MOBSTER’S BABY_Esposito Family Mafia Page 16

  “I missed you so much, Tony,” she said as she pressed herself into my side. I hugged her tighter to me.

  “I missed you too.”

  “What—what happened? It’s been weeks. I thought—”

  “I was putting this whole thing together,” I said. “I knew that the only way to get you would be having Rick exposed somehow. I knew that there had to be evidence. My father knows a few guys in the FBI. I contacted them and this MC buddy that I have who originally helped me find you. We got all the information that we needed that proved he tried to hide you away—amongst other things.”

  “Other things?”

  “His case. All the extortion shit? I pulled a few strings. Your father is going to be going away for a long, long time. The worst of it, though, my father is keeping to himself.”

  “The worst of it? There’s …more? How much more?”

  Ah. There was the caveat.

  “More as in …murders. A few. Most notably the accidental death of the man he was running against before he became governor.”

  “Benedict Rhode? He died in a train crash just before the elections.”

  “Your father had that rigged.”

  Evie didn’t say anything. I looked down to her, and she wasn’t even really shocked. She was frowning.

  “I guess I’m not really surprised. My father was going to get rid of our baby …before it was born,” she said, placing her hands on her swollen belly. “That doesn’t surprise me, but—why are you keeping that from the police? He deserves to be punished!”

  “He does. But it’s leverage so that when, or even if, he gets out of jail and he sends anyone our way—mine, yours, the baby, anyone—we have enough evidence to send him right back. And more. The death penalty is alive and well in this state for someone involved in multiple murders.”

  Evie didn’t ask for any more details, and I didn’t blame her. I was glad that she didn’t. There was one murder that Rick Brown had covered up that I didn’t think Evie would recover from …

  “What have you guys got for me? It’s been weeks. I thought you all were quick.”

  Rodney and Avery Jiles, my father’s two FBI contacts, sat across from me in my father’s office. I’d gotten them to look into Evie’s father for anything and literally everything they could find that would give us leverage against him. In particular, any proof that he had tried to lock away Evie and had threatened her to keep her from trying to come to me.

  “We are quick, but it takes a little time when the person you’re digging up on has so much dirt on them you might as well be in a landfill,” Rodney said. He and Avery slapped three thick folders onto the table before me and my father. We exchanged looks.

  “This is enough to put him away on the investigations that are already ongoing for him.” Avery said. “Honest, bone fide proof of extortion, money laundering, bribery—you name it, he’s done it.”

  “That’s excellent!”

  “Yeah. You’ll also be interested to know that there’s quite a bit in here suggesting that he was involved in several murders—and evidence confirming at least two.”

  My eyes lit up. This was amazing. I was so fucking excited. I was going to get my girl back from her bastard of a father and put him away for life.

  “So, what was it? Did he have a hit on someone? He whack a colleague?”

  Rodney and Avery exchanged a look.

  “In a manner of speaking. Yes. You’re aware of the tragic death of Benedict Rhode, yes?”

  “The one who was killed in a train crash, yeah.”

  “Well, Rick Brown organized that whole thing. The faulty track. The breaks failing. All of it.”

  “You gotta be shitting me.”

  “Nope. No shit.”

  “That killed Benedict Rhode, his staff, and several other people not even involved in the crash.”

  Rodney nodded.

  “Yep.”

  I shook my head in disbelief; Rick Brown had ruined and taken so many lives—and I couldn’t say that I was an innocent man, but that was downright cruel. You settled your beef with the person involved; you didn’t fuck with innocent people that had jack shit to do with it.

  “Okay… So Benedict Rhode. Who was the other one?”

  “His late wife, Karen Brown.”

  I nearly choked.

  “What? What? No, that’s impossible. Evie said that she died in childbirth—”

  “And she did. But not because of birth complications. She’d been severely beaten before giving birth. Evie was born a month early. Did you know that?”

  “No …I didn’t…” I shook my head. “How the hell—”

  “Rick and Karen Brown had a midwife. Karen was all about natural birth, so they never had plans to have Evie in a hospital. It turns out, however, that Rick had suspected that his wife had been cheating on him for some time—perhaps long before Evie was conceived. He hired a private detective to follow his wife and found evidence that his wife was, in fact, unfaithful. He beat her within an inch of her life one night when she was coming home from a date with her lover, sending her into an early labor. The birth complications that killed Karen Brown weren’t birth complications at all; her husband had beaten her to death and hired a doctor close to the family to deliver the child secretly. He then paid quite a handsome amount of money to police to overlook the fact that his wife was covered in inexplicable bruises, and then more money still to doll her up after death so that she would look presentable for her funeral. No one ever knew that Rick Brown had killed his wife—except those who helped cover it up.”

