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“Armando,” I slap at his face. Hard. “Look at me.” He does. I slap him again. I need him concentrating. “Maybe you know, maybe you don’t. Makes no difference. You know now.” I let him take that in. Then, “Our piece of your family’s take has been light for weeks. You owe us. Get it straight.”
He glowers.
“And,” I hold the photograph up to his face. Give him another moment to absorb it. Is it a surprise or does he know that’s going on? I don’t care.
I give him a beat to review his situation then I tell him. “Make. This. Stop.”
The kid thinks he’s got trouble.
After this, I have to go back to face Daddy.
CHAPTER SIX
Out in the back of the house, I stand and hold out a hand, palm up as I make eye contact with the black dog. He looks up at me, wary and suspicious. His fangs are out. I tilt my chin up as I show him my open palm. I don’t make my voice too soft as I tell him he has a choice. He can come with me. Or not.
He can’t understand what I say, but the sound and the tone of my voice should help him make up his mind. He won’t come close, but after a few seconds, his head dips.
Wary and unsure, he follows me around to the front of the house.
Mikey waits outside with the van.
I open the front door and hold it for the dog.
While the dog looks up at me, still uncertain, I ask Mikey if he can find a home for a cane corso.
“Please, Mikey?”
Mikey’s head shakes, but there’s a familiar indulgent sparkle in his eye. Ever since I was a little girl, in the list of mad, ridiculous, and outrageous things I’ve asked Mikey to do, this probably wouldn’t make the top five.
The dog jumps up and I shut the door behind him.
CHAPTER SEVEN
When I’m in through the van’s rear door, I clamber all the way into the very back corner and I hunch low, grinding myself deep into the seat. Knots tighten in my stomach.
Daddy should have done this job himself. Not left it to someone else. Especially not to me. One of my idiot younger brothers could have done it. But, no, not one of his boys. They’re both far too precious.
One of them will be Daddy’s successor. So he won’t risk either of them. What if Daddy needs one of them to step up? Can’t take a chance on either of them being in jail.
Me, though, it doesn’t matter much what happens to me. I’m the eldest, and, by the way, the only one who isn’t a totally self-obsessed narcissist. Not that it makes any difference. They’re the future don and the one-day second in command of the Famiglia Benedetti.
At which point, I confidently predict, the tiny little tin-pot ‘empire’ of our family will have a life expectancy in minutes. Hours, at best.
Mikey’s bulky silhouette hardly moves in the driver’s seat as he fires up the motor and steers the bulky van out on the long driveway.
Unwanted images flash in my head as I watch the road from the darkness in the back of the van. Legs and hands, mouths and heavy cocks. Through the windshield, arches of trees glow and rush by in the headlights, and the pool of light on the road swings, left and right.
My stomach turns over.
“Stop the van,” I shout forward at Mikey again. “Mikey. Stop.” I bang on the metal side of the van. “I need to get out.”
I’m nauseous, and a cold feeling drains through me. There’s a sweet taste in my mouth as the van lurches to a stop. My stomach churns. I get the back door open, but before I can get outside, I’m yelling and a thick blast of barf surges up and out of my throat.
I drop to the cold wet grass outside, cold air and sodium light makes the wold spin, and the whole of my insides churns. Everything in my stomach surges up in a hot, bitter flow, a thick jet, splashing onto a tidily mown lawn. Acrid yellow under the flat, toneless streetlight.
Mikey stayed in the driver’s seat. He didn’t get out of the van. Spared me the embarrassment of having him watch as I hurled and spluttered, choking on all fours. Clambering back up from my hands and knees, I catch the warmth in his smile in the mirror. With it is an unspoken invitation to sit up front with him.
Him and the dog.
