Page 36 of Ruthless Roses
“I don’t know what else to tell you, Dad. There’s been a lot of… complicated feelings. You can’t just waltz back into our lives like nothing happened. You hurt me.”
“Delphi, honey, I realize I have—but will you never give me a second chance?”
“Get Salvatore’s approval. Then maybe you can have mine. If you can find a way to win him over, then that means you’ve really changed,” I explain. “But I hope you take care of yourself. Please, stay retired this time. No more involving yourself in fighting crime, okay?”
He’s unsatisfied with my verdict, though he does his best to retain his composure. He surveys me with the same fatherly gaze I was on the receiving end of for many years and moves a few steps back.
“Alright, Delphi. If that’s what you want. I understand you’re going through your own changes right now. You’re experiencing motherhood for the first time, and that can be difficult. I don’t want to put any added stress on you or make you upset. Dominic and you come first. Just please consider what I’ve said.”
“No, Dad. You consider whatIsaid. Salvatore is my husband. He’s Dominic’s father. You don’t get to be in our lives unless you find a way to make peace with him and get his approval. Goodbye.”
Stitches readily curls an arm around my back to guide me away from him. He leads me and the stroller toward the car waiting for us, pulling open the door and starting the laborious task of strapping Dominic into his carseat.
I throw one last parting look at Dad before I follow suit and slide into the backseat.
It’s impossible to say whether Dad will take my stipulations seriously. He gives nothing away, his face cool and composed as he stands and watches us drive off.
10
salvatore
Naturally,being my closest confidante and my second set of eyes and ears, Stitches tells me all about Daddy Adams cornering Delphine in the hospital parking lot.
“I just wanna preface this by saying that I was ready to whoop ass,” Stitches says, holding up both hands as if cleared of culpability. “Mrs. Phi stepped in and saved Mayor Adams a beatdown of a lifetime.”
I direct a skeptical arched brow in his direction. “A beatdown of a lifetime? You?Really?”
“Hey, I’ve been taking Krav Maga. I can handle myself.” Stitches tugs on the collar of his shirt and juts his chin out like a real tough wise guy. It might intimidate the average person on the street, but it makes me almost laugh instead.
Though he’s my right hand man and most trusted confidante, nothing about him says lethal and dangerous. More the obnoxious little brother I never had than anything.
I dismiss the thought and focus on the matter at hand. Cracking my neck and returning my attention to my latest project in my workshop, I pick up my hammer and the wooden board I’m using. I’m building Dominic a bookshelf for his nursery. “Tell me what went down. Every word that was said. All the ways he tried to manipulate her.”
Because… it’s inevitable. Ernest always seeks to get Phi under his control.
Stitches spends the next few minutes detailing the encounter. Everything from how Ernest appeared out of seemingly nowhere to his chest wound he flaunted to the near-physical altercation that almost materialized between the two of them.
“And Phi?” I ask, weighing the hammer in my hand. My fingers grip the steel as if it’s meant to be a weapon. It can be if I need it to be. A hammer that’ll smash skulls and break other bones if I want to.
Be fucking careful, Ernest. You’ve no idea how far I’m willing to go.
“She was shocked,” Stitches answers. He nudges his glasses up his nose. “Speechless for a while. You know Mrs. Phi, that’s unlike her, but I think she still hasn’t processed the whole being alive thing. She’s spent how long thinking he was dead?”
“He’s looking for an in. For her to gradually accept him into her life,” I say slowly.
Stitches nods. “Seems like it, Psycho. He kept mentioning Dom being his grandson.”
The feral rage is instantaneous. Just as strong as it’d been the day in the birthing room when he’d first reappeared in our lives. It incinerates any pure thoughts and feelings I have in the moment, turning them into black ash.
“He will never lay a single finger on my son,” I rumble.
“And he didn’t, Psycho. He didn’t touch him. Mrs. Phi told him he needs your blessing.”
I bring my hammer down on the nail, beating it into the wooden board. “She did, did she?”
“He didn’t like that.”
“That makes us even. I don’t like that he had the audacity to visit my wife and son after my threat,” I say, setting the hammer down. I pull off my woodworking apron and toss it at my work bench. “He’s going to understand one way or another he’s not to go near my family.”