Surprise I'm not dead lmao Enjoy the long over due chapter my babies ❤️

Isaac's POV

"KP.."

I look up at my best friend who's sitting down in front of me, in front of my desk, the concern, worried, expression still evident on his face.

I reply nonverbally, tilting my head up.

"Talk to me man, what's going on? Is it your old man? Red?"

I shake my head not really wanting to get into this conversation but it's gonna need to happen eventually.

After Hailey and I went back to bed she was completely restless, tossing and turning for a couple minutes, when I finally switched the lamp back on and had her talk to me.

I kn0w my wife better than she knows herself sometimes. I knew something was wrong, I knew something had happened, I knew my father had told her something when she was dismissing herself from him.

I saw the instant switch in her eyes when it happened, I noticed the little whisper interaction, I was raised to pick up on any and every little moment, regardless of how irrelevant it might be. It's my job to catch these things.

I knew that if he couldn't win us over, Pops would eventually try to go through Hailey and break the tension, the barriers, I definitely wasn't expecting the bombshell she dropped on me.

Moles.

According to the information my father fed my wife, la famiglia was infested with a liter of them and I legitimately don't know what to think or how to go about it. I don't know who to confide in, who to trust if he's right, where to even begin looking.

"Isaac," Dion's voice is pulling me back into the room.

I don't say anything, I get up from my seat and walk around the desk and head towards the office door and close it, returning back to my seat, blankly staring in my best friend's direction.

"I don't know how to ask this without being entirely selfish."

He frowns, "well quit beating around it and just spit it out."

I inhale a deep breath and nod, "I can't wait two more weeks, Dee. I need my second in command, I need you back now, I need you here, I need someone I can trust."

"Done," he answers. "What's going on?"

I hold up a finger and get back up from the desk and walk over towards the closet in the corner. I open the door and push the hanging clothes out of the way, finding two small devices pushed to the back, noting that they're still in the same place since the last time I saw them.

Jammers.

Pops installed radio frequency and surveillance jammers in his office after figuring out that there was a mole in the family, only a handful of people knew about the devices; those people being Dom, Beanie, Pops, and Dion the second I took over.

I reach a hand into the closet and turn on both black devices. If there's more than one mole, or any for that matter, I wasn't about to risk the conversation I'm about to have with Dion.

The office here in the warehouse doesn't ever stay locked because for the most part I'm here during the day when I'm on site and Dom's usually in here during the night shift. It's really not that hard to sneak in here and plant listening devices or cameras the few minutes the office is alone.

I wait for all the little lights to turn on both devices before heading back to the desk, leaving the closet door ajar.

"Who is it?" Dion inclines his head towards the closet the second I take a seat at my desk, surely knowing what I turned on in there.

I shrugged my shoulders while shaking my head, "I don't know, according to Pops, there's more than one."

"What do you mean more than one?" He grumbles.

I shrugged again, "I haven't talked to him personally. He told Hailey last night that we weren't safe, that Marvin wasn't the only one, not to trust anyone other than me right now because they're watching from within."

"Okay so when the fuck are we gonna talk to him?" Dion questions.

I lift an eyebrow and he immediately rolls his eyes, "honestly, KP, grow the fuck up and put your ego to the side. You wanna be mad at him then be mad at him on your own time, this isn't just about you anymore. If what he told red is true than your wife and your unborn son, they're in danger right now, we all are apparently. Do the guys know your dads alive?"

I shake my head, "only the ones that went with me, other than that he hasn't shown his face here yet."

"Maybe let's hold off on that, at least until we have any leads, we don't wanna set the wrong people off."

"That's gonna be a little hard to do," I say.

Dion frowns, "how come?"

I point behind him, towards the glass window that looks into the warehouse, watching my father walk into the building, heading in our direction as multiple people run up to him, some men shaking his hand, some men pulling him in for a hug.

And even though Im fucking furious with him right now my heart skips a little when he gets pulled in for a hug. I wanna trust these men, I don't wanna lose faith in them, I don't want to believe that they're capable of turning their back on this family of hurting the people I love, but it's happened before so I need to keep my guard up with anyone and everyone.

"The hell is he doing here?" Dion grumbles over his shoulder, looking back at me.

"I don't know," I respond and get up from my spot and begin to walk around the desk and head out of the office as Dion follows behind me.

I pay very close attention to the men that are huddling around him, to the men that are standing towards the back, watching everyone's reaction, everyone's movement but no one sets me off, no one seems off, every single man on this floor genuinely looks happy to see him.

The small crowd that had formed around my father immediately clears up as I get closer to my dad, some of the men that had walked away hovering close by still.

