The Dominator (50 page)

I wiped my hand on the towel beside her, reached for my phone, which was on the night stand and put it beside her head,

“Listen.” I said and planted a kiss on her shoulder, “Then we’ll talk. We have to talk about this and then we have other shit to discuss. It’s gonna to be a lot. But it’s important. Okay? I didn’t want to come to you with this before I had proof but I’m at a dead end and need info from you before I can go further.”

She nodded and chewed her cheek. I brushed her hair behind her ear with my fingertips, kissed her temple, and then I pressed play on the recording while I continued to gently massage her shoulders and then moved down to her legs as the recording played what Greg O’Connor said to me outside the hospital when Tia had the allergic reaction. She tensed up almost immediately, upon hearing her father’s voice, but I kept massaging gently.

“…known your family for years. I’ve wanted to be on better terms, I tried to patch things up with Tom. He just didn’t wanna know me because Lita chose me over him, you see. And he always had this grudge about that. He told me one night out of the blue in a dark alley when he turned up after a poker game I was in that he’d have her back and that if he couldn’t have her, he’d make sure I didn’t either. He was in love with her, had been since they were kids, but he was best friends and business partners with her older brother, someone even more connected than he was, so she was off limits. A few years after your mum died and Lita’s brother died he tried to hook up with her but she broke up with him a few months later and when she met me she told me her ex was crazy possessive, psycho. She started to see me on the rebound, probably, but got pregnant so we got married before we really knew each other. I loved her, though. She was amazing. He said Tia should’ve been his. If we hadn’t had Tia he wouldn’t have lost Lita. I was scared he was gonna hurt Tia. He was a bad motherfucker and I was afraid for my life, too. I tried to befriend him, started working on one of the crews down in the junction district of town, but when he found out about it, he canned me. All this shit kept happening to me and it was like he was out to destroy me. I know he was behind a lot of it.

Then he left us alone for a few years. But me and Lita had a huge blow-up about my gambling and partying and she took my daughter and left. But she came back a few days later and wouldn’t say why. I think she’d gone back to him but changed her mind. Or maybe he’d kidnapped her and she got away. She wouldn’t tell me. He turned up drunk and stormed into my apartment and told us if she didn’t leave with him, he was taking Tia instead. Started screaming in my face telling me to pick whether I wanted to keep my wife or my daughter. Lita pleaded with him but he pointed a gun at me and finally took Tia, put her in his car. Lita tried to change his mind, go with him, but he said it was too late.  Tia got so upset that he let her come back a few hours later but he told me it wasn’t over. Lita killed herself a few weeks later.  Your father showed at the funeral and told me he’d be back for Tia someday. That I took from him so he’d take from me. Hinted that he was responsible for Lita’s death; I carried that shit around for years. Always watching my back, always wondering if she really killed herself. I was fucked up. I know it affected my relationship with my daughter. I just, I dunno, malfunctioned. But I want a relationship with her. I thought maybe you and I could be friends. I could work for you. See my daughter, be in her life, help you with the business. We’ll be family after you get married. Maybe Tom will finally let it all go now. Think about it, will ya do that for me?”

I turned it off and climbed off her and got into a pair of boxers.  She stayed still. I gave her a minute and then asked, “Do you think your mother was depressed before she died?”

“Yeah,” she said softly.

“Long before or for just a little bit.”

“Long, I think.”

“Do you remember my father taking you out of your apartment?” I asked her. She was quiet for a minute. This was key.

“I do.” She said eventually. She climbed up onto her knees and then twisted and planted herself down beside me and re-fastened her bra and then reached for her t-shirt.

I passed her a bottle of water from the nightstand and she took it with trembling hands.

