Chapter 90
"What was so urgent that you filled me with calls?" Alec asks Howard when the driver walks into his mansion office. "In fact, I took courage and proposed to Evangeline in marriage.”
"Really, boss? Did you give up the ring that’s been in storage for ten years?”
"It is..." he smiles passionately, as if he were not a violent mobster. "but do not tell her about it. I do not want to look like a soft man.”
Howard laughs, almost forgetting the reason that led him there.
"I would never do that. Anyway...”
"You can talk. Don’t bullshit.”
"First, as you asked me, I found Leah’s whereabouts. Evangeline’s mother.”
"So what?”
"She really is dead." Alec sighs deeply. "It’s been a few years since it happened. Looks like she was prostituting herself to get money for drugs. One of these days, she overdosed in a cheap motel room and a maid found her. At least she was carrying papers and managed to get a proper burial.”
"It’s... less bad. But that’s not all you have to talk about.”
"A few weeks ago, your secretary... Jared..." Alec nods, opening his late father’s cigar box. "It was the day that you spent an entire day out solving the issue of false documents. It was the day that you went to see the real thing.”
"I know, I know.”
"I know I don’t understand practically anything about his business, but when he arrived, he confided to me that he’d found out about Paul Baker.”
"What is it? What is he doing?”
"He’s funneling money from the company into his personal account. And the worst thing is, it’s been happening for years. Jared brought back hard evidence that he’s stealing from your family.”
"It’s not possible!" Alec slams his fist on the table, completely annoyed by it. "That’s why that idiot didn’t want me to fall off the mob... wanted to keep stealing my money.”
"I asked him to go deeper and Jared found out why he offered you a merger. Paul was practically broke.”
"This man is fucked!" the mobster grunts, squeezing the cigar until it falls apart in his hand. "I had offered to sell my share for a symbolic amount, but now I don’t sell anymore!”
"And it doesn’t stop there...”
"Oh no... what else happened?”
"Felippa called me today to talk and showed me a letter, which her father wrote before he died. It was destined for Evangeline and...”
"What is it, Howard?" Alec asks impatiently.
Howard hesitated for a moment before speaking, knowing how much his words would affect Alec. But he knew it was important to tell the truth.
"In that letter I was telling you who ordered your father’s death and the accident that almost killed you and Evangeline.”
"What? Who was it? Was it a mob hit?”
"It’s..." he hesitates again. "It was Paul.”
"Paul? Paul Baker?”
"Unfortunately, yes. He was intending to take full control of the mob in New York, and you were in the way. He hired just Felippa’s father, because he knew that man was in trouble in the casinos of the city. Including yours. Paul knew that William would not deny good money, to simply kill his enemy.”
Alec was silent for a few seconds, processing that information.
"I can’t believe it... that worm! He was at my father’s wake, consoling me and telling me that he would help me find out who had done it... what hatred!”
"What will you do?”
"I don’t know yet." Alec murmurs, facing a fixed point behind Howard. "But that unfortunate will suffer too much.”
[...]
"I won’t let you go alone." Howard says, getting out of the car. "The one day I wasn’t with you, your father was killed, you, Evangeline and Audrey were almost there.”
"Here at the company I just want to give him a warning. I’m not putting other people at risk.”
"I’m still going with you.”
Alec had no other choice. He could tell a thousand reasons for Howard not to go with him, which his friend would give him another thousand to be with.
"Where are Audrey and AB?”
"In Italy." Howard responds by calling the elevator. "The one there who was dating her, ordered a DNA test and she flew there.”
"No matter what the shit that mobster is, I know he’s not gonna put Audrey or my nephew at risk. Then call him and ask him not to let her come back here. At least for now.”
"I got it.”
"What about Dom?”
"Traveling the world with Sophie. She makes a point of posting everything on Instagram.”
"At least it’s away from me." Alec murmurs. "And keeping that poison of hers away from Evangeline.”
As soon as he arrives at Paul’s office, Alec asks Howard to wait outside. Upon entering, he notices that the person in the chair and on the phone, is not Paul but Cedric. His cousin.
As Alec walks through the door, Cedric looks up and lets out a low laugh.
"I’ll hang up. Keep me informed." he leaves his cell phone on the table and gets up, going towards the table where the hot drinks are. "Alec! I figured I wouldn’t see you around here anymore. Do you?”
"Where the hell is Paul?”
"Went out to solve some new problems... why? Gave up living with the redhead and want to go back to business?”
"What’s it like?”
"Uhhh..." he walks through the room. "If you’re here looking for Paul, it’s a sign that your redhead dumped you and must have gone back to her husband.”
That phrase ignites an alert in Alec’s mind.
"How do you know about the life of Evangeline?”
"What?”
"How do you know that she had a husband?" Alec walks towards his dear not cousin, with his hand closed in his fist. "Answer!”
"Oh... you mentioned that day and...”
"I didn’t say anything!”
Alec was extremely quick. He grabbed Cedric by the jacket and threw him against the drink table, causing an immediate noise and damage.
"I heard about your interest in Evangeline’s love life when we were still dating." he says, grabbing Cedric again. His white face and perfectly drawn, had some abrasions caused by the broken bottles. "And when Paul came to offer me a partnership, you were the first to say it was a great idea. Were you in cahoots with him, Cedric?" Cedric swallows dry, without breaking eye contact with Alec. "You ordered to kill my father!”
With this last sentence, Alec hurls Cedric into the large wooden table and begins a sequence of punches and kicks. Cedric lacked the strength to beg for mercy and was too proud to do so.
Alec crouches down, gets close enough to Cedric to see that he’s still breathing and says,
"I just don’t kill you now, because there’s still humanity left in me and because I want you to pass on a message to Paul." Alec squeezes his cousin’s broken nose, which groans in pain. "Warn that worm, that I will find him and for sure, I will kill him. This will be my last achievement as head of the American mob.”