  “And they, too, have mysteriously disappeared over the years.”

  My mind reeled. Evie had always thought that her mother had died giving birth to her—because of complications. Well. Hell. Abuse was certainly a fucking complication.

  “There’s also more that’s rather interesting,” Avery piped up.

  “More?” I said, unsure if I could believe that more was even fucking possible in this situation.

  “Yup. Rick Brown apparently had a hair up his ass after the death of his wife and raising their child on his own—he wanted to see if Evie was actually his daughter. He paid for a very, very discrete paternity test.”

  “And?”

  “Evie’s certainly her mother’s child …but she’s not Rick Brown’s. Not by blood.”

  No, there was a lot about Evie’s father I had learned that I would not be telling Evie. But Rick Brown didn’t need to know that. As long as he thought that I would and I had the means to do so, he would fall in line and stay in line and wouldn’t be bothering us again.

  From beside me, Evie nudged me. I looked down.

  “Hm?”

  “You look very much deep in thought.”

  I smiled.

  “I might be. A little.”

  “Oh? Well do tell.” She nudged me again. “Don’t keep secrets. I’m still trying to figure out how lucky I am to have gotten a man like you.”

  I laughed. I didn’t know if I would call it lucky on her part, but I certainly wouldn’t be complaining about it, either way. I was the lucky one. After all this shit, I finally had her and there was nothing in my way to stop me from keeping her, either.

  I stopped us along the sidewalk. The area was surprisingly quiet, just a few other passersbys. It was peaceful. I reached into my pocket to fish out the last piece of the puzzle on this one—a small, black, velvet box.

  Evie was shocked as I dropped to my knee. I opened the box, revealing the little amethyst ring I had bought at the jewelry store. I smiled up at her.

  “I don’t have anything sappy to say to you,” I said. “I want you. I want that baby. I want us to be happy—and I love you. If you would let me, I want to make you my wife, Evie. I want you to be mine and me to be yours.”

  Tears flowed down her face. They came rapidly, like a stream. But she was happy and smiling, and I knew that they were good tears.

  “Yes,” she said, holding out her hand for me to slip the
ring on her finger. It fit perfectly, like her hand hadn’t been made for anything other than this.

  I pulled her up to stand with me, and I wrapped myself around her, kissing her deeply.

  “I love you, Evie,” I said.

  “I love you too, Tony.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Evie

  This was the first time that I was visiting my father since his trial started. He was being kept in the jail, something that I knew his lawyers had fought long and hard against, but that was something that I was counting as his problem, and didn’t feel the least bit sorry for him.

  That’s what happened, after all, when you broke the law so thoroughly as my father had, ruined lives in the depth that my father had, and tried to cover it up with lies, as though he were an innocent man.

  I had considered not going. I was nine months pregnant, tired most of the time, and my ankles were swollen. I didn’t feel like walking, let alone hobbling through a jail, but it was something that he was insisting on, and his attorney, Richard, was a nice man and at the very least was just trying to slate his client’s needs.

  “He just wants one meeting with you. That’s all. After that he says he won’t bother with you again.”

  I didn’t know if that was for my benefit or for my father’s, but I had come down nonetheless.

  I waited in a private room for them to bring him in, alone. Tony had insisted on coming with me, just in case, but I assured him that there was little chance in my father being able to pull off something legitimately sinister while under surveillance. Tony still didn’t trust the cops, who had been in my father’s pockets as much as they had been able to be swayed by his father, but I knew that the cops weren’t taking Rick Brown’s money anymore; his name and his money were mud, and they were smart enough to know where they should be getting their bones, and it wasn’t from my father.

  When they brought him in, he barely even looked like my father. His facial hair had grown out and he looked like he hadn’t slept in days. His hands were secured in front of him and it was certainly a sight to see—my father in chains.

  “You sure we can’t take these off, boys? I’m just talking to my daughter, not plotting world domination.”

  One of the cops rolled his eyes.

  “You’ll keep the cuffs, Brown. Be lucky we don’t have you in the full shackles and strapped down.” He nodded up to the camera that was watching over the room. “You try any funny business and we’ll know about it. You’ve got ten minutes.”

  “I paid for an hour—”

  “And we’re giving you ten minutes. You don’t run shit no more, Brown.”

  I watched the cop leave with a bit of satisfaction. When the door closed behind him, I turned to my father.

  “Well, what did you want?” I asked. “Talk.”

  “Such a lovely way to greet your father.”

