years, my father’s reputation has proceeded me.
“True,” he rasps, his weak grin wicked. “My world is yours to rule now, kid.” He pulls my hands to his mouth and kisses my knuckles, then proceeds to remove the serpent ring off his pinky finger. Even the emerald eyes of the snake look dull. Lifeless.
“Here,” I say, leaning in to help him, the gold and emerald ring loose, coming off with ease. I slide it onto my little finger, but I don’t look at it. Don’t want to see it on me. Never have. Because that will make it too fucking real.
“Do me proud.” His eyes close, and he inhales, like he’s taking his final breath.
“I will,” I vow, letting my forehead fall to the pillow. “Rest in peace, Mister.”
As I’m pulling the suite door closed behind me, I run into Uncle Ernie, my father’s cousin. I have no fucking clue why I call him uncle, but Pops insisted, and I always listened to Pops. Ernie is the polar opposite of my dad, and by that I mean he’s a law-abiding citizen. He makes his millions legitimately on the stock market, and is an upstanding, respected member of the public. I always wondered how he and Pops gelled so well, given their contrasting ethics and morals. Maybe because Ernie is the only living relative of my father. Their relationship has always been an easy one, but that’s only because they had a mutual understanding to never discuss business. The respect and love Ernie had for my father was probably misplaced, given Pops’s dealings, but I have many fond memories of them laughing together on the veranda over a Cuban and brandy.
“You’re too late.”
His shoulders drop, as well as his heavily wrinkled cheeks. Death is embedded into every crevice on his face. “I’m sorry, son. I know how much you adored that barbaric fucker.”
I give him a meek smile, and he slips his arm around my shoulders, giving me a half hug.
“You know what your old man always told me?” he asks.
“That you’re wasted as a saint?”
Uncle Ernie laughs and releases me, pulling out an envelope from his inside pocket. “Wasted? This saint saved your father’s skin more than once.”
I smile, remembering a couple of those times. Once in New York when a small-time gangster thought he could jump up the ladder of power if he took out my father. Ernie saw him pulling his pistol and alerted Pops, who ducked in the nick of time. The culprit was tortured slowly by my father’s men. I was twelve years old. I watched it, every second of them plucking his nails from his fingers like they could have been tweezering unruly eyebrows. Then I watched them carve out my family emblem on his chest and pour acid into the wounds. I smiled my way through it. The arsehole had tried to kill the only human who’d ever looked out for me. So, yeah, he deserved every second of his time chained to that metal chair before he was electrocuted. It was me who turned on the power.
Then there was another time in Costa Rica. I was fifteen. A whore my father was bedding at the time tried to take a knife to his chest while he slept. Ernie disturbed her. Turns out she was planted by the KGB. I never asked what happened to the whore.
Not my business.
“Here.” Ernie hands me the envelope. “Your father wanted me to give you this.”
I accept it slowly, like it could be a bomb in disguise. “What is it?”
“His last will and testament.” Ernie smirks. “He really was a sick fuck.” He winks and passes me, heading for my father’s room. “It details his wishes for his funeral too. There might be a problem, though.”
I look up from the envelope to Ernie. “Why?”
“Well, he insisted on having his send-off in the cathedral, so you may not be able to attend. It’s not in good taste to take out an enemy while they’re saying their vows, Danny.”
I laugh under my breath, remembering the blood bath at the altar just a few months ago. No, it’s not in good taste, but it’s also not in good taste to groom little girls, and that Irish fucker who was saying his vows in the house of God had a certain fondness for little girls. Fucking animal.
Ernie disappears into my father’s suite, and I make my way to the office, opening the envelope as I go. I skim it, jumping over the parts