Pop looks good.
Too good for a man who just had a fucking heart attack.
He’s kicked back in one of the heavy leather chairs in the study, legs stretched out, glass of whiskey in hand—because of course he does.
The flickering fire highlights the deep lines on his face, but his eyes are still sharp and bright, full of that devil-may-care energy that’s kept him alive for decades.
Not even his own body betraying him has slowed him down.
“Jesus, Pop,” I mutter, shaking my head. “You’re really sitting there like nothing happened?”
Vito half shrugs. “Something did happen, and then it stopped happening. So now I’m going to enjoy my fucking whiskey, thank you very much.”
I exhale a long sigh as Sinatra croons in the background.
“You had a heart attack—”
“Which I survived,” he interrupts, grinning.
I scowl. “You’re not immortal, old man.”
“Could’ve fooled me,” he smirks, lifting his glass in a mock toast before taking a sip.
I exhale slowly.
Vito has always been like this—loud, cocky, refusing to let anything get to him. Tonight, I can’t decide if it’s comforting, charming, or fucking infuriating.
“You shouldn’t be drinking,” I mutter.
“And you shouldn’t be such a pain in my ass,” he fires back, peering at me over the rim of his glass. “You know, son, I did just have a heart attack.”
I roll my eyes.
Dad smacks his lips, savoring the whiskey extra hard to piss me off.
I exhale slowly, rolling my neck. Vito watches me for a long moment, then his expression softens a little.
“Let me tell you something, kid,” he says, shifting slightly in his chair. “I’ve spent my whole life watching people get eaten alive in this world. But me?” He smirks, tapping his chest. “I made this world mine. It’s gonna take more than a little myocardial whatever-it-is to knock me down.”
He leans back, watching me carefully.
“You think this rattled me,” he mutters. “It didn’t. Not really.”
“No?” I challenge, crossing my arms.
He takes another sip before setting his glass aside. “No. You know what I was thinking about when I was in that hospital?”
I arch a brow.
“The girls at Lickety Splits,” he says dreamily.
I bark out a laugh. “Jesus Christ. Near-death experience, and you’re thinking about titties?”
“Kid, if titties can’t pull you out of it when you’re staring down death, you’re fucked. Remember that,” he grins, lifting his glass again in salute.
I chuckle and shake my head, bringing mine to my lips.
Vito grins, stretching his arms behind his head. “Seriously, though. I was thinking about the club.”
Lickety Splits was a strip club Pop managed when we were all kids, when our great-uncle Vincenzo was still alive and don of the Barone family. Even as he grew into bigger things, Dad kept that office above the club.
Hell, he’s still got it.
The first two floors aren’t mirrored VIP champagne rooms and stripper poles anymore. There’s a Michelin two-star French restaurant on the first floor, and a tech startup above it. But Vito’s office on the third floor still looks exactly the same.
I spent way too much of my childhood running around backstage, listening to the dancers gossip while they did their makeup. But what I remember most isn’t the excitement of maybe getting a peek of something I wasn’t supposed to. It was how protective of them Pop always was.
“You remember what I used to tell you and your brothers?” he asks, watching me carefully.
I nod, smirking, wanting to get it just right.
“Just because a woman takes her clothes off for money doesn’t mean she deserves any less respect than the asshole handing her the cash.”
Vito points at me, nodding. “Damn right. Those girls worked harder than half the men in this city. They sure as hell didn’t need some punk thinking they could be bought.”
His eyes sharpen slightly. “Anyway, that’s what I was thinking about. That, and you.”
I smile, watching him carefully.
“What about me?”
Vito sighs, rolling his shoulders. “You’re stepping into something big, Carmy.”
I exhale slowly. “Well, luckily it isn’t permanent.”
The study goes quiet. When the silence really hits me, I drag my gaze back to Pop, who fixes me with a heavy look.
“Yeah, it is,” he says quietly. He holds my gaze. “I’m done, kid. And I’m happy to be done. This game has gotten too complex for a simple guy like me.”
Holy shit.
The man who built this empire, who fought for it, bled for it, held onto it with an iron grip, is letting go.
“I’m looking forward to retirement,” he mutters, rubbing his jaw. “That’s mostly because I trust you to lead.”
I drag a hand through my hair, exhaling. “And if you’re wrong on that trust?”
Vito snorts. “Jeez, you always this whiny?”
“You always this full of shit?”
He grins, shaking his head. “You’ll be fine, Carmine. Hell, you’re my son, of course you’ll be fine.”
I don’t know about that.
“So.” He folds his hands over his stomach. “We gonna talk about it?”
“About what—you quitting on me?”
He chuckles. “No, knucklehead. Lyra Ostrova.”
I exhale slowly, stretching my legs out. “You gonna ask me why I picked her over everyone else?”
“Nope.”
I frown. “What?”
He shrugs. “I won’t presume to understand you. And I definitely won’t presume to second-guess your decisions, especially when it comes to women.” He lifts a hand, gesturing vaguely. “They’re your decisions. Good or bad. So—learn to live with them.”
I smirk. “That supposed to be wisdom?”
He chuckles. “I’ll let you in on a little secret. When you get older, you can just mouth off any shit, and because your hair is gray and you’ve got lines on your face, everyone takes it as wisdom.”
I scowl. “That’s…not exactly comforting.”
Pop grins. “Okay, then. Why did you pick her?”
I sigh, my brows furrowing deeply. “She forced my hand.”
Pop hoots another laugh, shaking his head before pouring himself another drink, ignoring my glare. “Welcome to married life, kid. “Dare I ask what she did to force it?”
“It’d be best if you didn’t.”
He snickers. “So, the girl has your balls in a vice already. I think I like her.”
“Trust me, when you meet her, you’ll see what I mean.”
He sighs. “What’s so wrong with her?”
I let out a breath, letting my head flop back against the couch. “Fucking everything.”
Vito laughs, loud and unfiltered. “And yet, you picked her.”
“I told you, she forced my hand.”
He shakes his head. “You’re about to be the don of an empire, kid,” he grunts. “Not to sound like a heartless ass, but if you truly didn’t want anything to do with her, I’m sure….” He shrugs. “Arrangements could have been made resulting in her not having this leverage over you, whatever it is.”
He’s not wrong. And it’s not as though I haven’t thought about it several times since that night.
Lyra saw more than she should have. What should have happened next was either scaring the shit out of her and making damn sure she never spoke about it, or else truly making sure she never spoke about it.
In an extremely permanent way.
Obviously, I didn’t do that. And it’s not because I’ve got some sort of warm fuzzy heart beating inside my chest that “just couldn’t take” the thought of killing her.
An overabundance of conscience has never been my issue.
Trying to find any semblance of it has usually been more the issue. Or trying to fake it for the sake of those around me.
But I digress. It’s not that I didn’t kill Lyra because I couldn’t bring myself to.
It’s because I didn’t want to.
And therein lies the problem, and the confusing part in all of this.
Why didn’t I want to? Making her disappear would have been the simplest, cleanest solution to my problem by far. Her having seen inside the Court isn’t good, obviously, but it’s not like she saw the inner sanctum, or our faces. And we do, after all, proactively invite guests to dine, drink, and fuck during our very deliberately Roman-orgy-esque sessions.
But she went further than that.
She placed me as The Hound.
And it actually gets worse, and that’s the very reason I picked her for this charade.
She caught the attention of my darkness.
Irrevocably. Irrationally.
And now, may God have mercy on her soul. Because if she thinks I’m intense, she has no idea what’s in store for her with him.