"He's alive, yes, get over it and get back to work!" Dion's voice booms from behind me and the men in the building slowly start to dissipate and head back to their stations, resuming what they were doing a few minutes ago.

"Not bad second in command," my dad grins, closing in on the little space between us.

"Legend fucking lives," Dee smiles as he takes my dads hand in his and pops instantly pulling Dion into him.

"So you officially back?" Pops questions while patting Dee on the back.

Dion nods, "yes sir, as of today officially."

My dad smiles, "good, I'm glad, how's the little one?"

Dion immediately begins to smile, "God she's growing way too quick," he quickly pulls out his phone showing my dad pictures of his daughter.

"She's gorgeous, Ricci, I'm happy for you."

"Thank you sir-"

"The hell are you doing here?" I grumble, cutting them short, folding my arms across my chest. "You really thought coming here was a smart move on account of what you just dropped on Hailey last night."

"So she did tell you," he sighs, shifting his gaze towards Dion for a quick second.

"Of course she fucking told me."

Dion frowns and begins to slowly shake his head, lowering his voice, "I would never do anything to jeopardize this family, Carmelo, you can trust me. I love red like if she were a sister, you know this."

Pops lips mildly tug to the side as he lays a hand on top of Dion's shoulder, "I know, Ricci, I trust you kid."

A voice behind me clears their throat, "uh boss.."

I turn to look over my shoulder to find Rod, one of my tech guys out of his quarter and out on the open floor a nervous look on his face.

"I'm sorry to interrupt.. He didn't show up to physical therapy again, s-sh-"

I tilt my head up, "spit it out, Rod."

"She's back," his voice trails off as he looks back and forth from my dad and I. "Molezzo's back."

My skin immediately begins to itch as my blood instantly begins to boil.

"Mother fucker!" I snarl. "What number?"

"Eight sir."

I don't waste any time and immediately bolt towards the stairs that lead up to the second floor of the building.

Surprisingly Brielle and Emiliano ended up rekindling their love for each other and started sneaking around picking up where they left off, after I specifically told Milo to stay away from her if he wanted his stupid surgery which he got over a month ago.

My father had found a surgeon brave enough to go in and work on Milo's back before his supposed death and I decided to proceed with the process, only if Milo could prove that he was sober and could stay off of his pills long enough to believe he wouldn't abuse them during his healing process.

The surgery took hours that day but thankfully it was a success in the end. Milo was still alive, he was still breathing, and he had full function of his legs, we didn't leave him completely paralyzed.

I told Milo that I wanted him to focus on himself, that I didn't want him getting tangled up in any messes, especially with someone like Brielle, someone who completely broke him years ago. I wanted him to focus on getting better, completely heal and recover from his surgery and complete his rehab and physical therapy so he could get back to feeling like himself sooner than later and get back to being independent.

I don't know how the fuck he's been sneaking Brielle into the damn wear house but I still hadn't lifted my fathers 'significant other' ban. Females were still not allowed into this building, anyone who didn't work for me had no business being here, they could get laid on their own time, elsewhere.

The last time that I was informed Brielle was here, which was probably about maybe two weeks ago, I had to drag her out myself and specifically told Milo that he would regret it if he did it again, guess he didn't heed my threat but he will today.

"KP, wait!" Dion calls from behind me trying to keep up with my pace.

Even though I just asked him to come back today I've always kept him in the know about everything and everyone, even when I didn't wanna tell him things because all I wanted him to worry about was his daughter, he always managed to get it out of me.

"Think this through, KP, you don't want this to be your first mistake," Dion mutters under his breath as he walks to my right and Rod to my left. "Bri knows better than to disrespect your rules," he points to his ear, "listen before you act out in anger. There's always explanations, reasons. Listen to your men, to the family, find solutions not punishments, be better than your dad ever was- no offense," he looks over his shoulder, back towards my dad who's strangely quiet, calmly following behind us.

He smirks, shaking his head, "none taken... Listen to your second in command son."

We come to a stop right outside of the guest room Milo's been staying in as I stare quietly in my fathers direction.

"You grew up in this life, Isaac, in this warehouse, these walls, with these men, shit you even know some way damn better than I do. You grew up watching me fail and succeed with them, I didn't have anyone to shadow. Mathias was so full of himself he hardly ever let me come around to learn what was right and wrong, I was useless to him, pathetic, weak, he didn't believe in me the way i Believe in you. Dominic grew up right along beside me, we didn't know any better, we winged it and learned as we went, we lost and sacrificed so much.. I installed fear into those men, Antonio, not respect, fear. They respected me because if they didn't they ended up six feet under just like every other man I made an example out of."

I avert my attention over to Dion for about a second to see his full attention on my dad, paying attention to every word he's saying.

