Mafia's Redemption: Terzo - Chapter 60: Chapter 60

TERZO
I rubbed my eyes as fatigue weighed heavily on me. I hadn’t slept in two days. I was exhausted, but looking down at the file and financial reports on my desk, I forced myself to work, burning midnight oil to review before I would see my father.
I was still finding it hard to find my footing on being a married man, and knowing that our relationship wasn’t doing well. I did not regret my action today. All I wanted was to protect her, keep her at arm's length to keep her safe.
What worried me the most was the silence coming from Francesco. His men hadn’t made a move, and it creeped me out. My gut was telling me that he was cooking up something. He was preparing his move. I knew he had something to do with how Deckard Humphries somehow knew who I was.
“Oh fuck,” I cursed under my breath as I caught a movement on the monitor. I pressed the code to unlock the door, and my father and Alessio walked inside the house.
I straightened in my chair before the door swung open. The moment my father entered, he seemed to carry the bad news and the argument that I knew I was already losing.
I stood up and walked towards him to greet him. “Papa.”
“What’s going on between you and your wife?”
“Just a misunderstanding. There are a lot of things we disagreed on, but we’re trying to learn from each other.” I hugged him, but he remained stoic. It only meant one thing— he disliked the way I handled things with Dani.
“Then why did Maverick say differently?” Oh, shit.
She talked to my father. Damn it, Maverick. “I was pissed off. I went a little too far.”
“I don’t wanna hear excuses, I know the truth. Don’t give me any more reasons to change my mind, Terzo. Tomorrow, our associates will be at the meeting, and you will be announced as the new don.”
I blinked to process the information. I thought I stopped breathing. This was the moment.
I should be celebrating, throwing myself at my father in a tight bone-cracking hug, but it didn’t feel right. I knew I deserved it. I knew I could do the job. But why was I not thrilled?
My father saw the look on my face and asked, “What’s going on? I thought you’d be excited for tomorrow.”
“I am. I want you to rest and go somewhere with beautiful beaches to relax.”
“But?”
I went to grab the file from my desk. “I got this file from someone. Someone at the agency I worked for was still monitoring my whereabouts, and yes, they knew we were still alive, but that’s not the horrifying information I found out.” I gave him the confidential file.
The moment he opened it and saw the picture, my father gripped the armchair and sat like someone had just put tons of weight on his shoulder. “Jesus Christ.”
“I tried to tell Dani, but she didn’t believe me.”
“Tell her to come.” Papa started reading the report line by line. I had the same reaction upon hearing it from Ridge. It was horrible and an eye-opener that if he could do it to someone who treated him as family, he would do it to Dani in a heartbeat. In fact, he had already started.
I told Marco on the phone to bring Dani. A few minutes later, I heard a sharp knock.
“Come in.”
Dani had changed into a T-shirt and jeans. She looked tired, but she looked beautiful nonetheless. I could still sense that she wanted to claw my eyes out, but her features somehow softened.
“Sir.” Her eyes slightly widened to see my father. Then she went to him to hug. “How are you doing?”
“I should be the one to ask you, honey. I raised my children to treat people with kindness. I apologize for his ill-manner, but I call you here because I want you to hear something.”
I was already standing as her gaze fell onto the file in my father’s hand. I instantly noticed the alarm in her eyes.
“What’s that?”
“Ridge told me about your research on Medea, which she told me was a myth, but they believe it exists, just don’t know what it is or where it is.” I gestured. “Please, take a seat. It may take a while.”
“No. I’m good.” She shrugged, crossing her arms over her chest. I could see she was curious, but she might balance between her feelings towards her father and the truth.
“According to that file, Francesco Giordani is dead.”
“What?” she asked in shock, shivering. “Then who’s the man who pretended to be my father?”
“Giordani died twenty-five years ago, but his body was never found. The man who took his identity is Dante Costa. He was married and had a son. According to the report, he accidentally killed his wife. It happened twenty-one years ago. He ran away from the authority and found himself in Ireland, working as a cargo van driver for the Irish mafia.”
“Then who is my father?” Her voice shook. “So you mean to say the man you killed, my brother, was not my brother?”
I nodded to confirm, even if it was painful for her. She had to know the truth so she could decide what to do with Francesco. “I’m working on getting a hair sample from Francesco to prove to you that he’s not your real father.”
“You need a hair sample from me?” she asked quickly. Before I could nod, she was already pulling strands of her hair. “I wanna know the truth. I wanna know why me, why did he use me and lie to my face? I almost died because of the book that doesn’t exist. I can’t let that go.”
“I think he called Humphries before our meetup because he knew I would go see him to pay his son’s debt. Before I got arrested, he called my name.” I hadn’t told my father, but somehow he knew already.
“What’s in the book, Terzo?” Papa asked.
“Nobody knows, but if it has reached the Agency’s radar, that could be important.”
“Why do I feel that Francesco or whoever he was did something terrible to the Irish mafia?”
I looked at Dani. She seemed to have taken this information better than I expected, or we hadn’t gotten to the crazy part. “Francesco got the Irish mafia leader named Cillian MacLynch’s attention. Eventually, he became one of the trusted lieutenants. He saved his boss’s life once. He was promoted to be a right-hand man. He knew the ins and outs of the MacLynch crime syndicate, including the finances. He was caught stealing money, but he was given another chance because of the blood debt.”
“Cillian MacLynch got married to an Irish-Italian woman who had nothing to do with the syndicate,” my father continued. I didn’t know he knew the story because he never told us about Irish mafias. “They were blessed with a child. A girl.”
I watched Dani’s reaction. She swallowed hard and shifted uncomfortably.
“He became vulnerable. Attacks happened between rival mafias, grabbing territories, but no one tried to cross MacLynch. When his wife couldn’t take anymore risks, he made the biggest decision. He met with the authorities and planned on seeking immunity for his crime. In return, he would tell everything and everyone involved in his organization. The family went on vacation. On their way back, they got ambushed. He was supposed to meet the authority in the morning.” My father looked at Dani. “At least that was what I read from the newspapers, and it was all over the news. Everyone died, including him and his wife, and his security in another vehicle.”
She sucked in a breath and asked, “What about the child? What happened to the child?”
I felt the pain in her voice. “Her body wasn’t found at the crime scene. People speculate she survived or was taken by the attacker, but the MacLynch family did not receive any call or letter asking for ransom, stating that they had the baby. Both parents are now dead.”
“Who ambushed them?” She bounced her gaze between me and Papa. She still asked the question even if she already knew the answer.