Pretty Girl

Callahan

I've always hated Heathcliff Esmeralda. He always struck me as a lost cause. A petty, opportunistic piece of shit.

Never trust your man who turned on his own family.

The girl is arguing something, but I don't stop to listen. I don't care. They'll figure it out. She's safe, for now. So is the kid.

“Are you going soft, Brother?" Antonio asks me.

I don't dignify the question with a response. He knows better. Or he should, at least.

I strip off my jacket, toss it aside when I walk into the main part of the house. I've only been back a few times since my return from the dead. Couldn't take a chance on being seen. Not before I interrupted that wedding.

Dust cloths are still strewn over most of the furniture and I stop to glance at the pieces that have been uncovered. At the paintings of my family. Another of my ancestors.

The ancestors are easier to look at. I didn't know them. They don't mean much to me. But I move to the one of my mother. My father commissioned it when they got engaged. Or so I'm told.

I look up at her blue eyes. I inherited them but that's where the physical similarity ends.

Her blonde hair only one of my brothers and my sister inherited. They're all dead now apart from Antonio.

The blood of the Esmeralda brothers crusts on my skin as I stare at the painting, undoing my tie, willing myself to remember.

Bear in mind, they didn't spare your mother.

And therein lies the problem. I don't remember. I don't remember a fucking thing. My own mother and looking at this painting she's a stranger to me.

"Is it done?" Diamente asks. He's talking to Antonio. Antonio is the reasonable one. I'm a fucking walking disaster.

“The girl and the kid are still alive,” Antonio mutters, obviously annoyed by the fact.

I force the anger I feel at not remembering down into my gut, to a place I can manage it. Barely. I move past the painting, through the living room toward the dining room. I stop between the pillars that hold up the vaulted ceiling.

“Is everything okay, Cal?” Diamente asks when I don't speak.

Diamente Lombardi, an attorney with a penchant for uncovering details most want to keep hidden, was a friend to both of my parents and a man my father trusted.

I nod, take in the large windows, some still devoid of glass that let in the sun.

"Vincent and Gregory Esmeralda are dead," I say.

He studies me. I'm sure he wants to know why they're not all dead.

"Good," he says.

"You should have killed them all. Finished it," Diamente says.

I turn to my younger brother. Just one year between us. Every time I look at him, I think how grateful I am that he's not dead.

That he wasn't here when it happened.

"I'll finish it my way. In my time. This is up to me. Not you."

Antonio snorts. "Fuck you, then. I'm going to get something to eat." He disappears into the kitchen.

Diamente gestures to the men working at the windows. “This project will be finished today, I'm told. You sure you want to be here?"

"It's where I belong."

The house has been in my family for generations. The bigger windows are an addition my father made at my mother's request. It was too dark for her otherwise. Even here, in southern Italy on her own island, she needed more sunlight.

My uncle told me that. Said she always hated the dark. Got depressed in winter and on the rare sunny summer days.

And so, my father had the windows made bigger, but he fucked up. Sealed our fate. Gave his enemies an easy target because the bullet proof glass that was to be put in wasn't. Another betrayal. I killed them too. The pigs who sold him that glass.

I will kill every mother fucker who betrayed us. Who had a hand in my family's massacre.

“We'll meet representatives from the families tomorrow. Everything is arranged," Diamente says.

"How did they take the news?"

“The news that the Scarfoni family wasn't wiped out as Fernando Mancini would have you believe. That they missed two sons. The ones who will avenge the murders of our family.”

Diamente smiles wide. "They're thrilled that the Esmeralda Cartel is out of the way and that you've returned to take your rightful place," he says, the note of sarcasm in his tone subtle but unmistakable.

“I bet.”

"We know the two who sided with Fernando. We still have the majority of support on our side."

I nod, walk toward the stairs. "They're either with me or against me. There will be no middle. Not this time."

He doesn't reply. But this is where my father went wrong. This is where he made the mistakes that cost my family their lives.

“I'm going to change. Are you staying for dinner?" I ask.

He checks his watch. "No, not tonight. I'm meeting with a few people."

“All right. I'll see you soon."

I head upstairs and walk into the master bedroom. It's one of the few rooms that's ready. I toss my tie aside, unbutton my shirt and tug it out of my slacks. I look down at it. Even on black, blood shows. Luckily it was never my favorite suit.

There's a knock on the door and I turn to watch a soldier manhandle the girl into the room.

Portia Esmeralda.

Only daughter of Edgar Esmeralda.

Her uncle is right. I should kill her. But there's something about her that's got me curious and I can't quite put my finger on it.

I look her over. Even in the bloody, destroyed wedding dress, she's gorgeous. A fuck should take care of it. Sink my cock into her warm pussy and then I'll be over my curiosity. Be rid of her.

“Fucking brute," she mutters, stumbling when the soldier releases her. He did have a pretty firm grip but I'm sure it was because she asked for it. She seems like a woman who'd ask for it.

He looks at me, waits for my nod, then goes. He'll be outside. Not that I need him to manage her. I can handle Portia Esmeralda with one hand tied behind my back.

We study each other and for a moment, I see her on her knees at my feet again begging me to spare her brother. Not a word about herself.

She's out of breath from the haul up the stairs or from her fight with the soldier. Not very smart if she wasted her energy on that.

I continue to strip off my clothes, undoing my cuffs and two buttons on the front before pulling it off over my head. I follow her eyes as they take me in, her eyebrows knitting together momentarily, forehead wrinkling. Not sure if it's at that tattoos or the scars, but either way I stand there and let her have a good look.

While she does, I do the same. I study her because there's something in those honey-colored eyes I don't understand. Something I crave to understand.

Something that goes against everything I have learned is true.

But fuck that shit.

Pretty girls are a dime a dozen. There's nothing special about this one. She makes my dick hard. That's all I have to worry about.

Hopefully.