"I am not compassionate," my father says, gaining my full attention again. "I'm selfish, I'm arrogant, I'm narcissistic. I don't feel remorse, I lack empathy, I manipulate for a living. I got to the top of the food chain eliminating whoever and whatever got in my way, it's why I'm so hated," he smirks." Do I regret any of it? No. Would I change anything? No. Do I want you to rise and lead the same way I did? No," his voice drops as he moves forward standing directly in front of me. "You're better than me because your mother raised you fucking better than that," he jabs a finger at my chest.

"You're better than me because you have her heart, her compassion, her empathy," he jabs at my chest again. "You're better than me because of the man your wife transformed you into. She makes you sympathetic even when all the anger I caused is knocking at your door. You're better than me because your life surrounds you with nothing but good people, son, because you've never allowed your emotions to make you weak, even when I thought differently. Don't let the bitter parts of me that you have consume the good that's in you, be the king I know you can fucking be."

I don't say anything in return, I stay quiet looking in his direction, the stern stare never once easing up as I watch Dion from the corner of my eye glance back and forth from my dad and I.

"This changes nothing," I tell him. "Me allowing you to be here still, allowing you to speak to me doesn't change how I feel, it doesn't mean that I forgive you."

"And you don't have too."

"I can't stand the mere sight of you considering how much I missed you and wish I could've seen you one last time, talked to you one more time. Listening to you talk now, the sound of your voice makes me nauseous regardless of whether you mean all that shit or not. I don't know this man standing in front of me, this man that suddenly is back from the dead. The father that I knew, that I loved, that I trusted, died that evening just like you wanted him to. The father that I knew, that I looked up to would've trusted me if he really believed in me."

"Isaac-"

"I despise you enough to want to take my wife and your unborn grandchild far away from here, far away from you, from the life you pushed on me. I wanna cast you out and let you torment yourself in your own solitude, make you suffer twice as much as you made your wife suffer! I want you to feel everything that we felt the last two months, I want you to feel like your fucking suffocating," my voice begins to crack and my eyes begin to burn as they start to rim with tears.

"I want you to feel like you think you're actually gonna fucking die because it legitimately feels like your heart is breaking, like your lungs are slowly giving up on you as you try and gasp for any ounce of air, but I won't do any of that.. I won't put you through any of that because you're right, I am better than you," I jab a finger into his chest this time. "I would never put my family through that torture.. I'm trying to see your side of this, I'm trying to understand why your mind works they way it works but I'm too fucking ferious to talk to your right now. The bitter parts of me still don't want to hear you out, I still don't want to listen to you, I wanna be angry at you a little longer because if someone is really out there trying to hurt my family ima need all the anger I can manifest to protect everyone."

Pops shakes his head, "your anger doesn't make you, Isaac, your anger isn't what drives you to be a better king than I ever was, your ability to let others in, ask for help is what makes you better than me."

He sticks a hand into the black sweats he's wearing, I'm actually surprised to see he's still in casual clothing and showing up here in casual clothing. "Here," he pulls something out of his pocket and hands me a little black tube.

"You don't have to speak to me, deal with me, I'll give you your space, I'll respect that. I'll even give your mother her space, I'll stay here or at a hotel so you can continue living comfortably, but I hope that everything that's in here will give you some peace of mind on why I did what I did. It was never that I couldn't trust you son, I'd trust you with my life, you know this."

I take the small black tube out of his hand and realize that it's a tube of lipstick, Hailey has multiple ones in this brand.

"Why the hell do I want a tube of lipstick.."

"Uncap it and twist," he instructs.

I take the cap off to reveal an object on the inside of the tube and frown looking over at him again. He rolls his eyes and is snatching the item back and is twisting up what appears to be a USB drive.

"Uncap and twist," he growls, handing it back.

"What's on here?" I mumble under my breath, inspecting the USB.

"Everything you have questions about," he answers awfully quietly. "Basically everything you need to know, everything I could dig up, everything I know."

I twist the cap back on and hand it back to my father.

"Why can't you just tell me everything."

He shakes his head, pushing my hand back in, "because it's not something I can put into words, Isaac. There's so much going on in that file that it's overwhelming and I'm not one to crack under pressure. I'll sit with you and we can go through it together but it's gonna be messy. It's gonna put you in uncomfortable situations as king now, you will have to make tough decisions."

An ugly feeling begins to form in the pit of my stomach twisting it.

Pops inclines his head forward, "get this settled so we can head back to the house and talk."

I shift my gaze over to my best friend, who's been standing there quietly soaking every word in. He holds my stare for about a second and is nodding his head, tilting it towards the door.

"Unlock it, Rod."

"Yes sir," his feet immediately shuffle behind me and I'm turning around to an unlocked open door.

