Page 22

22

Cassian

C hristmas was supposed to be about family, a chance to spend quality time together, making memories. Only it had never been that way for me.

For as long as I could remember, Mom spent the holidays in her room, drugged up to the eyeballs, while Dad swanned off with one of his mistresses, leaving me to fend for myself.

Since my father was still hanging around like a noxious smell, it looked like this holiday would be even worse than usual.

He sat at the breakfast table reading the papers when I wandered in, my hair damp from the shower. It was still early, but I’d expected him to have left for the city by now.

“Not working today?” I moved over to the side table and poured a cup of coffee from the carafe.

“I’m always working. You know that.” He folded his copy of the Financial Times neatly in half and fixed me with a hard stare. “I’m flying out this evening for a meeting with investors. I trust you’ll behave yourself while I’m gone?”

It couldn’t be government business - parliament was in recess.

“Investors?”

He said nothing for a beat, then smiled. “Yes, Cassian. Investors. You really haven’t been paying attention, have you?”

“Attention to what?” I sat down at the table, ignoring the silver platters of food. My appetite was non-existent these days, although I usually forced something down, if only to fuel my gym workouts.

“To anything.” He had a point. Ignoring him and our fucked up family life had long been a favored coping strategy. An optimism bias, my old therapist called it. The therapist Dad sacked off because he thought having therapy made me look weak.

To be fair, the guy hadn’t been all that helpful. The only useful shit he did was give me the tools to diagnose my father as a malignant narcissist.

I yawned, enjoying how my father’s jaw clenched with irritation at my lack of interest in his words.

“I pay attention to the important stuff, like school.” To further irritate him, I pulled my iPhone out of my pocket and opened up the TikTok app to scroll through the latest videos, while laughing at the more stupid ones.

Landon had made none for a while. I quickly pulled up his account. Nope. Nothing since the Christmas Gala.

I guessed he was lying low while the sex tape furore died down. Not that it had. Our hashtag was still trending on all platforms, with every misogynistic asshole in existence eager to come out and troll us. Or rather troll Thea.

Dad slammed his hand down on the table, causing a glass of grapefruit juice to jump and fall over. I watched as the puddle of pink spread, staining the white damask tablecloth.

“And the shit happening in the world,” I added as an afterthought. “How is Operation Willow going?” Well, I assumed, judging by the flurry of news reports on the topic.

“It’s time you focused, boy.” Dad stood, looming over me. There was a time when I found him intimidating. My father was a big man. Tall with broad shoulders. As a kid, he’d scared the shit out of me. Not because he yelled and threw things. No. He wasn’t that type of man.

It was the dead eyes. The subtle threats of what would happen if I failed to behave. And the slow realization as I got older that when I fucked up, my mother paid the price.

“Focused on what?” I looked up, giving him my best bored expression while a video of some dude lip syncing to Ariana Grande’s Thank U, Next played in the background.

He was mad. Really mad . I could tell from the way a vein pulsed in his temple. Any second now, he’d blow a gasket. Three…two…one…

But to my surprise, he exhaled slowly and then stepped back.

“The family business.”

Dad poured himself a whiskey as I sat in one of the leather chairs in his study. Part of me wanted to remind him it was not even 9 AM yet, so way too early for hard liquor, but the rest of me was desperate for a drink. But because he was an asshole, he didn’t offer me one.

We were a highly respectable family with links to the Royal Family on my mother’s side. Thanks to Mom, we were also fabulously wealthy. Why would my father risk any of that for what? More money?

Then I recalled what the therapist had told me about malignant narcissists, aka my father. They believed themselves to be superior to others. They liked to break the law. And they were highly manipulative and very good at charming people to get what they wanted.

Dad smiled. A crocodile smile with zero warmth.

“It’s time you became more involved in our business,” Dad said before sipping his drink. “I’ve been patient with you. Let you attend college, forge useful connections, and make a name for yourself, but all you’ve done is embarrass me and drawn unwanted attention to us.” He slammed his glass down and I forced myself not to jump.

I could feel my temper rising and fought hard to keep my emotions in check. Losing my shit now would only provoke him. Dad’s jaw ticked in anger for a moment before he continued.