“I knew he was familiar,” she said, pointedly, “I knew when I met him that he was familiar. But I couldn’t place it. Then when I found that picture I gave you I knew he was really familiar beyond the picture but still didn’t know from where. When I heard that recording, when I heard it I saw it playing like a movie in my head. I remember him putting me in his car and I was crying and crying and he tried to settle me down and told me he’d buy me a pony, build me a dollhouse, take me to Disney World. He said he’d give me anything I wanted. I wouldn’t stop crying for my Mom and finally after he drove around for a little while he took me back. Maybe I blocked it out. I don’t know. If it was just before she died maybe I blocked it out.”

I nodded, “Do you remember you and your Mother being kidnapped or being with my father somewhere for a few days?”

“No, I only remember him taking me and driving me around in his car until he took me back,” She got this horror-stricken look on her face, “Tommy we’re not, oh my god, we’re not siblings are we? Is your Dad---”

“No.” I told her, “You’ve got O’Connor’s eyes, no doubt about it; that man is your father.”

She was quiet for a few minutes, eyes looking active, like she was combing through details of her memories.

“I don’t know if my father killed your mother. I’m trying to find out.  There’s shit to sort out about my own mother’s death, about your mother, your uncle, lots of shit.”

She sipped her water and looked at me.

“You heard my father’s best friend was your mother’s older brother. His daughter, your cousin, Bianca, married to Nino, Nino who came to Vegas with us.”

She looked shocked.

“So, I grew up with your first cousin. She’s my age.”

Tia was flabbergasted, “I know no one from my mother’s side.”

“Your Uncle Joe, a man I called Uncle Joe all my life, he died in a car crash. Some said my father staged it over a business dispute. I’ve heard it over the years but never believed it.”

She didn’t say anything.

“Earl told me he flipped on our family and took you because he found out my father had his son Michael killed because Michael was about to expose him for being involved in a meth op. If that’s true, Pop kept it from me and Dare. Earl said he didn’t wanna hurt me but saw red and wanted back at my father. Castillo made promises, promised to deliver Pop to Earl for revenge down in Mexico and Castillo chose you as the tool.”

I reached for her water and she passed it to me. I took a swig and continued,

“I hear that my Pop may have killed your mother alone and I’d never believe it. Your father, zero credibility. But that you remember him taking you and that he picked you for me, and the other shit that’s unfolding,” I shook my head, “I have a lot to figure out.”

She blew a long breath out and put a palm over her forehead.

“You okay?” I reached for her. I half expected her to pull away but she didn’t. She climbed onto my lap and put her head on my shoulder and her arms around the middle of my back.

“Don’t know. Are you?” she asked.

“If I have you, I will be.” I said and she gave me a squeeze.

Tia

“Tell me about your family,” I said to him, “About your childhood, about your Pop, about the business.” I suddenly wanted everything on the table.

He leaned back against the headboard and let me settle against him, put his chin on my head.

“My mother died of Cancer. I was just a little kid.  Spent a lot of time by her bedside as she was dying and she said a lot of fucked up shit. Shit a little kid shouldn’t hear. I think it went to her brain before she died. Pop was out running the business, it was around then that the business started to really flourish. He was raking in money hand over fist and my Ma was in bed dying a slow and painful death. A few months later he married Dare, Tessa, and Luciana’s ma.  The math didn’t jive so I figured out later that that she, Annette, had Dare before my Ma died. They showed up and moved in after Ma died; Dare was a toddler and she was pregnant with Tess. They divorced a couple years later but Pop kept all the kids. She lives in Italy. Comes by every year but not much of a relationship. I get the impression that’s the way Pop wants it.  Pop’s third wife died in a car crash. Maybe he killed her, too.

