My father? He certainly doesn't think so.
He thinks I'm a callous, menial piece of shit.
He sees the ugly that still bleeds from me.
The ugly that Karissa just doesn't see.
He makes me feel like me.
"I thought I told you to leave."
His voice is flat, emotionless. He's leaning against the graffiti-riddled brick wall beside the propped open back door, a dirty white apron tied around his waist. Cigarette smoke surrounds him like fog as he breathes it in before letting it back out. Not sure when he traded the cinnamon toothpicks back in for the Marlboros... same kind he smoked when I was a kid. Maybe it was when he lost the love of his life.
Maybe it was when I started coming back around here.
"You did," I say, stalling in the alley near him. "I'm not very good at listening."
He lets out a bitter laugh. "You never were."
"Yeah, my mother used to say I inherited that from my father."
"You got a lot from me," he agrees. "Shame it was all of the bad and none of the good."
I nod, not disagreeing with that, and watch him as he continues to smoke. He draws the smoke in deep, holding it in his lungs before letting go of it, savoring every breath, cherishing the nicotine. I never understood it… picking up a habit that would kill you so easily.
But hey, what do I know?
I killed people for a living.
There's no quicker way to get you on Death's guest list than by meddling in his affairs and taking part in his game.
"So, when did you start smoking again?" I ask curiously.
"When someone tried to destroy my life's work," he says, motioning beside him, toward the back of the deli. "You figure out who that was?"
I'm surprised he's asking me that.
"I've got an idea."
He takes another drag of his cigarette before tossing it down and stamping it out. "Yeah, well, when you catch up to them, tell them they owe me ten grand. Had to wipe out my savings to get everything fixed."
"I—"
I would've paid for it.
Those words stall on my lips.
I know better than to offer.
He doesn't want my money.
He'd be offended by the offer, and I've offended the man enough as it is.
"I'll be sure to tell them."
He nods before turning, yanking open the deli door to go inside. It bangs against the cement block propping it open when it closes again. He didn't offer an invitation to join him. I didn't expect one. But that doesn't stop me from doing it anyway, from grabbing the door and stepping inside the kitchen where he is.
He's gotten straight to work, slicing tomatoes. I'm quiet, as I join him, but he hears me.
Senses me.
Knows me.
"Something you need from me, Ignazio?" he asks, frustration tingeing his voice. "Because I don't remember inviting you to come hang out this morning."
Or any morning.
"I just wanted to check to see how you were."
He laughs at that.
Laughs.
"You didn't come around here for years. Years. You didn't care how I was doing when you were out running these streets, causing problems. Didn't care how it affected anyone else when you were making these enemies. Why should I believe you suddenly care now?"
"I've always cared."
He turns around, using the knife to point at me. "Bullshit. The only people you ever cared about were the people who could do things for you, so tell me, Ignazio… what do you need from me?"
My skin prickles at that accusation.
I don't like it.
It might be the truth, I don't know, but it feels like a lie.
I certainly care about Karissa. Maybe, at the start, it had been about what she could do for me, but it's more than that now. A lot more. Even when she wasn't giving me the time of day, when she wanted nothing to do with me, I cared about what happened to her. I worried about her. And not because I knew it would destroy me to lose her… because it would. There would be no coming back from that. But when it came down to it, I worried for her, because of her. I didn't want her to get hurt. I would've sacrificed myself to make sure she walked away unscathed.
And I did.
I let her go.
I told her to walk away.
But she came back.
"She says you're different, you know," he continues, turning back around to continue slicing his tomatoes. "I've been trying to see it… to see what she sees… but you don't seem any different to me."
I want to tell him it's because he's not looking hard enough, but that's a lie and I know it. The problem is, he's looking harder than Karissa is. She thinks I'm different because she wants me to be. And I'm trying to be. But I'm still me.
I can't be anybody but me.
At some point, every part of me became every part of that. The life isn't just something I lived… it was how I survived. It infused itself into every one of my cells, infecting every mitochondrion. It's in my blood and my bones, and unless you drain me dry and rip me to pieces, you'll never rid me of all of it.
It's like expecting a man to survive without a beating heart in his chest.
Expecting him to breathe without lungs.
Expecting him to fight when he has no reason to live.
It's like expecting a man to still be a man after taking away everything that makes him who he is.
I can be good to her.
I might even be good for her.
But that doesn't mean I'm good.
My father knows that.
"I love her."
"I know you do."
That wasn't the response I expected from him. Figured he'd fight me on that, say I wasn't capable of loving anybody.
"You do?"
He nods. "Figure you must, since she's still alive."
Hearing him say that makes my chest tighten. "What makes you think I ever planned to kill her?"
He shoots a look over his shoulder, his eyes narrowed. "I never said you did."
Huh. I suppose he didn't.
I can tell by the look of disgust that crosses his face that I just gave a key piece of information away. He thought I'd get her killed. Hell, he still thinks I'll get her killed. But until now, he never realized I'd sunk so low that I would've killed her myself.