Bad Luck
“Why?”
“Because Icaro was a bigger slut than my mother and I was angry at the double standard. I saved myself for marriage. He couldn’t be bothered.”
“It must have hurt to find this out.” Chester commented quietly.
“It really did. I’ve been struggling with it. Especially since Caiu Giarre, aka the Walrus, keeps pushing Icaro’s ex-lovers in my face to try to make me leave Icaro.”
“He’s another smarmy bastard,” Chester grunted. “He wasn’t on our radar to be honest until this week, but we didn’t realize how much he was pushing to get you away from Icaro. He needs a lesson.”
“I’m sure my husband will give him one,” Zorah didn’t want to be mean but as far as she was concerned, her husband possessed far more right to argue than a father she didn’t know who kidnapped her.
As if sensing her annoyance he nodded, “the hardest thing I needed to do was leave you. We were trying to gather intel, and with people watching you and the Lucchesi’s, we knew there would be blowback if we interfered without the right supports. I needed money and lot of it to move forward. If I was going to fight your mother and Giannone who were backed by a billionaire mafia, then we needed money. Orlando offered his bank accounts, but his grandfather kept a lot of it away from him for years. We decided to do some freelance work.”
“Freelance work?”
“Yes.” He expelled a big sigh, “me, Orlando and Dane took some jobs as mercenaries to make quick cash. We did one after the other. Each time we were back from tours of duty, we were sneaking out of the country to do some pretty nasty things to get money. Fifty grand here, a hundred grand there but we knew we were fighting billionaires. It wasn’t enough. In the meantime, Shay kept tabs on your through Giannone. By the time you were fourteen, we made ten million and we thought we were ready to go. Dane got word of one more job we could do. I didn’t want to do it. I felt I could at this point do what I needed to do, or at least start it. However, the payout was a cool million. It was supposed to be an easy score. We got caught.”
“You got caught?”
“And arrested.” He swallowed noisily, pausing to nod at a woman who came out pushing a trolley with their breakfasts.
Zorah was on pins and needles as she waited for the woman to leave and for Chester to finish his story. She drank her coffee to the dregs and reached for the carafe to pour more and added to his cup as well. He smiled gratefully and took a sip.
“You were arrested?” she questioned quietly as soon as the woman left.
“Yes. In a foreign country. The three of us ended up being separated, imprisoned, and tortured for fourteen months.”
“Oh my god.”
“Eventually we were rescued by our old commander from our SEAL team and a crew of his men. When we got back on American soil, we were court martialed. Then the higher ups made us an offer. You were already approaching sixteen and I didn’t want to do any more time. I wanted to come and find you. While I was in the South American prison, I realized I’d done everything wrong. I should have confronted your mother the day in the convenience store. I should have taken whatever she would have offered for me to spend time with you. I shouldn’t have been trying to take on the mob. I should have simply told your mom I wanted to be your dad. I didn’t want to do any more time. So, when a senior government official told us he knew of our extra curricular activities were going on long before our failed mission and he wanted us to do one more and he’d make all our shit disappear as time served, I jumped at it. I was going to do the job and confront your mother and demand to be part of your life. I needed to this one last job, and I’d be done.”
“What did they want you to do? Can you say?”
“There was a very high up official, I mean Whitehouse high, whose son managed to get in an unbelievably bad predicament in the Middle East with the daughter of a sheikh he had no business being with. It was a political tinderbox, and they were talking of beheading him on national television. We put together a small but very efficient team and we got him out. We completed our mission and were on our way back home. At a military airfield we were walking to our chopper, and I saw the sniper’s bead in Orlando. I moved to shove him out of the way. I took the bullet to the back.”
“Holy,” she whispered into her clenched hands.
“That was five years ago, Zorah. Over a span of six months, I was unconscious more than conscious due to the number of surgeries I underwent. I messed up and for three full years I was in and out of surgery and physical therapy, but I wasn’t giving up.” He dug into his pocket and tugged his wallet out and pulled a folded photograph from it and slid it across the table. “This,” he tapped it, “was my motivation to live, Zorah. I wanted to meet my daughter.”
She eyed the photo of her, creased and worn, “you said for three years but why didn’t you come two years ago then?”
“I did.” He gave a sad shake of his head. “About two and a half years ago actually. I was at your college graduation, Zorah. However, Icaro Lucchesi was also there. We knew then he was still intending to marry you. We wanted to intervene before this happened.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“We got into a car accident leaving your ceremony.”
“No! You have really bad luck!”
“Orlando is convinced the jackoff who bullied me in high school is still doing it from the grave. Dane was in a coma for three months. Orlando wound up with two broken arms. I suffered a bad concussion which kept me in bed for months. While recuperating for my concussion, new research out of Switzerland was announced for which I was a candidate. They were only taking ten patients as part of the clinical trial and my old commander was able to pull strings to get me in. I wasn’t going to go but everyone said I’d already missed so much time with you, what was another year. One year and there was a possibility I’d be able to walk again.”
“You went.”
“I did. The program was extended by six months. I was released from the program the week before your wedding. We had a situation where a trafficking ring needed immediate intervention. Since I was flying back in Orlando’s jet from Switzerland and he needed it, I was delayed coming back to America a week. The day my feet touched soil, you were flown to Rome.”
Log in with Google Account
Chapters
Favorite
Settings
