Page 12 of Driftwood Daffodil 3

“Do you have any other half assed compliments to give me?”

“Don’t want half assed compliments, then don’t do half assed jobs.” My father said.

I did what he wanted me too. Agreed to marry and breed someone I hate, and it still wasn’t enough for him.

“What do you want from me?”

“The same thing I do from all my men.”

Except I wasn’t one of his men. I was his son.

Rolling my eyes, I sighed, “Whatever.”

Saul grumbled in the background, while my father sat back and took a sip of his drink. No one said anything for a few minutes. We all sat there in this tense silence, and the longer itwent on, the more I wanted to shove that cigar down my father’s throat.

“Can I go?” I placed my hands on the arms of the chair and prepared to leave.

“You will be swearing your oath while your uncle is in town.”

I stopped with my ass half lifted out of the chair and looked over at him. “I’m still taking theOmertà?”

“Of course.” My father nodded. “You’re a Mancini.”

Wasn’t expecting that. I didn’t trust it either. “Okay?”

I waited a few seconds for the other shoe to drop, but my father stayed silent. Something didn’t feel right. Maybe it was Aldo’s voice in the back of my head, or knowing that my father wanted him there when I swore my oath to the family, that was fucking with me. All I could hear was his voice.

‘You were supposed to kill the boys.’

Those words played over and over in my head. Notching up my need to kill louder and louder, as my father thrummed his fingers on the table. I needed to get out of here.

“Is that all?”

“Yes.” My father tipped his head in a nod then said, “Oh, there is one more thing.”

Here it comes, I thought as he reached inside his suit jacket and pulled out a small black box.

“Here.” He placed it on the table between us. “I had this resized for you.”

“What is it?” I asked while eyeing the box.

“Your mother’s ring.”

It felt like all the air in the room suddenly got sucked away. Suddenly all I could think about was The Little Prince. Why would he give me that?

“Shouldn’t Romeo get it?”

Heirlooms like that typically went to the oldest child, not the youngest. Especially when they’d been passed down through generations. My great, great, great grandmother wore that ring.

My father shrugged. “Kendall won’t care.”

He wasn’t wrong. She wanted that marriage about as much as Romeo did. Not to mention our mother’s ring wouldn’t mean the same thing to my brother as it did to me. It was just a piece of jewelry to him. To me…

I stared down at the table.

“It’s just a ring, son.”

No it wasn’t. It was so much more than that. That box sat there like a treasure I wanted to covet and push away at the same time. I remembered what that pink teardrop diamond looked like on my mother’s hand. How it sparkled in the light like her eyes when she smiled. The way she used to play with it when she was worried about my father. As if that gold band gave her comfort.

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