“Uh huh, I feel like that was an important decision I could be a part of. It sounds more like he doesn’t want the daughter no one knows about to become a target. I know who he is.”
“What?” He looks at me in shock.
“You don’t need to cover it up, Uncle Kevin. Dad told me all about his mafia escapades years ago.”
“He told you?”
“Yeah, when I was sixteen. That’s how this whole plan came to be.”
“You have got to be fucking kidding me. This whole time, I didn’t say a word to you about how deep he’s in it. I swear, when I see your father, I’m going to punch him.”
I snort and roll my eyes, knowing he probably won’t.
“So tell me what else is in this plan you and your father came up with?”
“Step one, I get a job. Step two, Dad contacts me when the coast is clear. Step three, after working a few years of real-world nursing experience, I start working for him.”
“Seems like you have this all figured out.”
I smile at him. “Yes, I do.”
But I’m not sure if I really do.
ONE
VANESSA
TWO YEARS LATER
“Uncle Kevin, Aunt Lucy,” I call out as I unlock the door to their apartment.
“I’m in here, sweetie,” Lucy calls from the kitchen.
She’s been a mom to me since I was two, stepping in after my mom passed. She’s beautiful, with tan skin and long, dark curly hair. I know I never truly passed as her daughter, not when she’s Cuban and I’m not, but she is the closest thing I’ve had to a mother. So she’s my mom, just without the formal title.
“Hi, Auntie,” I mumble as I walk around the island and kiss her on the cheek. “Where’s Uncle Kevin?”
I walk to the fridge, grab a soda, and sit at the bar on the other side of the island.
“He had to run some errands.”
“Somewhere I could’ve helped on my way over?”
She gives a small shake of her head. “It’s nothing, sweetheart.”
“Have you heard from him yet?” I ask, referring to my father.
It’s been two years, and he still hasn’t called or messaged. He hasn’t even sent an enforcer, or whatever they’re called, to tell me it’s time to come home.
“No, we haven’t,” she says, turning to look at me. “I know you wish he would call, Vanessa, but I don’t know where he is or what he’s doing.”
“Kevin is one of his best friends. Why won’t he just tell him he doesn’t actually want me around? It’s not like he really tried before.”
“You know the agreement he made with your mother.”
“I know.”
My father promised my mother he wouldn’t drag me into anything I didn’t choose for myself. But he hasn’t given me a choice in anything yet. He hasn’t even seen me since my birthday a few months before I graduated college.
