by Seth Eden
Maybe I was better off letting Willow go. She could go back to California, continue her luxurious life as a fashion buyer, and stay safe from the riff-raff here. Was it selfish of me to want her to stay here with me and embroil her in my life, knowing full well the danger it put her in? What was it all for?
I should have picked her.
I got back to my family’s estate, took a shower despite the gnawing sensation that I was washing Willow away from me, picked a fresh suit to wear, and went to Gabriel’s room. He was lying on his bed with his nose deep in a book, which was amusing, to say the least, because Gabriel didn’t read.
“What are you doing?”
Gabriel jumped so high the book flew up out of his hands and then dropped back down, smacking him on the face. “Jesus Christ, Sandro. Announce yourself.”
“I did.”
Gabriel sat up and tossed the book to the side. “What the hell is going on? I got a call from Luca saying to get our house fully armed and wait for more instructions.”
“Marco called me.”
Gabriel stood straight up off of his bed. “What? When?”
“This morning. I’ll explain more in Luca’s office. Come on.” I didn’t wait to turn around and head off for Luca’s office, but I could hear Gabriel’s feet shuffling behind me. “So, did you arm up?”
“Of course I did. I wasn’t about to have Luca rip me a new one.” When we got to Luca’s office, the doors were closed, meaning he was likely already inside. “Do we knock?”
I looked over at him. “You wanna just walk in there?” I tapped my knuckles against the door. “It’s us.”
“Yeah, come in.” I opened the door, and Luca was sitting behind his desk with his hands folded over his stomach. “Shut the door.”
Gabriel shut the door behind us, and we each took a seat at the leather chairs opposite Luca. I crossed my legs while Gabriel sat right on the edge of his seat. Luca stared daggers in Gabriel’s direction until Gabriel swallowed hard and slid a few inches back on his chair. Luca rolled his eyes and turned his attention to me, a smirk curving across his face.
“So, you had a good night?”
Leave it up to my brother to take any moment he could identify to throw some jabs in the middle of a life or death emergency. “Yeah. Wonderful.”
“Good. As long as it doesn’t interfere with work, do what you want.”
My shower hadn’t only washed Willow away, but any of the lingering good feelings that the night had brought, too. I didn’t like it when Luca talked to me like he owned me. “I wasn’t asking your permission, but thanks.”
Luca’s smirk disappeared behind a cold, unruly glare. “Don’t forget that I can always handle any situation I’m uncomfortable with.”
“Are you threatening me?” I asked. “Are you threatening her?”
“I said what I said,” Luca hissed. “What’s this big emergency?”
I was tempted to clock him cold in his fucking face. He was the boss, but I was a grown-ass man. I bit back my rage, imagining my brother and his family trouble. I blew air out of my nose like a bull preparing to charge and let it take some of my tension with it.
“Marco called me this morning,” I started. “He said he got a postcard showing East State, telling him to watch his back.”
“When?” Luca asked.
“He didn’t say, but I got the sense he kept it from us for a while. He said he was waiting to see if another one was sent, so it’s possible it was back around the holidays.” Luca’s hand folded over his chin. “What are you thinking?” I asked.
“One, that Marco’s the same goddamn idiot he always has been,” Luca began. “Two, the Binachis know what’s up.” He twisted his head, cracking his neck as he did so. “How the fuck did they find out? The only ones who know that he rolled are the three of us. Neither of you told anyone, did you?”
His eyes fell accusingly on Gabriel.
Gabriel leaned forward. “I didn’t tell anyone!”
He looked at me. “Did you tell Willow?”
“She doesn’t like hearing about my involvement in this shit. I have no reason to tell her.”
I’d also been wondering how the word could have gotten out. It wouldn’t be the first time we’d discovered a mole in our ranks, but since our last betrayal, Luca had started cracking down. He didn’t let someone in who didn’t have skeletons, and he made sure to stress how quickly turncoats disappeared. I wasn’t inclined to think it was one of us.
