Page 72 of Mafia Scars

“I know.” I nodded. “That doesn’t make it okay though.” I didn’t mean to jump straight into attack. The words just slipped. “Then you never told me you were so sick.”

“Would that have brought you home?”

“Yes.” I might have struggled initially with myself, contemplating whether or not I could allow my father to die without seeing him again, but I knew me. I would have come around to my senses and headed home, despite the past.

“You stayed away so long.” He looked away and focused on the Ming vase sitting on the Oakwood floor by the long French windows.

I gazed too, getting lost in the patterns and Mandarin characters.

“I said I was never coming back.”

“Well.” He faced me, and I looked to him too. “That’s why I would never have expected my illness to bring you back.”

“So, you would have just allowed me to get a message or something telling me that you died?” That would have killed me.

He lifted his shoulders into a shrug. “When I first found out, I tried to deal with it without telling anyone. Then, when the doctors said the tumor was inoperable, I thought about reaching out to you, but I knew it was best not to.”

“You always kept tabs on me. It wouldn’t have been hard.”

“My dear, in my line of work, you do what you have to, to protect those who you love. In my case it meant letting you go. It was during the time when I got worse that all this started happening. Tag contacted me, then I felt doomed. I knew I couldn’t fight him, so I sent Luc. Holding over him the one thing I thought would make him do what I wanted.”

“The business,” I filled in.

“Yeah.”

“The business.” I knew what we did. I’d filled in the blanks, but I wanted to hear it from him. “What do we do? What do you do?”

His gaze became more pensive. He must have understood my intention in asking. “On the surface, real estate. Behind the scenes, we used to do a lot of money laundering and smuggling. Now it’s mostly loans at high interests. Luc does the books, keeps the feds and the cops off our backs.”

Well, that was a little more detailed.

“Do you kill people?”

His brow furrowed. “Never for no reason.”

“Agent Peterson. I have to know. Did you kill him?” An image of the agent’s face flashed through my mind. The terror I saw, then all that blood on the floor as Dad and his men took him away.

He continued to gaze at me. I swore he could see every single emotion that swirled through me. I was buzzing with anxiety. My nerves tingled with it.

“Yes.” The answer came on the edge of a breath.

A heavy weight pulled on my heart. I knew he’d killed him, but having it confirmed was something else entirely.

“I’m sorry, Amelia. I—”

I held up my hand and shook my head. Talking about the past, dwelling on the past and the things that made me leave, were not helping.

I shouldn’t do it. I shouldn’t do it.

“I… needed to know. I know why you did it. I do. Tag, what is he capable of?” Best to change the subject.

“Everything, my girl.” He pulled in a breath. “He was one of my best friends, and in the absence of Marcus, I trusted him with all that was dear to me. You and your mother.”

“I don’t remember him being around.”

“You wouldn’t. Whenever I got him to watch over you guys, he would have kept his distance. I wanted to keep you out of business. You especially. Your mother, however, wanted me to keep her in the loop. I told her what she needed to know, but I guess that kind of kick-started her involvement with Tag.”

“How did she manage knowing what you did in the business?” That question was really me asking how it was my mother could have been with my father knowing he was a criminal.