I stare across Marco’s back lawn where one of his guys lays dead. I can still smell the gunpowder and blood in the air. No idea? I’m not buying it. Not for a fucking second. “Who wanted this?” I ask, surprised by how calm my voice sounds, how distant.
“The Morettis had some moles in the family. Seems like they got to Luca. Kid was my nephew, but I swear he had a spine about as thick as a toothpick.”
Had a spine as thick as a toothpick? If Marco only just found out about this, why is he already talking about Luca in the past tense.
“Yeah. No shit.”
“Listen, Leo. I’m doing my fucking best to pay my respects here. Your brother was a decent kid. Loyal, but a loose cannon. Still, we never would’ve set something up like this.”
I never said you did. Just listening to this crusty bastard do such a sloppy job of smoothing over his mess pisses me off. I want to call him on it, to tell him to lock his doors and find a good hiding place, because I’m coming. Before Julia and Roman, that’s exactly what I would have done. I would’ve already been in my car driving toward him, seeing nothing but red. Now, as much as I want to act, to get revenge, I can’t stop seeing Julia and Roman, realizing how much they need me to watch out for them. With every passing second, I feel the crushing reality start to settle in. I can’t have it all. I’m going to have to choose between revenge and being with Julia, and I don’t know yet what I’ll do. All I know is I don’t deserve her. She’s going to be hurt and disappointed when she finds out what I’ve done, and she deserves so much better than that.
“I understand,” I say.
“Oh. Good. Yeah. That’s real good. You’re an asset to the family, and it’d be a fucking shame to let you go to waste.”
There’s the threat. “Yeah, well, I’ll be in touch,” I say, hanging up. I stand in the doorway, the cold air feeling frigid against my steaming skin. I move back through the kitchen, emptying my clip in Luca’s corpse. His body jolts with each bullet and my ears ring as I walk to the car. It feels like my world is spinning, like the ground is falling out from under me. I know she’s pissed as hell and I know she’s going to have her heart broken when she finds out I’ve already broken my promise, but I need to go to Julia. She might deserve better than me, but I know I need her kind of good in my life. I’m too selfish to stay away. I will hurt, kill, and do whatever it takes to protect her and Roman.
55
Julia
Roman holds my hand as we leave the grocery store. There’s a little extra pep in my step because my mom just learned the tumor is responding to treatment and getting smaller now, but I still can’t let myself get too excited. I don’t know how we’re going to keep paying the medical bills long enough to get her healthy.
When I’m not thinking of my mom I’m thinking of Leo. Did he really come back just to do it all again? To make promises he couldn’t keep and leave when it got tough? Why couldn’t he have just stayed gone? All his coming back did was raise my hopes. He was cruel enough to come back and let me dream about a better life. I knew his promises would be false, but I held onto them like lifelines either way. Now I’m left here with Roman, trying to figure out how I’m going to explain why we don’t get to see Mr. Leo anymore. I sigh. I won’t miss the violence and the danger, but I will miss seeing those two together. I started catching myself daydreaming when I would watch them, imagining this was real, that he had never left and that my little guy had the father he so desperately craved.
Roman “helps” me load the groceries by taking anything small enough for his hands out of the bags and handing it to me. I notice a black SUV slowly crawl to a stop right behind us. I give an irritated wave. God. There’s a parking spot like five feet away. Are they really lazy enough to wait for this one?
As I finish loading the groceries, I’m increasingly annoyed by the SUV. I close the trunk of my car and strap Roman into his carseat before turning to face the car. I give my best fake smile, but it freezes on my face when I look at the people in the SUV for the first time. They have olive skin and wear clothes that look expensive. They have the same kind of hardness in their eyes as the men from the mini-golf course. My stomach clenches when I realize I’m boxed in. I can’t back out without ramming them, and there are cars parked beside and in front of mine.
I reach for my keys, squeezing them in my fist so that the car key sticks between my index and middle fingers, making a little blunt knife. It’s not much, but if one of these assholes tries to touch me, he’s going to get it in the eye. I don’t move, standing still as the men watch me. I can see two clearly and there appear to be more in the back. I swallow hard, throat dry.
The driver makes a lazy motion for me to approach his car. I glance through my rear window, where I can see Roman kicking his little feet. So many protective instincts are flooding my system that I feel paralyzed. It’s like checkmate. I have no choice but to talk to them and to hope they aren’t planning on hurting me or Roman, but stepping away from the car feels like abandoning him.
I shake my head, stepping back and standing protectively in front of his door. The driver rolls his eyes in annoyance, stepping out of the car and approaching me, dress shoes clicking on the pavement. He would be a handsome man if he didn’t look so cruel. His cruelty is written in the sneering twist of his lip and the cocky set of his eyebrows. That’s not what frightens me though. I’m more afraid of how disinterested he seems, as if threatening me in broad daylight is as stimulating to him as getting the mail in the morning. It tells me this isn’t even near his upper-limit, it’s not even the beginning of what he’s willing to do.
“Stay away,” I say glancing around, wishing there were more people heading to their cars, but no one seems to notice anything out of the ordinary, and I’m scared to find out what this man would do if I screamed.
“I have a message for you. Julia Connors?”
“No. You must have the wrong person.”
He sighs, pulling out his phone and looking at the screen, at my face, and back at his screen. He tucks his phone back in his pocket. “Strange. You look exactly like her.”
My nostrils flare and I feel my nose twitch. I wonder if I could jab these keys in his eye before he could stop me. It’s a stupid thought though. The men in that SUV would never let me get away with it. I’d be in a worse position than I started. I hate how badly I wish Leo was here, how badly I wish he would ride in and save me, whether he had to use violence or not. I just want my Roman to be safe.
“My name is Fredo Moretti, and normally the only time people learn that is right before I put a bullet in them or before I welcome them into my family. I’m making an exception for you because I want you to tell the thug you’re fucking to give himself up.” Fredo’s face twists with sudden emotion, an anger so vivid and clear that it makes me step back. “I’m way past pride with him, way past traditional methods. I’ll admit he’s good. He’s real fucking good. But I don’t give a shit. The bottom line is he’s outnumbered and he has a weakness.” Fredo punctuates his last sentence by jabbing a finger into my chest and then toward the car. “I want you to tell him that I personally promise to fuck you before I kill you. I’ll kill that little brat of yours, too. If he wants to avoid that, all he has to do is give himself up to me. He knows where to find me.”