“It’s all your mother’s fault you’re a spoiled brat,” he spat with a sneer. “She tried to take me from you several times. In the end, I warned her if she didn’t stop, bad things would happen.”

She had? I thought back. There had been a few holidays where Mom had taken me without Dad. One time, we’d flown to the US to stay with some friends of hers. She’d said at the time we might be moving there. But then Dad arrived, and we came home. After that, things changed. She stopped being present so much, and for a while, she disappeared completely.

“The US trip?” He nodded. “Is that why she spent months in the Highgate Clinic having treatment?”

Once again, he smirked. My fists clenched tightly. That bastard. He’d deliberately sent her there as punishment.

“I warned her and she didn’t listen. Because of her influence, you’d grown weak, a pampered little prince.”

“I was a kid!”

“No, Cassian, you were and are a mafia heir.” He drained his Scotch and placed the glass down on his desk. “I made a mistake with your upbringing. I should have brought you into the business sooner. Vasily had the right idea. His son is an asset, whereas you…” Dad sniffed derisively, like I was a massive disappointment to him.

Not that I gave a shit what he thought. If anything, being a disappointment worked in my favor. Maybe if he believed I was no use to him, he’d leave me the fuck alone.

“Sorry I’ve let you down, Dad.” The sarcasm in my tone was impossible to miss. Dad glared.

“Because of your antics, our family is in the press far too much. It’s bad for business. If you hadn’t fucked that little whore, my deal with Bale-Lyon would still be on the table. Bale-Lyon was useful to me, but you couldn’t keep your dick in your pants!”

“Just following your example, father.”

“ Pfft . At least I’m not stupid enough to get caught on camera.”

The whole sex tape thing still pissed me off, even though Milo had filled me in on everything. Knowing Thea had had little choice in planting the drugs should have made it easier to forgive her, especially as she hadn’t done what her father’s man had ordered her to do. But I still felt betrayed.

I thought we’d had a genuine connection. But no, she was the same as every other woman in my life. They all wanted to use me.

“That wasn’t my fault.”

“Perhaps not, but choosing to fuck around after I’d warned you not to was!”

“Did you find out who planted the camera and released the video?” I asked innocently.

The grinding of teeth told me no. “The hotel security footage had been wiped by the time I got my guys on it. And it was impossible to track where the video came from.” He waved his hand dismissively, and I hid a smile. Dad was good at most things. He had a brain like a steel trap - nothing escaped his attention. However, technology was not his strong suit, which I knew for a fact irked him immensely.

I shuffled in my chair. “Are we done now?” I still wasn’t sure what he wanted from me.

“Far from it.” The crocodile smile returned. “Like I said, it’s time you were more involved in the day-to-day running of our business, which means you have work to do.”

“I’m busy with college.”

He growled, and I smirked. Winding up my father never got old.

“Vasily is having problems with his son. Kyril has gone off the grid, and he needs to come back to the family.”

Kyril was in Ireland.

“I don’t know where Kyril is or what he’s doing.” A lie, but I was almost certain my father didn’t know about my burner phone. If he did, he’d have punished me by now.

“You and Kyril are friends. This is why I placed the two of you in the same apartment at Abernethy.” My brain kicked up a gear. I’d always assumed Kyril’s arrival was random, but now I knew Vasily Orliov was working with my father, Kyril’s presence in our apartment made a lot more sense.

“And Dario Peretti? Was that your doing as well?”

“No. I still don’t know who had a hand in that, but he’s not important. The Italians don’t have much influence these days.” The dismissive tone of his voice told me he had no clue Francesco di Luca was behind the sex tape. Interesting . Maybe my father wasn’t as all-powerful as he thought.

“I need you to get in touch with Kyril and find out where he is,” Dad continued. “No doubt he’s been distracted by pussy.” Dad sniffed derisively as if the idea of a woman being important enough to distract the son of a mafia boss made no sense.

“I’ll see what I can find out,” I replied, having no intention whatsoever of doing anything. If Kyril wanted to stay under the radar, that was up to him. Frankly, I didn’t blame him. My mother was the only thing keeping me here.