Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 93048 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 465(@200wpm)___ 372(@250wpm)___ 310(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 93048 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 465(@200wpm)___ 372(@250wpm)___ 310(@300wpm)
“I’m sorry, Cormac, but I won’t be blackmailed. I’m not going to step down.”
“Then it’ll be a civil war. I know you can’t let me get away with keeping the product, and you know I can’t just sit back and do nothing. I made promises to the guys that followed me.”
“I don’t want that. Nobody wants to hurt the people they grew up with.”
“And yet here we are. Step down, Ronan, and save a lot of lives.” He gets to his feet. I stand as well and struggle to hide the sorrow raging through my chest.
“I’m prepared for war if that’s where this is going, but I really hope you change your mind. Bring the product back. Apologize to the uncles and take a pay cut for a year. We can move past this, Cormac. Nobody has to get hurt.”
“We both know we’re too far gone. There’s no turning this back, even if I wanted to.” Cormac nods to me and starts to walk off. “Good luck, Ronan. I hope you do the right thing.”
I watch him go. As he leaves, I feel my place in the world shift. My axis tilts, and it’s like I’m tumbling through space.
My family is going to kill itself. I can see it happening so clearly. And yet there’s no reasonable way for me to stop it.
Except by stepping down.
Chapter 39
Valentina
Ronan’s a tense mess when he gets home after his meeting with Cormac. I pour him a drink and rub his shoulders while we sit on the couch in his living room together. He finishes half his glass of whiskey in one go and leans forward, head hanging, elbows on his knees.
“If I walk away, nobody gets hurt.” He doesn’t look at me as he says it. I know how much this is killing him. I remember how terrible those early days after my father’s murder were when I had to witness my own family break into bloody pieces. Back then, Marco was the only person that cared about me; he saved my life when there were multiple Capos that would’ve happily ended it.
An ugly, horrible knot twists my guts. “You can’t do that,” I tell him. “That won’t solve anything. It’ll only hand the family over to Cormac, and he’ll run it straight into the ground.”
“I know you’re right, love, but it’s killing me, the thought of hurting my own cousins.”
“They’re traitors. They’re—”
“My people,” he says, looking back at me.
I lean against him and wrap my arms around his shoulders. I hug him tight, kiss his neck, and wish I could draw some of his pain into my body, if only to relieve some of his suffering for a little while.
He tells me all about the meeting, gives me details about what Cormac said and how he was feeling. When he finishes, I take his hand in mine and lean into him, lifting my legs into his lap.
“When my father died, the Santoro Famiglia broke up faster than I would’ve guessed.” I close my eyes. I hate talking about this, but I think he needs to hear it.
“I’ve heard rumors,” he admits, “but nothing concrete.”
“They were men I’ve known my whole life. I grew up with their children. I was in multiple weddings, attended funerals, went on vacation with them. We were close. But when my father passed, the fight to become the new Don was terrible, and it ended up killing a lot of them.” I tell him about the drive-by shootings, about the stabbings, about the four days of slaughter that culminated in Marco hiding me away in a safehouse for six weeks before the heat finally died down. “These were people that swore their lives to each other barely a few months earlier, and suddenly they’re slaughtering each other as though they had been blood enemies their entire lives. It was so hard to believe, but the second it turned, it turned fast. That’s what I need you to understand, Ronan.”
His breathing is slow and steady. “Cormac’s going to come for us.”
“I’d bet on a day or two, but yeah, he definitely will. He’s desperate, right? If he can’t get you to step down on your own, he’ll turn straight to violence.”
Ronan closes his eyes. I hate that he’s going through this. I hate that I played a role in it, even if he made it clear that I wasn’t really the catalyst, that this had all been brewing for a while before I entered the picture.
I still blame myself. The alliance between Marco, Ronan, Adam, Dusan, and Julien broke up in violence; my family shattered against its own self-hate; and now Ronan’s organization is about to experience its own civil war. Whenever I’m involved, violence inevitably follows.
Rationally, I can see how none of that is my fault, that I’ve been the victim of shitty circumstances, but it doesn’t really help make me feel any better.