Page 76 of Love Me Back
Ignoring the sharp knock on the door, I poured two fingers of whiskey and drank it down before quickly pouring another. The door opened, and surprise settled over me to see Jessie’s father walk in.
“Got another glass?”
I eyed him for a moment before pulling a second glass from the drawer. There were six in total. One for each of us. Every year on the anniversary of our parents’ death, my siblings and I opened a brand-new bottle and drank it as we remembered them.
I poured the second glass and set it on the desk, waiting for him to take it. He lifted the glass and held it out. “To fucked-up families.”
I clinked my glass against his, and we each took a sip. Dario sat in the chair in front of my desk and stared into his glass.
“I didn’t want to move back to Mexico. I left home at twenty-two and came to the States. I met my wife, got married, had three children, and I was content.”
Dario’s accent wasn’t as pronounced as Armando’s, but it was there. I wondered where he was going with this. He’d been quiet since he got here, rarely speaking unless it was to his brother or his son. He didn’t even talk to Jessie much.
“I hated my father. He was a mean son of a bitch. He workedfor Alejandro Vasquez’s father. When Alejandro took over, my father moved up the ranks. And when my father died, Armando took his place. Then my brother took Alejandro’s place in January. He asked me to move my family back to Mexico and sit on his right. So, I did.”
“Why?”
“Because he’s my brother.” He shrugged as if it were just that simple. “Is there anything you wouldn’t do for your brothers?”
I thought about Tyson and what he’d recently done for the club, and how I’d asked him to take Addie and leave if the sheriff called in the Feds. There wasn’t anything I wouldn’t do for my siblings.
“One day you’ll have children, Grayson. You’ll see that you can forgive your child for anything. Sometimes, that forgiveness hurts more than what they did.” He downed the rest of his whiskey and stood, placing the glass on my desk. “Your grandfather deserves grace. He won’t blame your uncle; he’ll blame himself.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Jessie
Grayson left the dining room, and I stared after him as the others spoke over each other, asking questions and making assumptions about an uncle they never knew.
“This is all my fault,” Pops whispered. I barely heard him as everyone spoke at once.
I slammed my hand on the table the same way Grayson did, and it had the effect I wanted. All at once, mouths closed and eyes narrowed at me.
“You all need to shut up.”
“Yessica,” my uncle hissed.
“No, Uncle Mando. It’s my turn to speak.”
My father smiled at me as he stood from his chair. I knew where he was going. Despite my concerns about what Jamie had said, my father was an honorable man. He might be involved with the cartel, but he was my uncle’s conscience. And I knew that was why Uncle Mando had asked him to come home. And more importantly, it was why my father agreed.
Family was everything to my father. And sometimes you had to sacrifice your own happiness for the well-being of the people you loved. He would speak to Grayson.
“Pops, do you know why David would hurt his sister? Or his nephew?”
“Money. It was always about money.”
“Is it drugs?” Hudson asked.
Pops placed his elbows on the table and held his head in his hands. “Maybe. I don’t know.” He lifted his head and looked at his grandchildren through the tears in his eyes. “I don’t know nothing about him. It was my fault he left. We always foughtabout money. I had it, and he didn’t. He thought he should live the life of a prince because I worked the way I did. The way my father did. He never appreciated nothing. Always looking for the easy way out.”
“That’s why he tried to take Thunder,” Emerson offered. “Thunder’s worth millions. But no one knows that but us.”
“Mom knew,” Carson supplied. “I wonder if he went to Mom, and she turned him down.”
“My associate did some digging into your mother and her finances. Mary Powell was paying her brother a regular monthly amount.”
“What?” Pops asked, his hand hitting the table in anger, but it didn’t have the same effect given his age and lack of muscle tone.
