Wounded Redemption by Brook Wilder
Chapter 22
Nico
I straightened my jacket as I gathered my things from the bowl, stuffing them back into my pockets so that I could follow the guard to my father’s cell.
My father’s cell. That felt fucking amazing every time I thought about it, how he wasn’t going to terrorize us any longer. The Mafia was gone, disbanded, and the capos scattered. The feds had taken most of my father’s holdings, but I had gotten the Long Island mansion, which I planned to sell at the first opportunity, and a few of his businesses that hadn’t been destroyed in the war.
Now I wanted to see him. I wanted him to see that he hadn’t destroyed me when he tried to kill me, that he hadn’t torn me down.
If anything, he was going to be the one that would live with the fact that he hadn’t been able to take his own son down.
I was led into a room with a glass divider, and it wasn’t long before my father shuffled in on the other side, his hands connected with handcuffs that were hanging from the belt around his waist. He looked old, the prison garb hanging off his body as if he had lost weight.
“So,” he started before I could say a word. “You’ve come to gloat, I guess?”
That was exactly what I had come to do. “You look like shit.”
He arched a brow. “And you look like you just survived your brush with death. Congratulations, son. It’s good to know that I didn’t kill you.”
Yeah, I didn’t believe that. I rolled my shoulders to ease the sudden tension. “I just wanted you to know that your Mafia is no more. I’ve broken it down. No capos are in charge.”
To my surprise, he chuckled. “What do you think this is, Nicolas? I’m in fucking prison, not buried six feet under. I know exactly what is happening with my fucking Mafia.”
“That’s where you are wrong,” I grinned. “It’s my fucking Mafia now that you are rocking the orange jumpsuit, and I have done exactly what I have always wanted to do. You’re finished.”
He inclined his head. “If that is what you think, son. The Mafia isn’t just a fucking people. It’s a business, a shark that will come back to test the waters when the time is right. You keep thinking you have the high hand here, but one day you are going to see that you never did.”
I was done. “Goodbye.”
He didn’t respond and I walked out, his words rolling around in my head. He might be right. While Mafias took some time to form, it was the small groups out there that ended up building up the Mafia, and there were a shitload that would love to take the D’Agostino place in New York.
The good news was that I wouldn’t be part of it. I was done with that life, that part of me, and was ready to just be a husband and father.
Not just to two people, either. I was in the process of finalizing the paperwork to adopt Lorenzo formally. Rory and I had discussed it, and the best option was for him to stay where he was starting to be comfortable around us, Rory especially. I figured he already saw her as his surrogate mom anyway, given that he had more of a connection with her than he ever had with Angelica.
It made sense, and though the second child was a surprise, I was perfectly fine with a third.
The sun was warm on my face as I stepped out of the prison and walked to the waiting car, glad that I had that off my chest now. “So?” Vincent asked as I approached, propped up against the door. “How’s the fucker?”
“He’s the same,” I said. “He’s done, and he knows it.”
“Good,” Vincent replied. “I really would have liked to kill him.”
There was a time that I wanted to as well, but prison was torture that he couldn’t get out of. Death would have been far too kind for the likes of him, and I was glad that he was in a place that wouldn’t bend to his name or his fucking attitude like the capos had. “Take me home.”
He nodded and I climbed in the back of car, resting against the seat. I was called a traitor by some for what I was doing with the feds. Some wanted to kill me for giving up the secrets within the police department, but in order for me and Rory to have a normal future, it had to be done.
Now I was looking forward to our future, to our time together and the house we would have to search for instead of the penthouse. She didn’t know this either, but I wanted the picket fence shit, a place for the kids to run around in and just be kids. I wanted to see her at night in the backyard as we did normal family things like roast marshmallows and watch the fucking stars.
I wanted all that. For the longest time in my life, I had been consumed by anger and revenge, letting it slowly eat at me that I needed to destroy my father. I needed to make sure that he died.
Now he was taken care of, and I wanted my life back. I wanted to be happy, and Rory made me happy.
Our son made me happy.
Looking out of the window, I gave myself a little grin in the reflection. It was funny how this story started, but it was a hell of a lot better than the ending I had planned. I couldn’t even consider that an ending any longer.
Fuck, it was good to be me.