I stuff the small stick of lipstick into my pants and head into the dimly lit room to come up completely short. There's no one in the room, the bed in front of me is messy, the tv is on playing softly, but there's no one in here, both the idiots I'm looking for are nowhere to be around.

Dion smacks the side of my arm and is then pointing towards a door to the left of me, the bathroom.

The door has the smallest opening meaning whoever is in there didn't close it entirely, they also ain't showering because there's no water running, it's quiet for the first couple seconds at least when Brielle's soft voice leaks through the crack.

"We gotta get up off of this floor, Emiliano, my ass is starting to hurt baby."

I take that as my cue and my feet instantly begin moving forward when I hear her voice and I'm pushing the door open a second later.

Brielle immediately looks up at me standing in the doorway, a petrified look on her face.

She's sitting on the floor, her back against the glass doors to the shower, next to the toilet, an unconscious, shirtless, Emiliano, laying on her lap, on his side, exposing the scars on his back from the surgery.

I watch her bottom lip quiver as she tightens her hold around him, never once breaking my eye contact.

I point down at Milo, "are you gonna explain, or you going to make me ask?"

She nods her head, "h-he relapsed, he called me slurring his words, he was having bad thoughts, hallucinating, hearing voices, Alfonzo's voice, so I rushed over," she explains. "I got him to throw up for the most part but I don't know how much he injected exactly so he's still in and out of it. I-I'm s-sorry, I just had to make sure he was okay."

I lift a hand up in front of me, cutting her short and take a couple steps forward until I'm standing in front of both of them, squatting down.

I point down to Milo indicating that Bri should stop staring me down and pay attention to the idiot in her lap instead.

"Is his skin cold?" I asked.

Bri quickly touches his face with the back of her hand and shakes her head, "he's warm."

"Is his skin clammy?" She shakes her head again. "Are his lips blue?"

"No," she answers softly.

"Then he'll be okay, he's not overdosing."

Her eyes immediately begin to glisten with tears as she nods her head and is looking back down at Milo, brushing some of his hair out of his face, "h-he was passed out on the floor when I got here, I could barely drag him to the bathroom," her voice breaks.

"That's nothing, Bri, this is nothing. He's overdosed countless times last year, this isn't nothing compared to how messy it used to be. You may be back in his life now, but this is genuine proof that you can't fix him. He's an addict, and you coming back, stirring up his feelings, it's what's making him relapse, Brielle. Sax buried his feelings and chose not to deal with anything after you left and became the guy he is now."

Brielle looks back down at Milo, "I hate that fucking nickname."

"I know, and he knew that too, I think it's why he decided to go by it when he got locked up, it was to spite you," I smirk.

She quickly looks up at me and shakes her head, "I never stopped thinking about him.. I tried writing to him, I tried explaining myself but the school would send my letters to my grandma. She eventually came to visit me and told me that she reached out to the other families and promised me that if I continued to reach out to him she would make it so I would have no one to reach out to, I'd be visiting a grave site instead.."

I feel my top lip immediately want to quiver as my blood begins to boil.

Even with the old hag dead already I still couldn't stand Brielle's grandmother. The old heifer was a dangerous broad, she killed her own son because she wanted her family's power, name, to herself, although no one can prove it, but Don's talk to one another.

Unfortunately for Brielle, just like every other kid who grew up with broken parents she didn't have a mother because her father casted her out and it literally drove her to her suicide when Bri was about three years old so the only family she had left was the old hag after her fathers sudden death years later.

Her grandmother and my dad actually had a truce after Bri was sent off. They would stay out of each other's business if Pops could control his men and keep them far away from the evil witch's granddaughter but Milo had other things in mind.

He was hell bent on getting her back up until she broke his heart and he started becoming a little shit as Pops liked to call him and landed him in prison a couple years later.

"Doesn't surprise me that she'd threaten him," I say.

"And it was a threat I didn't take lightly," Pop says behind me, leaning on the door frame.

I frown, "wait you knew?"

Pops nods his head, "I still remember the fear in her voice when she called."

My frown only deepens as I glance back over at Brielle, "you contacted my father?"

"She did," Pops answers annoyingly behind me. "And what did I tell you, Brielle?"

Her face contours into a different expression as she looks back and forth from my dad. "He would get rid of her for good if I could live with the consequences, the guilt."

My mind feels like it just exploded into a tiny million pieces as it begins to throb from the sudden headache that just occurred.

I turn back to look at my father, "who the fuck where you? The secrets just keep coming out."

Pops pushing himself off of the wall, "to the people in need- I was their fucking Savior, to my enemies I was and will continue to be their worst nightmare. Now leave that girl alone and get that kid off of the floor and into the bed. If you wanna talk to me I'll be waiting for you in your office."