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I removed the photo from the wall and pointed at Tony’s father. “Tell me about him?”
“Anthony.” He barely glanced at it, a sign he’d been prying. Emilio. They’d been at school together, and he could never keep a secret from my dad.
“What happened to him?”
He bit into the donut and chewed very slowly. “He died a long time ago.”
“How?”
“I don’t remember. Accident, I think.” He licked sugar from his lips and gulped the lukewarm coffee. “You were very young.” He tapped the pic of five-year-old me. “You were adorable. Still are.”
“Dad, you’re hiding something.” Tony had said much the same thing to me.
He arched a brow so high it looked painful. “And you’re not?” He swallowed the last mouthful and licked the sugar off his fingers. “Where are you keeping the human?” He put up a hand. “Nope, don’t tell me. In the basement, your home away from home.”
Of course he knew that.
“Why didn’t you let Emilio deal with the human? He wouldn’t have hurt him much. Roughed him up a little.”
“Or a lot. Remember, there was that one time…” I let my voice trail away, leaving an unpleasant image hovering between us.
Dad glanced at me. “Oh, you’re right.” He examined a nail. “And there was that other time.”
“Mmmm. He’s Anthony’s son.”
His mouth fell open.Thathe didn’t know. He got up and went to the window overlooking the pool. The medium-sized-ass pool. I grinned as I remembered Tony’s and my conversation.
“I’m intrigued.”
Dad wanted the details, but I needed something from him first. “Anthony was a wolf shifter but he was mated to a human. How was that possible?”
He examined the curtains and told me they needed washing, a stalling tactic.
“That broke one of La Luna Noir’s basic rules, enshrined in our law.”
My dad shot me a glance. “He didn’t mate. He married.”
“Come on, Dad. We can’t be with a human, ‘cause if we did, we’d have to tell them who we really are.” What sort of relationship would it be if you hid everything from your life partner?
“He met his mate and fell in love.” He put the last three words in quotation marks. “And he pleaded with your grandfather to allow him to be with that human.”
My mind was whirring. I was the Alpha, I didn’t need to ask anyone’s permission regarding my personal life. But who was I kidding? I couldn’t break our cardinal rule.
“He led a double life. Antonio Oakes with his husband and Anthony Oakley with us.” Dad explained his omega partner also wasn’t aware of his husband being part of the mafia.
“So he didn’t know him at all.” It must have been a shallow relationship.
“Your turn.” He patted the sofa beside him, but I chose to stand.
“History has repeated itself. Tony’s my mate.”
Dad took a bite of another donut and chewed slowly while furrowing his brow. “But you kidnapped him.” He winced. “It’s not the best start to a long and loving relationship.”
“It’s the beginning, the middle, and the end.”
11
TONY
