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"I take Evangeline with me forever," he declared.
I let out a dry laugh. He had balls, I gotta hand it to him but he was also stupid. Courage and stupidity don't go well together, not in my world anyway, "You really think that I'd just hand Evangeline to you because you asked me to?" I raised an eyebrow.
Mark's eyes dropped to the floor, most men can't handle looking me straight in the eyes, "Respectfully, Don Niko, she is of no use to you. She didn't know anything about her parents, the girl had lived in isolation her whole life. I know you have taken care of her after her parent's death but it's my responsibility. She is my goddaughter. I'd like to take her with me."
I brushed my thumb over my lower lip as I heard him rambling on and on about Evangeline, "Do you even know who she is?"
"I have cared for that girl my entire life. I can take better care of her."
"That's an impossible feat considering that Evangeline is my wife now."
A look of pure shock and horror crossed his face as it shot up in my direction and his eyes went wide, "What?"
"Evangeline is my wife, Mark," I accentuated every word so he'd understand.
He looked like a fucking madman, "No, please, Don Niko, she doesn't know any better. How did you— I thought you were engaged—she's a child!"
"She is not a child."
"She is, she is as innocent as the day she was born. She doesn't know any better. I have raised that girl, she is a child from the brain. Don Niko, please, don't do this."
I gritted my teeth, if that man didn't have a mountain of valuable information in his brain I would have shot a bullet through his fucking head. "Mark, Evangeline married me willingly and, she is a fucking adult, if you don't want me to go back on my word of granting a respectful dismissal from the Cosa Nostra, you will not utter her name from your fucking mouth again."
"But Don Niko—"
Scott slammed the barrel of his gun onto Mark's face, "Didn't you hear what he said?"
Mark staggered to his side and held his bruised cheek before looking back at me.
Not sparing him another glance, I walked around the room. There were crime boards all around the room, they had a lot of our pictures pinned over them. All of them were of Costellos, my uncles, my aunts, all of my cousins, and their children. Two boards had the names of my men, probably every single made man of the Cosa Nostra.
The thing that caught my attention was the big red crosses over some of the pictures. My cousin died in a shootout five months ago and then it was all of my dead men and cousins. The dead women of our family had died the last year. Even the Costello children? Fuck! Children as young as four years old?
