"Mr. Andros are you there, she wants Tom and Jerry, she watches them in the mornings. Jenna baby you're good?" The woman sounded disbelieving as though she'd thought her daughter was being tortured.
Tom and Jerry, he couldn't believe he'd almost lost his shit over a cartoon character damn.
The two women chatted forever before Andros decided it was time his little Jenna had breakfast. Taking the phone, he took it off of speaker and grilled her about her daughter's likes and dislikes.
"But when are you bringing her home? This is crazy, nobody would tell me anything, I don't understand, why did you take my daughter?"
"Because you weren't doing a very good job of taking care of her."
"What, that's not true I love my daughter, why would you believe such a thing?"
"I have no doubt that you do, she's obviously had care and that's the only reason you're not on my shit list, let's keep it that way shall we? Did you know your bastard son hits her?"
"Alec, no he hasn't in..." She cut herself off when she realized what her words revealed.
"But he said you took her to square a debt."
"What kind of debt?"
"A gambling debt, a game that you cheated on along with everything else."
"I wouldn't sit down with that piece of shit at a dog fight. Your son lied to you, he fucking hit her in a room full of people, because she wanted to go to the fucking slot machines. He told you I took her to square a bet. I'm a fucking animal now? Lady you love your son?"
"Of course I do, I love both my children."
"Next time you see your boy you take a picture, remember what he used to look like." He hung up the phone and prayed for patience. Little Jenna had already moved on. Now she was rearranging the shit on his dresser. He took the time to watch her. He'd found that if he gave his charges enough attention, there was always meaning in everything they did. Sure enough she was making an asymmetrical design out of the odds and ends he usually threw there.
It was when she came to a picture of Alice that he held his breath and waited. She picked it up slowly and stared for the longest moment, before running her fingers over the glass encased face and kissing it, before placing it front and center. When she picked up her head with that same look of sorrow he'd worn himself for so long, he couldn't help going to her and folding her in his arms carefully, so as not to spook her. She just melted into him like she'd been doing it for a lifetime.
It didn't take gramps long to get to upstate New York from his place in Connecticut, and then it seemed like everybody showed up at the same time.
Eileen was there with bags of stuff for Jenna, and his guards were there, as well as gramps' men. He hadn't thought of what to do with little Jenna while they were having their sit down, shit.
He decided to take her to the kitchen with Sue, his cook and housekeeper, who came in early in the mornings. He knew he could trust the other woman with her, plus Willy will be around so he had no worries.
"Stay here with Sue for a little bit okay little Jenna, I'm just down the hall in the study if you need me."
She just nodded her head, as she was too busy watching her cartoon on the handheld tablet he'd just given her. From her reaction he was guessing she'd never held one, he had to figure out how to get her all the episodes of that shit streaming on there, because he was pretty sure he was never seeing it again.
Back in the study, gramps was seated in a huddle with his advisors. The men all cleared their throats and sat back when he walked in and took his seat behind his desk. It felt strange not having her in his line of vision. He decided he'd have to see about some sort of monitor or something.
Andros didn't have to dig too far into his psyche to figure out why he was even now stressing about not having her next to him. The last time he'd held something that precious, it had been taken from him. He'd steeled his heart against such a thing ever happening again. He didn't do emotions; he knew what needed to be done and did it. But he'd be damned if he was ever going to let himself be gutted like that ever again. And then that soft sweet voice had called him Angel and decimated all of his boundaries, demolished every safeguard.
"Boy, are you listening to me?" He tuned back into his grandfather's harassed voice.
"No but I am now." The old man shook his head with a wry, if somewhat indulgent look on his face. His deceased son could not have meant more than this young man had come to mean to him. He'd poured all the love he'd had for his only son into his son's son, when his boy had been struck down only two years after getting married and having a kid. A drunk driver had been going the wrong way on the freeway of all places, and had slammed into Anthony head on, killing him instantly.
Of course the other driver had gotten away with a few scrapes and bruises, but other than that he was fine, for the next three months anyway. It had been the old man's longest three months, waiting for enough time to pass. In the end the decision hadn't been too hard.
After having the man followed to see if he'd learned the error of his ways, or at the very least shown some remorse for the life he'd taken, and finding that there was none, it had been easy to set him up for a one vehicle accident. Things had gone off without a hitch, since his blood alcohol level had been almost twice the limit, but that was then and this was now. In the intervening years, he'd seen his young daughter in law meet and fall in love with someone else, someone he'd had vetted inside and out to make sure he was good enough for them.
The doc was good people, a little too much of a tree hugger, but other than that he was cool. Patakis had almost had a coronary though when they'd changed the kid's name, he was the last of the line after all. After him there will be no more.
He'd learned to live with it, and over the years he'd built a strong binding relationship with the only blood he had left. Now here they were and his grandson was once again trying to send him to an early grave. So head strong, stubborn, and worst of all, entirely too much like him. He pretty much knew how this little show was going to play out, but thought for the sake of argument, he'd at least try.
"So we've decided that it's a given that the Bonatas are going to come after you. They have no choice, they have to save face; but we might me able to salvage something if we return the girl now. It's only been one night and we can play it off. I'm already collecting the names of the men who were there to do damage control, to keep the young lady's name from being sullied of course." Patakis was nothing if not hopeful, miracles do happen everyday after all.
Andros just looked at his grandfather, letting the older man have his say out of the great respect he had for him, but they both knew what the outcome would be.
"Stefan, you know we have to deal with this right now, we can't let this thing sit for too long. Now your grandfather already told us your stand and I understand jumping into a situation like that. We can even use that to our advantage, seeing as how we have witnesses that saw that asshole strike the girl down. But if you turn this into something else, there's no way to salvage this mess."
Old man Seals sat back in his seat when it looked like the young hothead wasn't even going to dignify him with an answer. His old friend had told him that the chances of his grandson backing down were nil to none, but he thought they could at least try. The Bonata clan was a bloodthirsty bunch who should be avoided at all cause, but the kid didn't seem too worried. In fact, he seemed rather relaxed for someone who'd just pulled the tiger's tale.
"So what do you say son sounds like a plan?"
Andros took his time answering, while he rolled the Mont Blanc over and under the fingers of his left hand. The truth is, he had hardly heard half of what was said. His mind being consumed with what he needed to buy his little Jenna, to make her more comfortable in her new home. He saw no problem with his decision to keep her, whether anyone else knew it or not, she belonged to him now and he took care of his own. No one was ever going to get the chance to slap her down again; every time he thought of it his blood boiled.
"Where's that fuck Petridis now?" He regretted that he hadn't been in a position to take the other man out the night before, but there was always next time. All he could think of was the fact that if the fuck didn't have a problem abusing her in a roomful of people, that had to mean he'd done it before. For that he would pay and pay dearly. So no, no fucking way was she getting out of his sight ever again.
"He's holed up somewhere, but we have another problem, did you know that your assistant is his wife's half sister?"
Andros took the news the way he did everything else, in silence. No he hadn't known, because he was never interested enough in his assistant to find out that shit. He'd vetted her for other things, and ascertaining that she was no threat to him had given her the job. He couldn't say that he'd noticed any striking resemblance between her and the banshee from the night before, but then again, he hadn't been looking.