  “Funny thing, I don’t really look at you like my father anymore.”

  “I was only doing what I thought was best, Evelyn.”

  “You were only doing what was best for yourself. Your campaign. What would get you more money and more power. It was never about me, what I wanted, or what was best for me and my child. So, please. Explain to me how you thought you were doing what was best.”

  He looked at me for a moment and scoffed.

  “I should have known trying to reason with you wouldn’t have gotten me anywhere.”

  “Yeah. You should have. Is this all you called me here for? Because if so, this was a huge waste of time.”

  He frowned at me a little, but I didn’t think that it was because I had legitimately hurt his feelings. I think he was finally coming to realize that he couldn’t cow me and bend me to his will, and that was wearing on him heavily. He’d lost his leverage.

  “When are you due?”

  The question came suddenly and threw me off. I stared at him hard.

  “Why do you want to know? What’s it to you?”

  “Well I was hoping that, at the very least, I would be able to see my grandchild while I’m locked away on bogus charges.”

  I laughed.

  “You honestly think that I’m going to let you see this child? You? After everything you’ve—” I stopped and shook my head. “Why on earth would I do that?”

  “I’m your father. I raised you. I took care of you. At the very least, you should let me see my family—”

  “I stopped being your family when you started treating me like property. I want nothing to do with you, and this baby will have absolutely nothing to do with you. Do you understand? I have no idea why you thought that would happen. You threatened to kill this baby!”

  “I was trying to protect you and knew you would want to protect yours—”

  “And that’s what I’m doing by keeping this child away from you. I only came here because your attorney is nice, and at the very least, I could tell you in person to never, ever, contact me again.”

  I stood up, and felt no remorse in watching the way my father kept his eyes on me. He looked disappointed and sad—which is something that I had never seen on him before.

  Good riddance.

  # # #

  I returned to the compound with a pep in my step that shouldn’t have been there. Several months ago, I would have been down from the way that the meeting with my father had gone. Now, I had no issues with cutting ties to him. He didn’t have that kind of emotional control over me anymore. I wasn’t going to let him have that sort of control over me ever again.

  I pulled into the garage alongside Tony’s and the boy’s other cars. This one was mine—I was now working properly as Tony’s business consultant and was getting a decent amount of change doing that. I also consulted and advised the family’s business partners and the like, which meant that the pretty Jag that I stepped out of was all mine, in my name and everything. There was also a more conservative car, for when the baby arrived. But until then, I was riding around in proper, high-class style. It made me feel pretty damn good.

  I clicked the car locked and headed into the house. The maids and housekeepers alike greeted me and I them. Allan passed me by with a pretty woman on his arm.

  “Hey, Evie! You met Elektra yet?”

  I smiled at her, knowing who she was. Tony had told me Allan had gotten sweet on a girl—a stripper from one of the clubs in the city. She was cute, I would give him that. And if it made him happy …

  “No, I haven’t. But it’s nice to meet you, Elektra.” We shook hands and she seemed surprised that I was so warm with her.

  “Nice to meet you, too.”

  “Anyway! If you’re looking for Tony, he’s up in the office. You should catch him before he starts working himself to death, you know. Elektra and I, however, have a date.”

  He popped her nicely on the ass, and she giggled. I watched the two of them practically skip out of the front door and out into the lot. I laughed. Having Allan around would never, ever get old.

  I went up to the office after that. Tony had slowly moved himself into his father’s office and was working entirely independently out of it. Geno was gearing to retire, and Tony, now with a family on the way and a wedding to plan, was stepping into this role as the head of the Esposito family. I knocked once, then a second time.

  “Tony?” There was a little bit of silence. I smiled and knocked a little harder. “Tony?”

  “Huh? Ah. Come in.”

  I shook my head and, sure enough, when I entered, Tony was wiping spit of off his face—he’d obviously been sleeping at his desk. I tsked and walked over to him, leaning down to give him a kiss.

  “What have I said about working yourself so much that you end up falling asleep in here?”

  “I was just going over some contracts I need to look over with our attorney—”

  “Things you should be doing when you’re actually with your attorney, not when you’re by yourself.”

  “I like getting a head start on things.”

  I laughed. When he wen
t to put his hands on the papers in front of him, I moved them out of the way.

  “Come on, babe. Take a break. Don’t worry about it, all right?”

  He sighed a little and sat back in his chair.

  “Okay. Okay. Fine. I’ll be good.” His eyes slid closed for a moment, and I allowed him the small doze. After a few moments of silence, I perched myself on the edge of his desk—a little wobbly, granted, but I made it work.