He claps his hands together and smiles. It looks almost pleasant. “Wonderful! I knew I could count on you to do what’s best for the family.”
“When?”
“End of the month.”
I nod. “Fine.”
“I will have it all arranged; you won’t have to lift a finger.” He touches my cheek, the spot he slapped. “You’ll need ice for that. You really shouldn’t push me.”
I pull away. “If there’s nothing else, I really do need to see to the caterers.”
“Of course. Off to the kitchen.” He steps back.
Turning on my heel, I take measured steps out of the office, making sure to close the door quietly behind me. His goons are still standing around. The one with the suit looks at my cheek, his jaw tightens. The other one’s mouth pulls up in a half smile.
Tears fill my eyes as I make my way through the house.
My brothers are dead.
Freedom was so close to me; I could almost taste it.
Now it has been ripped from me again.
Alight dusting of snow covers the driveway leading up to the DeAngelo mansion. It’s early so the sun hasn’t had a chance to melt it from the ground.
“You’re going to be civil,” Alexander, my oldest brother, says as Igor pulls the car up to the front steps.
“Are you asking me or telling me?” I unwrap a hard butterscotch candy and pop it into my mouth.
“Kaz.” Ivan, my other older brother, sighs my name like it exhausts him.
“I’ll be a good boy.” I lean over and toss the scrunched wrapper into the cup holder in the front console.
Igor shoots me a glare through the rearview.
“You can still say no,” Alexander repeats.
He’s reminded me three times since we boarded the plane that brought us here.
“We can find another way to appease everyone,” Ivan adds.
I turn my head to stare at him.
“No.”
He lifts an eyebrow. “What are you cooking up in that head of yours?”
“Nothing. You’re always telling me I need to settle down. I need to take life more seriously. I need to do more for our businesses. This is me, taking your advice.”
Being the youngest in this trio has left me vulnerable to the good-natured advice both of them feel I need to hear. At every turn.
“You’re going to throw away your bachelorhood for this?” Alexander questions, twisting in his front seat to look at me. “If you’re planning to marry this girl then parade your girlfriends all over the place to humiliate her or her family, all you’re going to do is cause another war.”
“I’m not the one who started the first one,” I snap at him.
This isn’t his fault, any more than it’s mine, or Ivan’s. The DeAngelo brothers did this.
I’m no saint. There won’t be any room for me at the gates of heaven. But they’re the scum on the bottom of my shoe.
