Danny Torent's POV

For as long as I can remember, I've always had a thing for the colour red. There were red roses in the garden of my childhood home, the rooms in my room were painted red, and even my toys didn't escape the bright colour.

But one of my favourite shades of red was the one on my mother's head. She always allowed me to play with it while she spoke softly, "One day at a time."

"You know Torent," I look up to the present Don, or should I say Doña of the Spanish Mafia.

"We eat our food here, not stare death into it."

I narrowed my eyes at her and diverted my attention from the bottle of red wine in the middle of the table.

"And I assume the food needs an extra layer of make-up for digestion?" I tease her slightly.

Carlos snorted out loud, "It seems I'm out of the loop here. Did anything happen in the tower?" He says with his accent coming out in tight waves.

He looks from me to his daughter, trying to find out what's going on, but he should know that some deals stay hidden till the last part of it is complete.

"It's nothing, Padre." Rae Jean forced out a smile to her father and went back to eating.

I studied her as she ate.

Although her hair was still in a low ponytail, the makeup on her pale skin did well to highlight her soft features. Her hood was down but was still clipped under her chin.

She had an air around her that screamed lethal as she ate with preciseness and an elegant posture.

I turned my attention to her father. His receding hairline allowed his forehead to be highlighted with the sweat dripping from the sides of his head.

Carlos might be a man in his fifties, but he still had his tan skin glowing as if he was still in his youth. He ate with calmness and ease, unlike his spawn.

It's either Rae Jean was adopted, or there was something that I was missing because these two looked and acted nothing alike.

The sound of wheels on the floor filled the air and started coming closer to where we ate. The smell of cigars was getting thicker as well.

Father and daughter exchanged eye contact, and the relaxed posture that Carlos was once sporting disappeared.

I frowned a bit, dropped my fork and reached for the small gun in the waistband of my jeans.

Whoever was coming was either going to be a friend or foe. The way Rae Jean and her father are acting, I'm assuming it's a foe.

The wheeling noise finally reached the dining room, and the cloud of smoke covered everywhere.

I frowned deeper as I took in the sight of a younger-looking Carlos.

It can't be.

"Having dinner without me?" The tone was hard to miss. It was similar to the one Jordan used on me when we last met.

The man in the wheelchair rolled further into the room, "Not that I'm surprised. I guess only those with working legs can eat then."

Carlos cleared his throat but didn't say anything while Rae Jean moved her plate away and used the hood of her cloak to cover her head.

"I guess I'd fix myself my own meal then." A bitter smile covered his face as he wheeled himself to his father.

Before he could get closer, Rae Jean pulled a knife from nowhere and held it out, pointing it toward the man in the wheelchair.

"I'd advise you to move back, Hermano. No violence at the dinner table and especially not in front of the company." She said in a deadly voice.

Translation: Brother.

The man who had now acknowledged my presence turned to look at me. A sinister smile graced his lips; I would have been repulsed if I hadn't seen things far worse.

"Bienvenida a la mafia española."

Translation: Welcome to the Spanish Mafia.

-

The evening air was bitter cold and cut through my skin sharper than the red band on my wrist. I stuffed my hands into my pockets and walked to the tower. I met a buff man at the entrance, a solemn look on his face as he smoked a cigar to warm himself.

I walked up to him and waited for him to stop me from moving inside the tower. You could imagine my surprise when he stepped aside and allowed me to enter.

"I'd be careful if I were you." His gruff voice pierced the silence of the night. I cocked my head to the side for him to continue.

"She gets very violent whenever she and her brother clash. I advise that you keep your guard up more than usual."

That's not something a guard tells an outsider.

"Why are you helping me?" I ask.

"Because if I want to be able to provide for my family, I'd like the person giving me money to be stable in the head."

He put the cigar back into his mouth. A clear sign that this conversation was over.

I inhaled deeply and began to ascend the stairs.

Even though my father is the walking definition of a wolf in sheep's clothing, I would be lying if I said that I didn't learn any lessons from him.

Although the one that stuck out the most was the one about how life would always be a gamble. Not everything will be how it is meant to be.

A knife landed where my head would have been as I opened the door, and it was déjà vu all over again.

"You know, for someone whose handy with knives; you'd be handy in the kitchen." I tease and close the door behind me.

For the first time in meeting Rae Jean, her hair is not in its usual low ponytail. The onyx strands fall out of the band that holds it together.

She kept pacing to and fro in the room with a bottle of tequila in her hands. Her eyes were bloodshot, and her poised aura was long gone.

She kept muttering Spanish words quickly, but I could pick up some. She was lamenting about the French Dynasty. It takes my mind to the deal we stroke right before dinner.

-

"I want them all slaughtered." She said out of the blue.

I looked up from the pictures of my grandmother in a bikini, "For someone as pale as you, one would think that you handle your threats calmly."

