Page 64 of Mafia Scars

“Bullshit, Raphael. Fucking bullshit. Let me tell you again, everyone has a price. The diamonds aren’t safe where they are. Who’s to say that the people you have taking care of them won’t just hand them to Tag? Then what? He’ll come and kill Amelia.”

“They’ve been safe there for years with a highly secure password. Not even the people who work there know what I have in that safe.”

“Jesus Christ, Raphael, they don’t need to know. All they need to know is that you have something there with a high level of security. You don’t have such high security on anything else.”

He frowned and seethed. “Luc, don’t test me. I know what I’m doing. You turned down the business, so if you want to work for me, we do things my way.”

“Son of a bitch, like hell we do things your way.” I jumped up off the sofa and squared my shoulders.

He widened his eyes and glared at me. “You heard me. If it remains hidden, it’s hidden. No one knows.”

“Fuck you. You thought no one knew about you ratting out Tag, and look how that turned out. You lost your wife, and now you want to lose your daughter.”

“Luc, I swear to God that if I didn’t like you so much, I’d pop a bullet in you right now for that.”

“You know what, Raphael? I don’t give a rat’s ass if you like me or not. I would love to see you try to end me.”

The bastard. He backed down knowing he wouldn’t be able to reach for his gun quick enough,ifI was being serious.

Not even I had the heart to take down a man who I knew was dying, and definitely not the man who was the father of the woman I wanted.

“You’re a real hardass, you know that?” Raphael bore into me with sharp brown eyes.

“Yes.” I stared him down.

His eyes never left mine, and I wasn’t going to allow him to have his way on this one. Sure, he’d run his business very successfully his whole life, but we weren’t talking about real estate.

This was about Amelia. So far, I hadn’t seen anything that made me want to agree with his ass-backwards plan.

Someone cleared their throat by the door.

Amelia.

I immediately loosened up the tenseness I displayed in my shoulders.

It was amazing. I would never be able to get over what this woman did to me. When I was with her, the world faded into black, and all I could see was her.

Now that we were all here, I’d been thinking about how ridiculous it was for me to have thought I could marry her and take over the business.

I had no idea that my feelings for her could surpass my desire to take over from Raphael.

No idea. Now look at me. Standing here, ready to give Raphael a piece of my mind, and one look from her turned me into melted butter.

“I’d like to cut in if I may.” She looked from me to Raphael and kept her focus on him.

“You may.” Raphael didn’t even let up on his tone with her.

“Well, Dad, I think that your plan is flawed.” She walked into the room, keeping her eyes on him.

He squinted, definitely not liking what she said.

“Flawed in what way?” he challenged.

“There’s one thing you’re failing to take into consideration.”

“What’s that?”

“There’s someone working with them here too. A rat of the worst kind. Someone had to have told him that it was you who tipped off the feds that day. As long as we have to worry about such a person we have to constantly watch our backs.”