“It’s gotta be someone who works for the feds,” I said finally. “We don’t have a traitor. Not after all that shit with Roman.”
“I agree. I don’t think anyone would be dumb enough to do it again. Besides, if none of us said anything to anyone, how would anyone other than us know?”
“Did you tell Molly?” I asked.
An eerie, cold silence engulfed the room. For the first time in our lives, I felt myself drop below Gabriel in Luca’s eyes. If looks could kill, my head would be clean off my body from the way Luca was leering at me. He leaned forward and placed his arms on the desk.
“Are you accusing my wife of turning on me?” he asked, finally, in a terrifyingly low tone.
“I only asked a question,” I responded, keeping my own resolve. I refused to let Luca punk me around.
“Yeah,” Luca replied, baiting me to say something accusatory. “I told her.”
The silence returned. Gabriel was nervously shifting glances between us, while a near-visible bolt of electricity was passing between Luca and me. I didn’t really think Molly would do anything like that, but I could hear the old man grumbling that we always have to explore every possibility. Gabriel made a solid point. If we were the only ones who knew, and none of us talked, then it obviously didn’t come from inside, but one of us did talk. The newest Varasso head.
“Look, obviously, we don’t think Molly did it. We just had to ask the question,” Gabriel said. “Right, Sandro?”
Luca looked frighteningly like my dad. He had a killer’s eyes, the ones our father had beaten into us by force. I loved my dad, and I loved my brother, but if there was any shitty quality that the two of them shared, it was their hateful dispositions. Luca’s faded some when his wife and kids were around, but when he was behind my dad’s old desk, it was like the old man’s spirit possessed him and continued to work through him.
“Right,” I said after an extended silence. “Molly’s good.”
Luca had his nose held so high in the air, bats were about to fly out. “Good.”
“It’s the feds, obviously,” Gabriel said, trying to fill the void. “Obviously.”
“It has to be,” Luca agreed. “We’ve got our own men on the inside. Maybe we need to do a little digging. I’ll make some calls.” He looked at me. “Can you ask Ricky to get a picture of the postcard from Marco?”
“I can do that.” I’d already maxed out on my patience for the conversation.
“Gabriel, I need you to man security. Don’t tell anyone what’s going on, just that we have reason to believe we may fall under siege, and they need to keep their eyes open. If anything happens. Anything. If a squirrel so much as pisses in a way that looks strange, they are to report to me immediately.”
“Got it.” Gabriel side-eyed me and shifted uncomfortably.
“All right, you can go. Keep me posted.” I stood up, but Luca held a hand up. “Sandro, can you stay?”
I let out a long sigh, and Luca slammed his hands on the desk. “Fuck! Can I have ten fucking seconds without a fucking attitude from you?”
I dropped back into the chair and looked at him. I wasn’t about to let his adult temper tantrums suck me into his vortex of darkness. He looked at Gabriel, who was halfway up out of his seat, watching the scene nervously.
“Get out!”
“Right, sorry!” Gabriel skittered from the room, slamming the door behind him.
Luca started to drum his fingers on the edge of his desk. I was thinking about how nice it would be to
be a normal person in a normal family. If I had a fight with my brother, I could tell him to go fuck himself, and then I could go pick up the love of my life and take her to dinner. A brother living in California would only be a brother living in California, and I wouldn’t be worried about my family imploding.
“What?” I asked.
“Do you really think Molly could have told someone?” he asked, and his voice was angry but inquisitive. I sat up, not expecting the question. “I shouldn’t have told her.”
And now, coming to the stage, with his headlining performance of Act Like a Dick and then Make You Feel like a Dick, Luca Varasso. “Dude. You know good and damn well that Molly wouldn’t turn on you. Even if it was out of fear. She loves you and Anna. She wouldn’t risk all of that.”
“What if it’s a situation like Marco’s? What if it’s the only choice she had?” Luca asked.
I shook my head. “Molly would go down for you, and you know that. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have even asked the question.”
