Sold to the Capo-Chapter 104: THE NAME YOU SHOULDN’T SPEAK

VINCENZO’S POV

"You really think I wouldn’t notice?"

Master LaRosa finally said after staring at me for what seemed to be hours.

It was hours. I had been sitting here in my living room with my gaze fixed on him for the last nine hours. He was taking his time, seeing if I would break first. Screw him.

I stared at him from across the dimly lit room, the only source of light coming from the faint glow of the fireplace as he had shut all the windows and turned off the lights. Was he trying to scare me? This entire thing had not moved me in any way, if anything, he was only stopping me from doing my job and that pissed me off. He had been sitting there for hours, the gun still trained at my chest, his finger resting just a little too comfortably on the trigger. His men were outside, standing guard outside the door like the guard dogs they were. They were fucking pathetic, I had seen the way he treated them and I wouldn’t be surprised if one of them decided to turn against him, I was already tempted to kill the man too anyways.

But the real action was happening here, between father and son.

I leaned back in my chair, unaffected. "Notice what, exactly? That you’re finally losing your grip?" I finally answered him, my gaze calm and collected.

The look on his face bothered on annoyance like he was expecting me to plead for my life, I had come close to death many times in my life and I wasn’t going to flinch if he decided to kill me off right now. A befitting death, now that I thought about it. He had claimed the life of my mother, wasn’t it befitting that he claimed the life of his son? However, if that was how we were going to play this then it was only right that only I had the right to his life also. My kill too. Someday.

His grip on the gun twitched. "That you’re planning to overthrow me."

I exhaled through my nose, tilting my head slightly. "And how did you come to that ridiculous conclusion?"

He fired a shot.

The bullet lodged into the chair beside my head, the sharp smell of burnt fabric and gunpowder filling the air.

I didn’t even blink.

Instead, I shifted my gaze to the hole in the leather, then back at him, unimpressed. "You know, if you want me dead, just fucking shoot me already. But stop wasting bullets on my furniture. It’s expensive and you don’t quite pay for the house maintenance"

His jaw tightened. "You think this is a joke?"

"Not at all." My voice was calm, but sharper now. "I just think it’s pathetic that you need a gun to have this conversation. You’re the great Don, after all, aren’t you? Can’t even sit down and talk to your own blood without pulling the trigger? Or are you scared that I’m not intimidated enough?"

His eyes darkened.

Another shot.

This time, the bullet embedded itself into the table between us, splintering the wood.

I let out a slow breath. "You done?"

He ignored me, standing up abruptly and pacing the room. His movements were slow, calculated—like a man who already had his mind made up about something. What?

He was mad about something, that was evident as soon as he had gotten here but I didn’t know why. If he wasn’t going to talk but just keep talking in cryptic messages, he could as well go fuck himself anyways.

"I gave you everything," he muttered, more to himself than to me. "Power. Respect. And this—this is how you repay me?"

I rubbed my temple, feigning exasperation. "Again, for the slow ones in the back—what the fuck are you talking about?"

"You’ve been making moves behind my back," he snapped. "Recruiting men, I asked you about that but you always fucking dismissed it telling me that it wasn’t something I needed to bother myself about. Expanding and exploring territories that don’t belong to you. You think I wouldn’t hear about it?"

I frowned slightly. That... wasn’t entirely false. I had been exploring and expanding territories, I had also been closer to his rivals in Sicily but that was only because of the incoming problems.

But I wasn’t about to explain myself. 𝗳𝚛𝚎𝚎𝘄𝕖𝕓𝕟𝕠𝚟𝚎𝕝.𝗰𝕠𝐦

"You’re losing control," I said instead. "That’s the real issue, isn’t it? Your paranoia is getting the best of you."

His eyes flashed with pure anger but he didn’t move for a split second.

I expected another shot, but he only turned to go to the door, opening it to relay an order to his men at the door, his voice a sharp bark of authority.

"Search the place. Every inch."

My jaw clenched as his men scattered.

I stayed still, my expression unreadable, but my mind was already calculating.

Grace.

She was here. Hidden. If my father found her—

No. She knew how to disappear when needed. I had made sure of it.

Still, my paranoia prickled at the back of my skull but I sat still, my nails digging into the leather of the couch.

"You’re making a mistake," I said, keeping my voice even.

He turned to me, his gun still steady. "Am I?"

"Yes," I said simply. "If I wanted to take you down, I wouldn’t do it like this. I wouldn’t need to hide in my own fucking house, waiting for you to figure it out. I’d be smart about it. I’d do it clean. Precise."

His expression remained unreadable.

I leaned forward slightly, my voice dropping. "You know what I think, old man? I think you’re scared."

His jaw locked but he didn’t deny it.

"Scared that you’re slipping. Scared that I might be better than you." I let the words sink in. "And the worst part? You don’t even know if you’re right."

A tense silence stretched between us. The air thick with the weight of a father and son who had never really been father and son.

Finally, he exhaled slowly. "You always had a smart mouth."

"And you always had a weak trigger finger."

For a second, I thought he’d finally pull the damn trigger, but then—

He sighed instead, straightening and probably cursing me in his head but I didn’t mind, his patience was thinning and that was my source of entertainment. He was pushing my buttons and I was doing the same, the only difference was that he couldn’t keep his shit together.

