“Did you know it was here I decided to fully join—run the family business?”
“No, I wasn’t aware you spent much time in Chicago.” I wasn’t sure how I would know.
“I usually came for two reasons: my father had business to attend to, or he had a doctor’s appointment.”
“There were no doctors out in California?”
“There were, you ass,” she said, rolling her eyes at me. “However, Dr. Anderson was here. I never knew why they had such a bond. But he was the one who helped deliver me, so I’m guessing he never told the police that Orlando made sure Aviela didn’t leave. Loyalty was a big thing to him, yet he held none. He told me once, with his hands around my throat, only ever be loyal to myself. To only love myself.”
“He put his hands around your neck?” Now I was more than glad I put the needle in his arm.
“Calm down, macho man. My father didn’t abuse me, it was the cancer talking. While he was on chemo, he would get so violent, so cold. He was dying, and because of that he didn’t want to take it. We would have weekly fights about it. He locked himself away so he wouldn’t flip out on me. And when I was seventeen, I was ready to walk away. I was done. I was tired. I had gotten into UCLA, my father was almost near bankruptcy and people were jumping ship faster than we could blink.”
“And you turned it around.” Everyone in our “world” believed that it had been her father who had breathed life back into the Giovanni name once more. She was amazing.
As she smiled up at me, her eyes glazed over with a look I knew brought only trouble. “You want to know how?”
I wasn’t sure.
“Ok?” I replied, taking a seat next to her.
“My father had money stashed away for you.” She laughed, running her hands through her dark hair. “He was worried that you wouldn’t marry me if I had no money, and worse yet, no power. He kept a black book of every judge, police officer, and politician that were indebted to the family. Not to mention a few stretches of weed fields down south. I was so pissed when I saw it. First off, I am worth way more than seven mil.”
“Yeah, now,” I joked, to which she just lifted her gun at me.
“Seriously?”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “So you took my seven million and…?”
“I took my seven million and bought product through one of Beau’s associates.”
“Beau? As in Officer Brooks?”
“Yep, he was just a poor beggar when I met him. I still don’t know if he was a junkie or not.”
“What is with you and bums? First Jinx, now Brooks?” She sure liked strays. Hopefully that was out of her system.
“I’m not going to ask how you knew about Jinx, because I may shoot you.” Her brown eyes narrowed in on mine. It made me want her more when she looked at me like that.
“Anyway, Beau knew a soldier in South America smuggling it in. I offered him a job, he offered me everything he had: connections, workers, smugglers. In return, I gave him a way out. Apparently, he had two kids to feed and he didn’t want to be a drug dealer all his life. Seven million was enough; I owned it all, and the moment I did…”
“The Gold Rush,” I whispered, grinning. “You were behind the gold rushes. It damn well pissed the shit out of Dad. Every junkie and dealer in the goddamn country wanted only gold rush. You sold it cheaper and stronger than we ever could. We were bleeding money and we had no idea who was behind it.”
My father had damn near went mad searching for the source of her shit.
“Seven million became twenty eight million in the first month. By the end of that summer, I had stopped the bleeding, and all those rats who left us came running back.”
“I’m sure you had a field day with them.” Rats had no loyalty after all.
“Fiorello took care of them.” She laughed and shivered, not because of the cold air, but at something I clearly didn’t understand.
“Fiorello?” I asked her, placing my jacket over her shoulders.
She stared at it for a moment, then back at me before nodding, stretching out her legs in the rubble. “Our head butler. The day you came, he most likely bowed.”
“Ah, the guy from Downton Abbey.”
“Yes,” she rolled her eyes. “To celebrate, I invited all the men for a large banquet at this very villa. A video was played from all the men who left. To prove their loyalty, they were supposed to shoot themselves. None of them did and so I had snipers do it. The rest of them were warned by Fiorello.”
“You didn’t want Fiorello with you when you moved in?”