Blood pounded my skull as I pinched the bridge of my nose. Since our father died, Emilia and I never saw eye to eye. She neglected school and wasted her most crucial years that could make or break her future in the arms of assholes that were dragging her into a path I’d walked before. One I’d never wanted for anyone in my family.
Last time I checked, she was dating Martino Da Nino. An all-tatted prick with a fucking cock ring. His father ran a gentleman’s club that belonged to the Bellomos, and his fucking son had been trying to make Emilia one of the club girls.
She wouldn’t understand he was using her. Whenever I stepped in, she’d mock me and say I never went to college and did just fine. “You aren’t the only pretty ass in the family,” she’d say, and then she’d threaten if I didn’t back out, she’d take the job offer for real and no one could blame her for being her brother’s sister.
Mamma would urge me to stay out of her business, knowing how stubborn and reckless Emilia was. Then I’d hear the words my mother wouldn’t say but were clear in her eyes.Enough that I lost my only son to sin. I can’t lose my daughter, too.
Of course, no mother would want her daughter to become a piece of meat grabbed by sickos every night. I knew I’d die before I’d let anybody touch my sister that way.
Emilia wouldn’t understand, though, I regretted screwing up my future every day of my life, yet I continued to do the shameful job she was mocking me for soshewould have a future, soshewouldn’t have to feel ashamed. I was selling my honor so she, Mattia, Carmen, even Mamma would keep theirs.
My little sister only saw that I left and refused to stay for her after our father died, thinking his gambling debts and medical bills were going to pay themselves, and Mattia would be able to finish nursing school with only good wishes, and Mamma and my motherless daughter could eat air, and Emilia herself could grow on magical fairy dust.
She hadn’t been born yet when Father used to squander all his money on gambling, convinced religiously he was gonna make a fortune out of it and didn’t. Or when he’d have spent days inside the house, invisible chains from his mind tying him down, missing work, getting fired, not giving a shit because his brain chemistry wouldn’t allow him to. Or when everything became too much to handle, and he’d have to drink it away just to bear the pain. Until he couldn’t. Until he lashed out at the three of us.
Until we had to run away to New York, asking my uncle for help.
It was why I never liked the Big Apple. I’d always associated it with loss. Loss of the home and the family that would never be the same again.
Two years later, my father got diagnosed, and with the right help and regaining Mamma’s moral support, things gradually started to fall back in place. Emilia was born right after, and Mamma decided to take my sisters and return to Chicago to be able to take care of Father all the time.
I was supposed to go back with them, but back then I was in love with two things. Priscilla Esposito, the girl that picked on me in grade school, and the secret money I used to make with my uncle.
See, he didn’t help us just because he was my mother’s brother. He did because a little boy was way less suspicious to handledeliveriesthan an old fart like him.
Yup. You guessed it right. My uncle ran for the Mob.
I was Carmen’s age and didn’t give a shit. That dangerous, shady job was nothing but an exciting game. Even if I didn’t like the city, Priscilla and my secretgamehad put me under their spell.
My uncle convinced Mamma I should stay where he’d take care of me and take the load off her. Snort. My uncle the benefactor. It went without saying he only needed me with him to facilitate his work. In fact, over the years, they were so happy with him they made him a liaison between the biggest crime families in both New York and Chicago. He told me that with his new status, when I was old enough, my place in a crew in either city was guaranteed.
Ah, the memories. To think I was gonna be a little Mafioso…
Anyway, back to Emilia. The father she knew was calm and kind and funny. His death left a huge void with no one to fill but me.
Except I was seventeen, a kid myself, no longer an errand boy for the Mob—when the game was no longer a game, it’d lost its charm, and being a teen wasn’t good for deliveries anymore—but still in love with the hot brunette that was the dream of the whole school.
And she was pregnant with my baby.
I couldn’t leave Priscilla. I didn’t want to. If I didn’t take care of my girl, who really needed me, some dick was bound to pounce and take her away from me. Someone like Michael Fletcher. The school was swarming with assholes like him that just took because they could.
Besides, I needed to figure out a way to provide for my family. My father didn’t leave anything, and my uncle wouldn’t help for long without asking for something in return.
I wished I could have returned home with Priscilla, but how? There were three women in the house, who never really liked my girl or us dating. I couldn’t just make her stay there. If I’d rented a place just for us, how was I supposed to afford everything to support her and my family together?
I’d have had no choice but to be shoved into a Bellomo crew, the crime family that ran Chicago. But I never wanted to be a killer, and not when I was having a baby on the way.
The right choice was to look for a job while I stayed with my uncle, Priscilla stayed with her parents, and my family remained in our house in Chicago. It was the only way I knew how to take care of them without ruining my life. Without losses I couldn’t make up for.
It turned out I was wrong. I’d lost a lot. Almost everything.
The clink of plates and utensils on the table brought me back from the troubling walk down memory lane.
“Dai, ciccio. Eat up while it’s hot,” Mamma said.
I pulled a chair and sat, and she took a seat next to mine, a kind smile on her face. “It’s good to have you here, son.”
I stabbed a fork in the pasta. “Is it?”
