so fucking incredible. “I love you, Tirone. More than you think.”
His eyes sparkled with something I couldn’t read. “Does that mean you’ll give me that cut?”
I chuckled, reluctantly breaking the hug. “Need to ask you something first. Why do you look at Jo the way you do?”