“Scarlett.” Brando hovered, his eyes almost dilated.
“I’m all right.” I waved a hand. “Just nerves. Go!” I pushed at him.
“Baby.”
“I’m all right.” I assured him again in a steadier voice. “I’m just…nervous. I have a bad feeling, Brando. It’s sitting in the pit of my stomach.” To add a bit of melodrama to this statement, I leaned over and retched once more. “Go!” I almost hissed, when I was able to speak. “Dammit!”
He went, and when the horrible sounds were under control, I could hear the grunts Mick and Mitch were making, the words in between.
“No good son of a—”
“Traitor! Never was a brother to me—”
“Back off, Fausti!”
The wail of a baby met me, and I ran toward the open doorway, where Violet held Wendi in her arms.
“Where are the other kids?” I asked.
“Peter is sleeping at a friend’s house. The rest are inside, asleep.”
“That’s good,” I said, holding out my arms to Wendi. She came to me, sleepy-eyed but fighting the pull of the night. Her little head felt warm, and her nose was crusted with mucus. She sneezed and whined. “She needs to be inside, Violet.” I put a hand on her arm, to bring her in with me. “It’s too cold out.”
She refused to move. She was almost paralyzed with fear. Brando stood between the two brothers, like a referee, but he had provided only a temporary cease-fire. The anger and resentment over the years had come to a full, rolling boil. No one was going to be able to stop the overflow. It was here and now. No more delay.
“I can’t—” Violet looked at me then, her face void of color, her blue eyes almost alien in her face. “Scarlett.” She took a step back. “Why are your hands trembling? Oh God, do you feel something? Tell me—”
Wendi let out an almighty screech. Paul came outside a second later, rubbing at his eyes.
“What’s going on?” he asked, still half asleep.
“Scarlett,” Brando yelled. “Bring the kids inside.Adesso.”
Accusations were being flung back and forth, none of them complimentary. The situation was beginning to escalate even further. I could feel it in the air—a tremble that seemed to vibrate around us, beating like a war drum, summoning old ghosts and new ones, demanding each take sides.
A frozen wind gusted up, rustling leaves, lifting every hair on my body. Bile sat like acid in the back of my throat, and the smell of iron lingered in my nose; I must’ve broken a blood vessel when I lost my dinner.
Something sweet floated in the air, too, and whiffs of it emerged in bulbous clouds. Alcohol. It laced the cold breeze each time it blew.
Mick. He was drunk, and it was serving as a vessel for the monster that had spawned from the anger he felt toward his brother. Mitch had one of his own, but it was created from resentment and needed no such vessel, just the memories from the boy who never grew up.
“Come with me, Paul,” I said, turning him toward the house. “We need to put Wendi to sleep.”
He went without much protest, but his shoulders kept trying to turn, to catch another glimpse of the scene happening outside of his house.
Boxes were lined up inside—the same ones from the office, moved closer to the door. There was no sign of a struggle inside, no broken glass or shattered walls. Not wanting to wake the kids, it seemed Mitch and Mick took it outside. Or that was where it had started.
“Mature,” I murmured, attempting to shush Wendi by bouncing her toward her room.
I slipped Brando’s phone out of my pocket, used speed-dial to reach Guido, and told him in Italian to get over here. They were not far, just a block or two, so it wouldn’t take long for them to arrive. I could hear Mick and Mitch from inside, almost snarling, and Paul tried to turn back again.
“It’s all right,” I said to him. “Do you want to watch TV for a while?”
He shook his head. “Nah, I’m tired. Soccer tomorrow.” After giving his sister a kiss on the cheek, he ambled off to his room, scratching at his head, his hair a tangled mess.
After wiping Wendi’s face and clearing her nose, I turned on the humidifier, and she started to calm. I rocked her, and she finally fell asleep in my arms a minute later.
The door to the house came open with such a crack that I thought Wendi would wake up—actually, the entire house. Thecrack!of it made me almost jump out of my skin with fear. It was like surprise thunder on a clear day.
