So many years wasted in this house.His father berating him, claiming he was making him a better man.A Capo, a soldier, someone others feared.
He stepped into his father’s office, and sure enough, he was bent over his desk, a whiskey and a mountain of paperwork spread out before him.
The moment he looked up, his father, Lorenzo Senior, let out a little gasp.
“Son, you startled me.”
“You’re doing a lot of work,” Lorenzo said.
“There is never any rest from work.To what do I owe this visit?”His father rang the bell.It was literally a silver bell, and usually the butler would come and take whatever his father ordered.Lorenzo stared at his father.The butler didn’t come.He saw the anger cross the older man’s face, as he rang the bell again.
“Phillip won’t be coming,” Lorenzo said.
“Blasted man.What is his excuse this time?”his father asked.
“I told him to leave.”
His father looked at him, and Lorenzo stood in the doorway.
He saw the moment his father had tension in his shoulders.“Your mother will be back soon,” he said.
“No, she won’t.She is going away on a cruise for the next six months.It was a gift for her from Clarissa and myself,” Lorenzo said.
“You should have told me,” his father said.
“It was a surprise.”
Lorenzo stared at his father.Silence fell on the room.
“Why did you do it?”Lorenzo asked.
“I have no—”
“Cut the fucking bullshit.She was a fifteen-year-old girl!Why the fuck did you do it!”Lorenzo was fast losing his patience.
Ten years ago, there was a deal for his and Isabella’s hand in marriage, which was arranged in June.That was when Lorenzo was told, but Clarissa informed him they were not told until November.
After a conversation with Clarissa’s parents as he started to believe they wanted to remove the threat of their backup, he discovered another arrangement had been set in motion.Enrique Valdez was only five years older than Clarissa but came from a very wealthy family.Valdez was also a rival Mafia family.The deal would have secured peace between the Colombo and the Valdez, and it would seem they were both “backup” children, and it would be the perfect chance for peace.An agreement that would have set Clarissa’s family further above his own.It would have cemented their families for life.An even better agreement than that of a Vitale.The deal was struck the night before, but it was on the condition that the backups were the ones to make the agreement.Clarissa and Enrique.
Until Isabella was killed.
The same death that was meant for Clarissa.
There was only one other party that knew about this agreement, and Lorenzo filled in the blanks.His father was always thirsty for power.He made agreements with the understanding that he was by far superior than anyone else.He was a top-ranking Capo of the Colombo Mafia.This deal would have knocked him down.Clarissa’s father would have been higher in rank.
His father had set the wheels in motion, and when Lorenzo talked to his mother, even though it was so long ago, she had remembered that for a short time, he had someone paint the ink of an enemy gang member on his neck.All the information had been presented, and he had it under Colombo authority to deal with the problem.
Lorenzo had two options—answer for the sins of his father, or remove his father from the equation.
“That stupid girl wasn’t supposed to get in the fucking way!”his father said.“Clarissa wasn’t important.She was a fucking dud.A pain in the ass.”
“But that was the problem, wasn’t it?”Lorenzo asked.“She was going to bring about your decline.You were not going to get to be so high and mighty.Her life was joined with Valdez.It would have lined the two mafias for life and ended the fucking bloodshed on the streets.Instead, you destroyed it.”
“Look, I was not supposed to kill Isabella.But, one of those girls needed to die, and I made that decision.”
Lorenzo pulled out his gun.
“Do you think you can kill me?”his father asked.