“I have to ask her, don’t I?” he asked me, his voice totally different now, strained and frustrated with himself.
“Dad would,” I replied.
Luca nodded with a gentle snicker. “Yeah. He would.” He sunk further into his chair, letting his head rest against the back. “Sorry I snapped at you. This is all much more stressful than I thought it would be. I thought I was so ready. I was not ready.”
“How does one be ready for something like this?” I laughed. “Can you imagine if you had, like, a fucking day job or something? You got up at nine, punched in a clock, worked, celebrated some jackoff’s birthday, a guy who you don’t even like, just so you can get a piece of cake, then punch out, and go home?”
Luca grinned. “The shit Molly and I would argue about wouldn’t be how we ran drugs through the wrong channel, or I came home with blood on me again when we promised we wouldn’t let the kids see it. We’d argue about… I don’t even fucking know. What do regular, domestic people argue about?”
“I don’t know, man. Plates?” I started to laugh, and Luca joined in. I imagined walking into some house with Willow inside, and she started screaming at me about plates. Tears started streaming down my eyes. “Imagine Molly, just fucking…plates!”
Luca’s laugh got harder too. “Fucking! Plates! Plates!”
We were both doubled over in our chairs, crying, laughing about plates, and definitely losing our collective minds. What were we even doing? What was all this amounting to? Willow was right, there was nothing but pain in this life.
“Have you ever thought about it?” I asked. “Hanging it all up and going straight?”
Luca shook his head. “No. I’ve never thought about that. Dad made sure we lived and breathed this for a reason. He always said there was no way out.”
I hated feeling like that was true. “Marco’s out.”
Luca tilted his head at me. “Is he?”
The more I thought about it, the clearer it got. “No, I guess he’s not.” Mysterious letters saying to watch your back didn’t happen to just anyone.
“Face it, brother,” Luca said, calming down from his laughing fit. “This is our life, and it’s our life, for good.”
11
Willow
I hadn’t been able to get Alessandro out of my head for one second. Despite my better judgment, I decided not to buy a ticket back to California yet. I’d prepaid the rent on my apartment through the end of the year, and I could always suspend my utilities if I thought I was going to be staying in Philadelphia longer than I was planning. California would still be there when I got back. I had an opportunity to see if Alessandro was willing to make good on all of the stuff he’d said to me, or if he was going to abandon me the same way he had years ago. I’d only agreed to dinner, and I enjoyed Alessandro’s company. Maybe, when all was set and done, I would have closure on this situation, and I could go back to California without anything hanging over me. I could know I gave it the second chance that it deserved and let it go for good.
All that in mind, I still hadn’t heard from Alessandro yet. It would be just my luck that he would make some random decision between that morning and now to let me go. I hadn’t reacted the best to him leaving. I refused to sit around like some lovesick schoolgirl, so I made myself a promise that if I hadn’t heard from him by the end of the day, I would buy a ticket back to Cali and wash my hands of this.
A series of tiny taps against my bedroom window broke my thoughts. I went over to the giant ceiling to floor, glass pane doors, pushed aside the curtains, and shoved them open. I stepped out onto the balcony, looking down to see Ricky in the yard with a handful of pebbles. Even after I was clearly out on the balcony and staring straight at me, Ricky chucked a pebble up, sending it sailing past my face.
“Hey!” I squealed.
“Oh, sorry! I didn’t see you there!” He flashed a coy grin.
“Yeah, you did,” I called back. “What are you doing?”
“Isn’t this a thing that girls like?” Ricky asked.
I leaned against the balustrade. “Well, I think girls in movies like it, but typically, it’s their boyfriends, not their brothers.”
All the color drained from Ricky’s face. “Wait, are you serious? It’s a romantic thing?”
I laughed. “Yeah, Rick. Have you ever seen it in a fucking action flick?”
Ricky dropped the pebbles, fake gagging. “I’m sorry.” He held his hand up to me. “Give me a minute.”