He wasn’t used to being questioned. He wasn’t used to being defied.

And I was doing both.

But then, his lips curled into something between a smirk and a sneer, and his voice took on a new tone.

"You think I don’t know?"

I didn’t answer but I tilted my head to the side.

"You think I don’t know about Adriana?"

My fingers twitched against the armrest, but my expression remained cold, unaffected.

He noticed and his smirk widened. "So you do know what I’m talking about."

I leaned back slightly, forcing a lazy smirk onto my lips. "Sorry, Master LaRosa, but I have no idea what you’re on about. Adriana? What does she have to do with this?" I let out a low chuckle. "You’ll have to be more specific."

His face darkened. Then another shot, this one hitting the glass shelf behind me, shattering the crystal decanters lined up there. The room smelled of whiskey now.

I sighed, looking at the mess. "Really? That bottle was older than you." I grinned at him.

His voice dropped. "You keep fucking lie to me and doing questionable things despite the fact that I’m trying to keep you alive"

I said nothing.

He took a step forward, slow and deliberate. "You snuck her out of the mansion. Do you really think you could hide that from me?"

My jaw clenched for a split second before I forced myself to relax.

So he knew.

And that meant—

I still had a rat.

Still, I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of a reaction.

I exhaled through my nose, tilting my head as if considering his words. "Hypothetically speaking, if I did sneak Adriana out, what exactly would that mean for me?"

"You tell me."

"Well, considering I’m still sitting here breathing, I’d say you’re not quite ready to kill me for it."

His nostrils flared. "Yet."

I let out a slow hum. "So dramatic. You’re always like this. We’ve had run ins like this severally over the last months and while you never killed me, you always managed to be fucking dramatic"

His grip on the gun twitched again, but this time, he didn’t pull the trigger. He was studying me, looking for cracks in the cool mask of mine.

He wouldn’t find any.

But I was more interested in something else now.

How much did he know?

If he knew Adriana was out, did he know where she was? Had his men already been searching for her? Had someone sold me out entirely, or had they only given him enough to put him on edge?

I needed answers from him.

And for that, I needed to keep him talking.

"Tell me," I mused, resting my elbow on the chair’s arm, "what is it about Adriana that gets under your skin so much? Is it that you think it’s because of her that I’ve apparently gone rogue because you have been hinting at that for a long time?"

His jaw tightened.

Bingo.

"God, you really are delusional." I let out a mocking chuckle.

This time, he moved fast.

In one swift motion, he grabbed the table, flipping it onto its side with a loud crash before stepping closer, the barrel of his gun pressing against my forehead.

My smirk didn’t falter but my fingers curled slightly against my thigh, my gaze narrowing on nothing, ignoring the cold metal pressed to my head.

Such a beautiful way to show love to one’s son.

"Say another word, Vincenzo," he growled. "Say one more fucking word about things you don’t understand, and I’ll paint this room with your brains."

"Please," I said, my voice dry. "At least let me turn to the side first. Wouldn’t want the mess to get in your suit."

A muscle in his jaw ticked, but then his lips curled into something cruel.

"Once more, this isn’t the son I raised, this is the one raised by his pathetic fucking mother."

I went still immediately, my gaze hardening.

"Ah," he murmured, leaning in slightly. "That got your attention."

My fists clenched against my sides.

He noticed.

And he was enjoying this.

"Tell me, figlio," he taunted, his voice dropping to something almost mocking. "Do you really think you were ever more than an inconvenience? Your mother was weak. A pretty little thing, but weak. Always begging for mercy she never deserved."

I felt it then—heat. Anger.

"She thought she could change me," he continued, smirking. "Thought she could fix me. So naive." His voice turned colder. "And when I got bored of her crying, I put her out of her misery. That’s what you’ll do to the bitch too someday"

He wanted me to break so bad, to scream that I wasn’t like him and when I didn’t, when I only stared back at him with rage, he went further.

"But Adriana," he murmured, "she’s worse than your mother thanks to your foolishness. She’s a disease. A little parasite sucking the strength out of men. That’s why you’re weak, Vincenzo. Because of women like her."

Fuck it.

I snapped and lunged forward, my hands slamming against his wrist, twisting the gun away from my head before grabbing his collar and shoving him back against the wall.

The gun fired in the struggle, the shot hitting the ceiling.

"Don’t fucking say her name," I snarled, my voice dripping with venom. "Don’t ever say her name again."

His grin was wild, teeth bared in amusement.

"Ah," he breathed, "there’s my son."

I shoved him harder, my grip tightening around his collar. "You don’t get to talk about her. You don’t get to talk about my mother. You don’t get to sit here in my house and act like you have any fucking right to say their names."

His hands didn’t move to fight me off.

Because he wanted this.

He wanted to push me to the wall, to see me Snap so he could get his answers.

And I hated that it was working.

I shoved him back one last time before letting go, stepping away with a sharp breath, forcing my control back into place.

Then I heard footsteps.

Heavy. Quick.

The doors burst open.

Someone walked in, their faces panicked but becoming calm as soon as he saw I was fine.

"Salvatore. Glad you could join us, I had a feeling you would, ah... now that confirms my suspicions. Sit" My father ordered.

Damn it.