Claire: The Forced Virgin Of The Billionaire

Nino escorted Dawson in. He sat down nervously. I hadn’t told him in advance of the meeting, just sent Nino to get him from his job. He looked freaked out.

“Dawson.”

“How are ya, Azriel? Good to see ya. How’s my Sweetpea?”

I gave him a sour look.

“Not thrilled that you’re here; I’ll say that. Drink?” I poured myself a whiskey.

“Yeah, please. Thanks,” he shifted around in the chair. He reminded me a little of Denis Leary. He was clearly nervous. Or he was tweaking from withdrawals.

“I wanted to ask you some questions about the death of Claire’s mother.”

He accepted the whiskey and drank it with shaky hands, “Yeah. It’s still raw. Hard to believe sometimes that she’s really gone. Mind if I smoke?”

“Yeah, I do mind, actually. Tell me about that day. Tell me about before you left her at home and about when you got back that day. Be truthful. I’ll check out your story. Don’t lie to me.”

“I don’t come across well in this story, unfortunately,” he said, putting his cigarette package back into his pocket with a sigh.

I lifted my chin, urging him to talk.

“Lita and I weren’t getting along. She left me after a fight about my gambling and my partying. She saw me flirting at a bar when she’d come to try to drag me home.

So she left but turned back up a few days later and wouldn’t say why, wouldn’t say if she was giving me a chance, she was just sorta empty-eyed.

She was going through the motions, y’know, cleaning the apartment, getting Claire to and from school but she wasn’t herself.

The day she died she told me Claire had this school trip and I’d have to pick her up late from school since the bus’d be back after dark. I was running late. I’d been at the track all afternoon.

I was in a bad way, you see, I knew my marriage was on the rocks, money was s**t, your Uncle kept getting me fired from jobs. I’d get a job and then I’d get fired for no reason.

I figured it had to be him; he was out to ruin me. He’d said as much. So I was at the track with my last twenty bucks, not knowing how we were gonna pay the rent ‘cuz Lita had quit her waitressing job when she’s left me and they’d hired someone else so when she got back she couldn’t get it back. I won $1800. I was stoked.

Then I remembered I had to pick up Claire from the school. Didn’t know why Lita wanted me to do it, though. No reason why she couldn’t do it so I called home and she didn’t answer.

I swung by the apartment with flowers for her, ready to give them to her in the hopes she’d perk up before going to pick up my daughter and when I got home I didn’t think she was there but then found in the tub, a tub filled with her b***d,” he choked up, covered his mouth, reached into his wallet and pulled out a small wallet-sized photograph and handed it to me.

I’d seen Lita’s picture, the picture she’d given me of her and Uncle and like that, this was like looking at Claire but with darker features, skin less fair, dark eyes, same but darker hair. Same mouth, same bone structure.

I felt bile rise in my throat imagining my girl dead in a tub, how that must’ve felt to him, even if he was a shitty father and a shitty husband. I passed the photo back.

“At first I thought it was suicide. She was so depressed. And then your father hinted that it had something to do with your Uncle. Azriel, if I weren’t such a mess at that point I might’ve tried to kill him.

But I was already beaten down. And he was untouchable. He spent years destroying my life bit by bit and by the time I lost my wife, I was a shell of a man. I think he pushed drugs in my direction.

I was getting offered free blow at those card games when no one else was, getting offered blow for cheap, too; I couldn’t afford it but my guy was selling it to me for dirt cheap and he ran for one of your Uncle’s guys.

Your uncle wanted Lita and she wouldn’t leave me so he destroyed me in her eyes. I think she didn’t leave me out of principle, not because she loved her life with me.

I know there’s more, more she wouldn’t tell me. But I dunno. I think he stalked her and taunted her and she dug her heels in until she couldn’t take it any more or until he ended her life somehow,” He shook his head.

“So why do you want to work for me?” I changed the subject, feeling a chill. The stuff he said was just my Uncle’s style. If he couldn’t have what he wanted, he’d make it so no one else had it either.

That didn’t mean he killed Claire’s mother but the stuff Dawson was describing, I’d seen my father destroy men this way, twice already in my life.

f**k, I’d seen my brother do it, too, for revenge against the bastard his ex f****d around with. Maybe it was another family trait.

The only good thing I’d hoped for Drake was that he’d be away from this messed up s**t of a family, even if that meant I’d never get to see him again….. but he did the opposite, even oceans away our fathers and Uncle’s shadow lurked over him.

He straightened up, “I know the business, I know how things work, I wanted to work for your Uncle years ago, tried to call a truce, but he wouldn’t have it.

I hear you’re taking over and I thought maybe I could get close to my daughter, work for you, help you…” he trailed off, shrugging.

Claires said he’d always had a mafia fascination.

If my Uncle was such a bad f*****g guy who’d ruined his life why on earth would he want anything to do with my family?

“Why didn’t you take your daughter and run, get away from my Uncle? Why the f**k did you leave her right under his nose when you knew he was keeping an eye on her from the beginning?”