Page 119 of I Would Beg For You
Marco leads the way, to a spot at the back of the warehouse. We pass through a few curtains of plastic sheeting, making me wonder what this space was really used for—I’ve only seen such plastic blinds in videos of slaughterhouses. Franco walks by my side, hand in hand, Luciano and Victor behind me.
When Joel Smith comes into sight, I flinch. Franco’s reassuring squeeze on my fingers gives me my composure again, and I throw my shoulders back to look at the man who has caused so much pain and destruction in my life.
A part of me knows I have to face him as the person he really is to me, use the title rightfully his, just so I can exorcize him from my existence.
“Father,” I say softly.
It’s hard to imagine the portly man who’s been stripped to a greyish white wifebeater and pale blue briefs and tied to a chair is the one who is capable of orchestrating so much mayhem and chaos. Until he turns to me, and the eyes, they tell me all I need to know.
How did I not see this before?
I haven’t lain eyes on him since the day he had me committed at Pineridge, and even that’s a blur because of all the drugs he’d been plying me with at the time, keeping me in a daze half the time when I wasn’t passed out.
Those pale grey orbs? They’re the windows into the soul of a monster.
“Look who’s here,” he crows. “I see you’ve come well surrounded. Fucking them all, aren’t you?”
The men tense around me. Marco’s fist lands into my father’s face, making him spit out blood, and possibly a tooth.
“Show some respect,” Pesci says, spitting at him.
My father sneers. “For that whore?”
Another blow lands onto his face, this time from Pesci.
“This woman is Don Valentino Andretti’s wife,” the capo says. “You’ll show her the respect she is due.”
The white-haired head snaps to me. “Don?”
A surge of triumph unfurls inside me, and I’m smiling. “Didn’t know about this, did you? You sent your goons to attack a Don ofthe Northeastern coast Mafia, Papa dear. Everyone who’s helped you? They’re dead.”
You’re next.I don’t say it, though. Let him stew and wonder what his fate will be.
“You’re bluffing,” he finally says, eyes shifty now.
I shrug.
“Maybe I am, maybe I’m not.” I step closer, leaving the brothers behind. “Think about it. If you’d waited. A Don for son-in-law. All this power could’ve been all yours.”
Of course, I know things wouldn’t have turned out this way. Valentino was welcomed at the high table precisely because he got rid of Joel Smith on the Mafia’s back, because he made sure another RICO wouldn’t land on them in the coming years. Daddy Dearest doesn’t need to know this, though. It’s good to see him squirm.
He spits at me. “You’re nothing but a whore. Just like your mother.”
I tense up. He shouldn’t have brought her up.
“You raped her when she was fifteen. How much younger should she have been to already be whoring around when you came along?” I throw out at him.
His face curls into such a grimace of covetousness, it’s like seeing a demon come into being.
“She was asking for it.”
Exactly what every rapist will say. I choke down the disgust rising in me, determined to face him once and for all. After tonight, there’ll be no other chance.
“I’m your daughter. What was I asking for, huh?”
“You? I thought you were a good girl, my good girl. All this time, you were just acting like a little innocent virgin, all prudish. Then I find you’re opening your legs to whoever will fuck you.”
I cringe at his words, though I don’t let them get to me.
