“I passed the reins to you when I retired! You didn’t need to kill anyone, least of all your family.”
“I did what I had to do. Your father handed you the Fratellanza on a silver platter, skipping mine. I would never rule with any of your heirs in front of me! I killed them all. Your sons and your bastard daughter.”
“Not too much on my mama,” I say, not giving one damn about him, his feelings, or the gun in his hand. Great-uncle or not, the disrespect will not go unanswered.
Venom darkens his eyes. “My father had Marie killed, hoping it would push you away for good. You’ve been trying to arrange a marriage with Salvatore for years to unite the families. With your granddaughter as his wife, she needs to go. Permanently.”
Fear skitters across my skin as Michele takes the safety off his gun. I scream at the sharp pain of his fingers pulling me to my feet by my hair.
“I didn’t ask to be in this shit!” I would say this sounds like some white mess, but I’m trying to make it home alive. They can have this fucked up family for all I care.
“You inserted yourself, Binks Caselli,” he chides. “No one Black or female has ever held a position in the Romano family. You’re a stain, a dirty secret of no value.”
I lift my chin. “Says the grown adult having full tantrums over threats to your power. Did you fuck up my family because your daddy didn’t love you enough?”
“Bitch!”
I wince from his hand tightening in my hair.
Is it dumb to goad an unstable killer when I might be next? On a normal day, yes, but I am past the point of being tired. I’m at my wit’s end with these crybaby men running amok. They are truly a threat to society. I won’t be too many bitches before he and I duke it out in eternity.
“Please don’t take her from me,” my grandfather pleads.
“I won’t kill her. I’m selling her to eliminate a weakness.”
Weakness.
The word flips a switch. My nostrils flare and my fists clench at the familiar taunt. Déjà fucking vu.
No man, great-uncle or otherwise, will address me with disrespect without consequence. Mr. Hamilton never got his ass beat, but withholding these hands ends today.
I reach for the pen I’d grabbed from the bedroom and tucked into my waistband.
Michele aims the gun over my shoulder. “Say goodbye to your precious granddaughter, Uncle.”
Slish.
“Argh!”
Michele’s gun falls at the first slice of my pen into his forearm. I tighten my grip around the ballpoint and slam it into his groin. He covers the wound, knees buckling to the hard concrete as I turn his chest to Swiss cheese with puncture wounds. Dark stains form across his black shirt.
“Who’s the bitch now?” I twist the pen into his flesh and smile at his scream. “You took my family and callmeweak?”
I stab him for my mother.
For the sins of his father taking my grandmother.
For coming after my man.
For his fucking audacity!
“I’mnot weak!”
“No, you’re not,” Benny whispers into my ear, catching my hand before I drive the pen into Michele’s eye. “You’re the strongest person I know, baby.”
Tears fracture my voice. Benny spins me toward him, pressing me into his center. He holds me to him by the back of my head and rubs small circles into my scalp as he kisses the top of my head. My tears are next, then my lips.
My scream rings in my ears. His grip tightens as I cry in his arms for the family I’ll never know. “You are my family” is a whispered chant through every sharp breath.