She was a bitch and now I think it wouldn’t surprise me. All the fucking car crashes, huh? All my life he had such high expectations of me and my brother. We work to earn his respect on a continuous basis; it has a short shelf life. He pushes and pushes us and is always testing our loyalty. I got to a point where I wouldn’t let him push me. I started to show him before he had to push. Now I have all this to figure out. If this is who he really is, how do I live with that? I know we’ve ordered people dead. But they’re enemies, not family, not innocent. I’ve practically run the business the last few years. I handle a lot of the legit stuff and some of the shadier shit, too, and Dare and I have plans on how to get shot of the shadier stuff because we just don’t need it. We have money, we have power, and we do well. We know where to focus to boost earnings even more and without the risk, without having to pay people off, without worrying that the house of cards’ll tumble down at any minute.  When Pop retires, we have a plan, a good one. I know I’m not the ice cream shop guy, baby, but I’m planning for a better life for us.”

“You are better than the ice cream guy.” I told him. He looked so distraught right now, “You’re real, Tommy. You’re a man with many layers and the fact that you’re looking for the truth even if it’s not what you want to hear? That’s huge. The ice cream guy probably wouldn’t have rescued me from Mexico, probably wouldn’t have done a lot of the things you’ve done. He was two dimensional. I’m here with you; not him.”

“The shit I’ve done that’s hurt you. That’s hurt others.” He looked lost, “I’m Thomas Ferrano Jr. Maybe the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Maybe that’s what’s wrong with me. I’m
his
son. It’s so fucking fucked up, baby. He goes from being a philanthropist so doing this fucked up shit. He’s hiding behind the charity, the talk about family, about loyalty.”

I threw my arms around him and squeezed. I had an ache spread through me, an aching desire to help him. His pain was palpable.

“Will you tell me about the necklace?” I whispered.

He let out a big sigh and then finished my bottle of water, “It was my mothers. One of the last lucid talks I remember with her she put it around my neck and told me that if I wore it I’d remember to be a good boy. Maybe she knew the apple wouldn’t fall far, too. Some of the shit she said, warned me about, it was all riddles to me but now, I think she hated my Pop when she died and knew I’d probably turn out like him. Sometimes she screamed at me like I
was
him, told me why she hated me. I think when she was afraid for me and what I’d become without her to guide me. When I have to make hard decisions that I know she wouldn’t have approved of, I can’t wear it.”

“You’ve been having a lot of epiphanies.” I said softly.

“Yeah,” he said, “Never told anyone this shit, babe.” He shook his head, then rolled his eyes.

“You don’t have to be the apple. You are your own man. You already want to change the way that this family earns money, you can change other things, too.”

“I’m not giving you up.” He looked at me with ferocity.

“What?”

“I told you not to ever ask me to give you up.” His jaw muscles flexed.

I shook my head, “That’s not where I was going with that. I don’t want you to give me up, Tommy.”

He didn’t look like he believed me.

“I don’t,” I assured him. And it was true. There was hope in me for him, for us.

“You don’t want to go home?” He asked and there was pleading in his eyes.

“I’m home. You’re my home.”

He shook his head like he doubted what I was saying, got up and walked to the bar and poured a drink, “Want one?” he asked.

I nodded.

He drank a shot of whiskey and then poured another shot. Then he reached for the fridge and pulled out a bottle of wine and poured me a glass.

I was surprised and a little hurt that my declaration had no apparent effect on him, “I just mean that you don’t have to let the darkness engulf you. You could go to therapy. Maybe you should.”

“Fuck that,” he said through gritted teeth and I stopped talking and accepted the glass of wine. I took a sip and then decided to try again,

“But…”

“FUCK THAT!” he downed the shot and threw the glass; it shattered against the wall, making me wince. He stormed out of the room, slamming the door.

I bit back tears and just sat and stared off into space. I thought about the recording. I thought about my parents. I thought about Thomas Ferrano Sr. I thought about who Thomas Ferrano Jr. was, why he probably
was
the way he was, and I knew that there was hope for him, for us. He knew his father was wrong. If his father was guilty of all of the things that he looked to be guilty of, Tommy wouldn’t just stand for it.  The demands that had been put on Tommy from a young age, losing his mother, it had all caused this darkness in him. That he could also be sweet and fun-loving, was hopeful, wasn’t it?