The hatred in her eyes was unmistakable, and it pointed towards the document in her hands. I eyed her a while and slipped it out of her grasp.

It was a burial arrangement that happened over two decades ago.

"And why would you want them dead?" I look at her.

The evil glint in her eyes was bright as she said, "They are the reason I'm the Doña of the Spanish Mafia."

"And how is that a bad thing?"

"I never wanted to be. I had so many dreams, but they turned to ash on the day of my parents' anniversary."

"So what are you saying, Rae Jean?" I still couldn't make sense of what she was saying.

"After we get Kasie and Valentía, I want you to help me take down the French Dynasty."

I raised my brows because I never thought that something so stupid would come out of her mouth.

"It's gonna take more than two of us to bring them to their knees, but I won't make a deal that would lead to our deaths."

She smirked, "What if I offered you something that could change your mind?"

"And what could that be?"

"I know where your mother is, and I know you have questions that only she can answer. If I can get you and your mother to have a little bonding time, would you be willing to help me?"

-

"If you want me to accept your deal, I want to know what happened between the Spanish Mafia and the French Dynasty so that I know what I'm getting myself into." I begin.

She was still muttering Spanish and pacing around the room.

I sighed and went to grasp her shoulder and hold her in place. I locked eyes with her and tried to peer into her soul. I could imagine her replaying what happened at dinner not too long ago.

-

"Bienvenida a la mafia española."

"Son, where is your nurse?" Carlos asked, eyeing the wheels on the man's chair while gripping his table knife.

The man in question examined his nails, "I fucked her brains out and sent her on her merry way home."

"Please tell me she was willing." Carlos frowned.

"Si Padre, I decided to grace you all with my presence. Since I'm no longer allowed to eat with la familia when we have company." He spat, rolled his chair around and started making his way towards the door.

Translation: Father

Rae Jean's grip on the knife loosened a bit, but she pointed it towards the man in the wheelchair as he was rolling away from us.

"And sister?" He drawled

"What do you want, Hermano?"

"It appears that the Mafia is in good hands."

I was not expecting a compliment from him, and I wasn't expecting Rae Jean to throw three knives at him before storming out of the room.

Ironically the man of the hour used his hand to flick them away from the back of his head and finally left the room with a burst of twisted laughter that escaped his lips.

Carlos sighed and looked to the heavens. He looked back down and was surprised to see me staring at him with a cocked head.

Family meetings are always draining.

"Dessert?" He humoured me.

-

"Breathe," I commanded her.

She looked ready to argue, but my gaze didn't waver, so she complied. I joined her until she looked calm.

I removed the bottle from her hand and led her to her chair. I eyed her knife on the table and gave it to her. I knew it was the safest object in her grasp right now.

Rae Jean might know some of my deepest secrets, but it takes two tango.

From what I can recall, knives have always been her way of release, and that is when I concluded that everyone in the world is messed up, some more than others.

"For as long as I could remember, the French Dynasty and Spanish Mafia have been at war. With the recent events, my brother was crippled by their leader, and that was how Jordan became the leader. It all went down on the same day as my parents' anniversary. You could say it was a gift from them to us. Although he fucked up royally, my mother had already kicked a fit that my father handed the position to an outsider, and since my brother wasn't an option, the reins of this forsaken place were then given to me." She began.

She was saying things I already knew, but there was a loophole.

"The whole world thinks that your brother is dead. If he was forced onto a wheelchair. Why did you fake his death?" That was a stupid question, but it would lead me to the answer I was looking for.

Rae Jean sighed and put the knife between her fingers down. "After my brother was crippled, his sanity slowly started to slip. The people who deemed themselves our enemies would take advantage of that, and my father would do anything in his power to prevent another blown-out war. The stress of losing her first son got to my mother; so badly that a couple of years later, she was diagnosed with cancer, and we all know the end game of that dreadful disease." She swallowed thickly, "Raimundo lost a part of himself the day my mother died, and somehow my father is still the same."

She looked up at me, and I felt the shift in the atmosphere. She sighed before she continued speaking.

"So you see, Danny, I don't want them slaughtered for the sake of rivalry. I want them dead for my family. I want them dead because of the person I had to kill to be where I am."

Her eyes pierced into my soul as she spoke; gone was the fidgeting and disarray she sported. She took a band from one of her desk's drawers and packed her hair back into a ponytail. Her features took a sharp turn, and her mouth sat in a grim line.

She picked the knife back into her palm and slipped it into the hood of her cloak.

"I get you some time with mother-bear, and you help me accomplish a coup d'état. Deal?"

It's safe to say that I know how Penny feels when she has to get some deals done, but the difference between us was that I was doing it for a selfish reason.

I wanted to see a particular shade of red one last time and if it meant bloodshed, then so be it.

"Deal."