His Mafia Rose

Caspian

There was a crashing thud against the door of my oak office.

I didn't budge right away. I sat there, fingers lightly drumming on the armrest, the sound fading as once more the gentle thrum of the city beyond the window filled the space. And then the door slowly creaked open, slow, deliberate, making a thundering sound as my father came inside. The mighty Holland Graves; in flesh and blood.

He dressed as he always does; black formal pants, a black cashmere coat over his shoulders, a nice cigar clutched between two fingers though it did not ignite. His face was as blank as ever. Cold. Hard. Not a wrinkle out of place. He didn't need theatrics to make his power clear. He just was, and the room curved to him.

He scanned the room, eyes flicking over the unopened decanter of whiskey on the side table before settling back on me. He remained silent until he sat down opposite me, staring, as if trying to re-aquint himself with my features. It has been so long since we were in the same room, so it was justifyable. 

"You called," he finally said, voice chopped short. It wasn't a question.

"Yes," I replied back, equally cold. "And you came. That in itself is telling."

He said nothing, just raised an eyebrow a fraction, waiting. It was a game. Always a game.

"Valentine traced your movements to Italy," I continued, dispensing with pleasantries. "Cross-referenced them with offshore transactions; accounts, trusts, asset transfers. It all leads to one conclusion. You've been funding someone. On a regular basis. Quietly. For over twenty years."

His face did not change. Not even a blink.

"You brought me here to discuss accounting irregularities and assumptions?"

"Don't insult both our intelligence," I barked, my own voice still low. "There's a child. Hidden. Funded. Protected. Yours."

Now he reacted. Barely. A tiny shift in his jaw. A pause too long before answering.

"That is a conclusion you have made based on NOTHING!"

"There's proof," I hurled back at him, rotating the tablet over the desk toward him. "Traced. Checked. Not imagination. Not rumor. And that's just the beginning. Valentine found communications; communications between Dominic Langley and Kia Moretti. Secret, Encrypted. And very real. They weren't just fleeting lovers. She took comfort in him. She was in fear of her husband."

The air became thick. I stared at him.

"Valentine," Holland finally spoke, his voice wry. "You've been hearing a man whose loyalty is as changeable as the wind. That's dangerous, son."

"Dangerous is keeping a secret this big for twenty years," I shot back. "Dangerous is pretending Kia Moretti was just another name on the Moretti family tree."

His brows contracted, just.

"Kia was committed to her family. Committed to Richard. She wasn't irresponsible. She didn't not know what she stood to lose."

"She was scared," I told him bluntly. "Her messages show it. Her behavior shows it. She didn't quit because she wanted to; she quit because she was scared."

He glared at me.

"You're interpreting feeling from web footprints. That ain't truth. That's projection."

"And you're dancing around the truth like a man who knows exactly what's hiding beneath the floorboards."

He leaned forward then, finally showing a spark of something; annoyance, perhaps.

"Careful, Caspian," he murmured. "You're starting to sound paranoid."

I released a humorless laugh, one without heft. "Paranoid? I'm being careful. For years, you instructed me to look beneath the surface; to question all things, to find every deception. And now that I'm doing exactly that, you want me to desist?"

He leaned back in his chair, placing his hands across his chest.

"If you're here to pitch a fit," he said softly, "I recommend you do it somewhere else. We have more important things to discuss than ghosts."

I glared at him in wonder.

"Of course we do. Because as soon as I'm near the truth, you want to change the subject suddenly, but today. We are not going off course. Kia Moretti. Dominic Fernandez. Your bastard child."

I came in closer, my voice low and threatening.

"Expect me to think it's all just a coincidence? That it has nothing to do with anything? That I'm chasing after smoke?"

Something, for the first time, flickered in his eyes. A warning signal. It was small; merely a break in the usual mask; but I caught it.

"Watch yourself," he said quietly. "You're letting your feelings get in the way of your thinking."

My voice dropped to a whisper. It was safer that way.

"And you're lying in my face. Again."

There was silence.

He got to his feet slowly, ironing a wrinkle from his sleeve.

"You've always had the fire, Caspian. But don't burn yourself after ghosts."

"I'm not running after ghosts," I said. "I'm running after the truth. And unlike you, I don't bury things that bleed."

He stood there, pausing at the doorway, looking back over his shoulder with a face that would have iced rivers.

"Let it go. The past is dead."

"Not to me," I said to him. "Not when it's still defining the future. My future. Genesis' future. OUR FUTURE TOGETHER!"

He didn't reply. Just walked in the door and vanished, like he always did; leaving answers and emptiness behind.

I sat back, chest tightened with control.

Holland Graves had just cemented it all with his denials.

And now. now I would dig until the whole damn empire trembled at the heel of the truth.