“What the actual fuck is this?” Liam breathe behind me.
“Boys,” Dad greets, a tight smile on his face as he stands from behind his desk. “Please do come in.”
“What the fuck is going on, Dad?” Liam demands.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Julian
I can feel him bristling in anger behind me as we look at the man sitting on the other side of Dad’s desk, sitting at the edge of his seat, looking like he’s about to fall over.
“So, these are your sons, Mr. Fitzgerald? The pride and scandal of Palos Verdes?”
“As if you don’t already know that,” Liam seethes.
“Please, let’s get back to business. I think you and I can agree that a scandal is so much fucking better than the chaos and blood your sons have brought to your doorstep, Lukas,” Dad says seriously.
“What is this man doing here, Dad?” Liam demands again. I catch Dad’s questioning gaze and I nod.
“Well, Liam, Mr. Matthews is here at your brother’s request.”
“My brother’s request?” Liam demands. “What the fuck, J?”
I ignore him and make my way to the other available chair, a distance away from Lukas Matthews.
This was probably Dad’s set up, keeping me away from this asshole of man.
Yes, this is part of the plan I asked Dad to start working on the morning after everything went down with Mia almost a week ago.
I just didn’t think it would take this long but, here we go.
“Why the fuck am I here, John? Word on the street is your son killed my first born.”
“Lukas, as you already know, I invited you here so we could open talks on—” Dad is saying but I cut him off, staring intently at Matthews Snr. The asshole who has a breed of disgusting sons that thought it was a good idea to hurt what’s mine.
“Do you really believe that?” I demand, keeping my voice low.
“Excuse me?” Lukas Matthews says. He has a hint of a European accent to his voice, probably Polish.
“I asked if you believe the rumors and what Nathan Montague told you, that I killed your son in that warehouse.”
We stare at each other. I can see the doubt in his eyes. This is a mafia man, that’s for sure. His family is part of some shady shit, but as I glance at my father, I realize something as well, so is this family.
“What do you have that proves otherwise?” he asks, watching me with curiosity.
“The disappearance of your other son, of course,” I say.
“Shane?” he quickly says. “What do you know about Shane? Do you know where he is?”
“I’m sure you already know that he’s in hiding because he did what you already know.”
“Your son killed your other son, Lukas,” Dad says stepping in. “Not my son.”
At those words, Lukas Matthews falls silent.
“You don’t look shocked about that,” Liam says with a frown.
“Well, it was only a matter of time,” Lukas says, shifting in his seat. “They never really got along or liked each other. They’ve always fought since the beginning.”
“In public they sure did look like best friends though,” Liam continues, strolling over to lean on the opposite side of the wall, staring at Lukas Matthews with obvious contempt.
“It was only on my orders,” the man says, rolling his r’s. But after I gave Sean the heir to my empire since he was the first born, Shane seemed to just lose it.”
There’s silence in the office, all eyes on Matthews.
“Your sons have rivaled against mine for years, Lukas. I warned you that if that issue ever got out of hand, I’d come for you,” Dad says, pushing his chair back. He starts pacing slowly behind his desk, his jaw ticking. “And now, not only did your sons attempt to murder both my sons, twice, they conspired with Nathan the fool, to set up my other son.”
“Hold on, John, listen now,” Lukas says, tripping over his words.
Holy fucking shit.
The power dynamic has since shifted. I glance at Liam for a second and then at Cole as what’s in front of us become fucking clear.
Dad, John fucking Fitzgerald, the man who I thought was a fucking asshole all these years, is actually something else entirely.
I see it in the way Lukas Matthews starts shifting in his seat, looking up at Dad with something close to fear in his eyes.
“I didn’t know they would attempt to take out your son,” Lukas rushes to say. “At the time, I was out of the country, dealing with business.”
“Yes, but this rivalry with my sons, Lukas, how did it start?” Dad demands.
“Come on, Fitzgerald, they are just boys,” Lukas says, now sitting literally at the edge of his seat. “You know how we were when we were boys. Pranks were the rule of the day, it’s been a tradition between St. Jude High and Clintwood Academy. It’s just high school, John.”
“Yeah? Only I remember pranks being sucking the petrol out of your rival’s car and filling it with water instead or pouring paint in the front seat, but I don’t remember high school pranks being setting fucking bomb in their rival’s fucking cars!”
In that moment I catch a glimpse of myself. My father is a mirror image of me in a few decades. His anger, his rage, everything… just like me. Before, I thought we were different. That where he failed to keep the woman he loved, I would succeed, but now, after Mia refused to kiss me, rejected me and practically reduced me to nothing, I don’t know anymore.
I guess the adage still holds.
Like father like son.
“Tell me how it fucking started!” Dad demands.
“It was your brother!” Lukas quickly says.
“What?”
“Yes, your brother! Nathan! He came to my house years ago for a poker game. He saw my sons fighting that night and I swear, he incited them, talking about his step-nephews and how they were better than them. That your boys were at the top and my sons were at the bottom of the proverbial chain.”
It’s like a light bulb just buzzed on in the room.
Unable to remain seated for a second longer, I stand up but my body screams in pain.
At this point, after all this time, the agony is now part of me. I’ve accepted it at this stage. It’s better than the silence that falls over me when I’m alone, thinking of Mia’s lips and the way she tastes.
Like I said, fucking pathetic.
“Are you sure about that? Nathan planted a fucking hate seed about my sons?”
“On my fucking life, John,” Lukas says almost breathlessly. “I thought it was just some friendly ribbing but looking back, the way he was talking about your sons, it wasn’t to praise them, it was to make my sons jealous.”
“And yet you fucking buy and sell girls like they’re nothing but property you can pick and choose!”
The words fly out my mouth before I can stop them.
I was planning on being cool, almost indifferent about it all, but this is too important, too fucked up for me not to blow up.
“I don’t do trafficking!”
“Don’t dig your fucking grave deeper by lying to me. I already know,” Dad says softly. “That fucking bastard, Nathan, came to you with an offer to clear his fucking debt in the form of a contract that signed away a life, and you, with your fucking connections to fucking trafficking rings and prostitution, you fucking leaped for that contract like a frog knowing which family that girl comes from!” Dad roars.