Turning Point||Book 2

5: Romano.

As I indulged in a sip of the Bulleit Bourbon from the glass I clutched in my palm, Max derisively sneered at me. He'd been as important as a stick of tobacco to me, and more.

Soothing, annoying, embellishing.

"You haven't slept in two nights. Whiskey shouldn't be on your menu." Max, eyeing my position on a wing chair, hovered like a fairy, yet buzzed like a bee. "What's troubling you, Diablo?"

My lips curved into a smile as I heard the mellifluous sound of that name smoothly surge through his tongue. Diablo; the devil. I couldn't recall the exact moment when he had started addressing me by that name, but it was certainly after I had taken out the family's consigliere without the don's permission and killed the man who had been fucking my wife.

"Don Morelli's state." It was the truth what I'd admitted to. The disarray of the TIF didn't bother me as much as Morelli's condition. The stroke had withered him beyond reasonable expectations.

Max unfastened the buttons of his jacket before settling himself on the adjacent leather chair. "You're one of a kind, you know?" I looked him down up for an expansion of that statement. "Many would've turned to the devil to assist in putting him out of his misery, especially when there's something in it for them, but you're busy worrying."

The more everyone in the Family made this a point, the more the thought registered in my head. But it was certainly not in my nature to put him out of his misery since he hadn't told me to.

Merely three months had passed since the pandemonium that had resulted in all of this had occurred. Shock and grief and a bullet to the shoulder could be blamed for his stroke. As time progressed, when one might have expected signs of recuperation to become evident, Morelli appeared to be deteriorating further.

He wasn't making this easy for me.

"He is still Don. He gave me everything," I said to Max, lifting my glass again, though I didn't drink. I hardened my eyes on the content instead. "I'm affected. I should be affected."

Stopping in front of me, Max crossed his arms, cutting me a corky look. "Do you think that he will desire you to assume control?" His question was very valid, very nagging too.

Morelli hadn't completely pardoned me for breaching his trust, I wasn't sure, nor had he forgotten the events of the past three months. Being here, alive, still a part of the TIF after having lied to him, was a stroke of luck for me.

After the surgeons had removed the bullet Ivan had lodged in him and stabilized him, I stood vigil by his bedside, tending to him, assuming the role of the son he had always considered me to be. I had demonstrated my allegiance and attempted to spark his forgiveness.

Our relationship had been tense for the initial two months, but now, I believe he grasped the reasons behind my actions—not because of any affection for Xenia, no. It was because I aimed to expose the consigliere and my father. The redhead would have taken that secret to her grave if I had followed his orders and eliminated her. In a way, he understood that she had saved the Family in more ways than one.

"Morelli will choose me not because I'm the top choice, but simply because I'm the only choice," I finally voiced. "There are numerous men in the Family, many of whom he can no longer trust due to the missteps of his consigliere and right-hand."