I wash my hands meticulously, taking a breather before I have to face all the drama I’m sure to walk into. I knew I wasn’t going to like being dragged into this fucking world, but now, after finding all this out, its looking like I don’t have a hope or prayer of just walking the fuck away like I want to.
I don’t even try to hold in the sign as I wipe my hands on the black towel and head to the warehouse next door. Mrs. Tamayuchi was kind enough to “rent” the warehouses out to the crew, knowing full well what goes on in them both. While I’m sure at one point in her life she probably would have frowned upon what I did, those old sentiments left a long time ago when I took care of her daughter, Misa, when I stepped in during a domestic dispute at a bar.
Sometimes it pays to be a vigilante, not that taking down abusive husbands and pimps was the noblest of vigilante acts, but I did what I could for those suffering.
Anyway, now Misa is back at home with Mrs. Tamayuchi and back in school for nursing.
So as I walk out I nod at the security camera she’d had her son install when she got worried about my safety when extracting information.
I slip into the other warehouse unnoticed, not even Cobra seems to notice my presence, and I listen for a bit.
I’m not surprised to find Bones and Cobra trying to enlighten the poor idiot I have for a father about being in the crew. Okay, so maybe idiot is too strong since we don’t know each other at all. But damn does he presume a whole lot.
I remain quite, just observing the whole thing, until he says, “You realize she's going to have to leave this crew, right?” he spews the word crew out like it’s some dirty word, rather than the promise of family and protection and security Cobra, Bones, and I have made it. I enjoy the startled jumps he and everyone else in the room makes when I finally interject.
“I don’t have to do a goddamn thing I don’t want to, and I can't just leave my crew. Blood in and blood out.”
Alex perks up at that, like he’d been curious this whole time but didn’t know how to broach the topic. We do keep what it takes to become crew very much on the need to know, not because we are trying to hid some rite, but because for us, it’s an individual process.
“So your members have to kill to be in the crew?” he asks.
I do my best to not bite of his head at the inquiry, it’s not his fault that that is the assumption, though I’d have though that after seeing Skelli he’d realize that not all our members are even the type to be able to do the whole “blood” thing.
I manage to just shake my head and rolls my eyes.
“Not everything said is meant literally, even in the crew. But everyone who is crew has bled for us in some way or another, and we have bled for them. And the only way to leave the crew is through blood.”
I’m sure that the man that is my father is trying to sound reasonable, but he is shit at keeping that patronizing tone out of his voice, and that is something he’s going to have to work on when dealing with me. I’ve lived my whole life respecting two men, and if he wants to earn a place with Bones and Cobra he’s gonna have to try a different approach. Even Cobra doesn’t talk to me like that, never has.
“You can't run a family and a crew,” he says, like it’s simple logic and as such must be a well known fact. I bite the inside of my cheek to stop myself from exploding and take a few breaths.
I decide to try humor, “Are you saying a woman can't have a successful career too?”
It only seems to tickle Cobra and Bones, and maybe Tony who looks like he’s fighting an even bigger smile, I continue.
“Seriously though, I didn't ask to be the next head of your family and I have my own thing going for me. Why on God’s green earth would I choose to give up the family I know for the one I found out existed today?”
Alonzo, or Father or whatever I should call him, looks at Cobra instead of me, seemingly digging his proverbial grave with me, when he acts like I haven’t actually spoken and talks to Cobra.
“This is why you shouldn't have hidden her from me. Eight years gone...She wouldn't be afraid of a family she doesn't know because she would know them, there would be no ties to these trashy people, but firm ties and understandings of how the family works. Why didn't you at least explain anything to her,” he looks like he wants to pull out his hair, and I find just that notion hilarious, because he looks like a guy who never lets a hair be out of place.
He continues, “She is like an insolent child, thinking that she gets a choice in this when there is no choice. Conti blood has always lead the Conti, this isn't some option. But no, you hid her away and erased her from my sights and pumped her full of this fabricated world where there are no rules, just utter chaos. Why would you even think,” he doesn’t finish as Cobra interrupts him. Cobra looks like he’s ready to punch the man in the face, and that is unusual.
“Because Lene wanted it so. She expressly told me to keep her hidden until you founder her. She was confident that you would, at some point. But Lene didn't want Priest to know anything about family life, she wanted Priest to make her own path, and wanted her to know her worth in your world.”
Cobra looks at me as he finishes that statement, like a reminder of everything my mother ever taught me. Mom had always told me to know my worth, would call me her priceless gem, a treasure of unfathomable wealth.
Cobra looks away from me, back to Alonzo, face blank, “Sure it's nice to have a doll of a wife as the Boss, but it is not a great time being that wife. Lene knew all too well how lonely and how frightening it was to be the wife of the boss. Why do you think she ran to me in the first place.”
Everyone lets out a sudden breath at that revelation, Bones and I share a look that conveys the betrayal both of us feel with this information. I cant help that gutted sound of my own voice when I’m able to open my mouth.
“Jesus Christ, more fucking lies?”
Cobra stands, looking slightly ashamed, before looking me in the face. He’s a handsome man, his hair always kept long on top, beard and mustache always well trimmed, and while some found his eyes lacking emotion, I’d always been able to read what was in those depths. I knew Cobra had loved my mother like I knew the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, it was always just one of my universal truths.
Just as I had always thought that my mother was too blind to notice his love for her, notice that he did things for her that he wouldn’t even think to do for anyone else.
“It's not a lie Priest. You have always known that I loved your mother, love her. What did it matter that,”
I cut him off before he can even finish that thought, “That you were her dirty little secret? That she nearly broke you when she died but kept that side of your relationship hidden? It fucking matters Cobra! I fucking hate lies, was taught to despise them by a woman who appears to have lived and died by them!”
Not understanding that this has nothing to do with him, Alonzo tries to defend the dead, “That isn't fair Elda-I mean Priest,”
“Life isn't fucking fair. I love my mother, but how dare she. You don't know what she was like raising me, you don't get to speak on things you have no understanding on. I was raised to believe that lies were worse than any other sort of disrespect, worse than any crime. I was also taught to love openly, yet she kept Cobra as some secret to be kept in the dark? Like he wasn’t worthy of being acknowledged? The man helped fucking raise me, prior to her death! I was taught to never treat someone we love like that.”