“Also noteworthy, it’s usually people who can’t get into the house they’re throwing rocks at. You have keys to all of the doors leading in or out of here.”
Ricky was still hunched over, coughing. “Yeah, I know, but I thought to myself, hey, I’ll do a cute little brotherly thing.’” He gagged again. “Hang on. I’ll be okay.”
“Are you sure?” I called down. He took a deep breath and then stood upright. “Feeling better?”
Ricky nodded. “It’s coming back to me.”
“I had sex up here last night,” I shouted down.
Ricky threw his hands in the air. “Why would you—I don’t wanna—what did you—why?” He hunched over, hacking again.
I started laughing. “Will you get up here, you weirdo? My throat is starting to hurt from screaming.”
He stood up, looking up at me. “I don’t need to hear that!”
“From screaming at you!” I shouted. “God, you’re so strange! Get up here.”
I went back into my room, and a few minutes later, Ricky walked in. He made a face like he was stepping into a landfill, coiling his hands into his body and turning his nose up. “Tell me where it’s safe to sit.”
I shook my head. “Nope, you’ve already failed.”
“Ah!” Ricky hopped back out of my room and stood outside the doorway.
I laughed. “It’s too easy. I’m kidding. Just avoid the bed.”
Ricky looked at me skeptically, but stepped into the room and walked over to the stool that sat in front of my vanity. “Ugh,” he started. “I can’t believe I’m about to ask this, but how was last night?”
“Really, really wonderful,” I said, and Ricky’s face started glowing.
“Seriously?
I smiled at him. “Yeah. I mean, he laid it all out there, and then we…well, you know.”
“Yeah, I don’t need to hear it again.”
I sat down on the bed and lifted one of the pillows to my nose, taking in Alessandro’s smell still clinging to it. “He wants to take me out to dinner, and I said I’d let him. It was really perfect until the end.”
“What happened at the end?” Ricky asked.
“You don’t know yet?” I said. “Apparently, Marco called Alessandro.”
Ricky’s face flooded pale white again, this time with fear instead of disgust. “Are you serious?” He pulled out his phone. “I wonder why I haven’t gotten a call yet.”
“He was leaving to go talk to Luca, so maybe they’re still figuring it
all out. Can you tell me what happened?” I asked.
Ricky shook his head. “I really can’t. I’m sorry.”
I shrugged. “I probably don’t want to know anyway. The less I know about all this stuff, the better.”
Ricky seemed deflated in the wake of getting the news. I couldn’t figure out what would be upsetting him so much, but clearly, there was a tangled web that my poor brother was standing right at the center of. I wanted to take him and flee the coop back to California. If only I could demand that he stop working for them, but with my mom as tied down as she was, it wasn’t like he was doing any worse. Besides, he was an adult who could do what he wanted, my concerns be damned.
“So when’s dinner?” Ricky asked.
“I don’t know. Alessandro said he’d call me, but I haven’t heard from him yet.” That seemed to make Ricky even more nervous. He unlocked his phone, made like he was going to call someone, and then put it back down again. “Is it that bad?” I asked.
“It’s pretty bad,” he replied.
I waved my hand through the air. “Yep, I’m certain, I don’t wanna know.”
“No, you don’t,” Ricky said.
The doorbell rang, and Ricky and I looked at one another, confused. I stood up to head for the door, then Ricky jumped up and moved in front of me. To my shock, he pulled aside his jacket and pulled a gun from his waistband.
“Oh my god, Ricky!” I screeched. “Why the hell do you have that?”
“Are you serious? You’re the one who always says this world is dangerous.” He made a lowering gesture with your hand. “Keep your voice down.”
“Do you really think it could be someone dangerous?” I whispered, tiptoeing after Ricky as he moved.
“I don’t know. Hearing that Marco made contact puts me on edge.” We slunk our way down the stairs and over to the door. Ricky peeked through the peephole and then suddenly cocked the gun. “There’s no one there.”