“I keep those in the freezer. Tub’s full of blood at the moment though so you’ll have to clean yourself in the sink. Assuming you don’t mind organ meat.”
She grins a little and takes another sip. “How come I don’t know anything about this place?”
“I don’t bring people back here very often.”
“What about my brothers?”
“Casso’s been here once or twice but not Gavino or Fynn. Mostly it’s just a spot to sleep at night, assuming I can even make it here between jobs. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve passed out in the back seat of my car only to wake up to cops banging on my fucking window. Pigs won’t let a good man take a nap by the side of the road.”
She studies me as I lean casually against the counter.
“You work too hard.”
“Yeah, no shit.”
“Why? I mean, I know my brothers don’t push themselves like that. And I always figured people joined the Famiglia so they didn’t have to drive themselves like cattle dogs. So why do you?”
I stare at my whiskey and swirl it around. Why do I work so damn much and try so damn hard? It’s an impossible question to answer without tipping her off on my true feelings about her family.
Because the truth is, her father wouldn’t give a damn about me if I were just another routine soldier logging in hours and doing the bare minimum all for the vague thrill of the score and the pathetic little power trips being in the Famiglia inevitably brings.
No, I have to be twice as hard and ten times as intense, otherwise I’d be forgotten.
Instead of telling her that, I decide to give her another piece of me—one I haven’t given away in a very long time.
“I stayed with this foster family for about three or four months toward the end of my time in the system, so I was around fourteen or fifteen. The guy was named Jim, and he loved beating my ass with a belt, he’d slap me silly and whip me until I had big welts all over my back, but anyway, he said something once that stuck with me. I got a shitty grade in school because of course I did, my life was a wreck and I was barely hanging on, but he grabbed me by the hair and shoved my face against a mirror and said, ‘Nico, boy, there ain’t no fucking thing as having talent, there’s only trying hard and not trying at all. What you gonna do, boy? You gonna try hard or are you gonna be shit?’ For some reason, that stuck with me.”
She chews her lip as she runs a finger around the rim of her glass. “You’re telling me you work hard because an abusive foster parent told you to?”
I shake my head. “No, I work hard because he was right, even if he was a piece of shit. I decided a long time ago that if I was gonna be something, I’d give it my everything, no bullshit, no holding back. That’s why I’m all in with the Famiglia. It’s what I am.”
She looks at the floor as she finishes her drink and I’m trying to read her mood. I can’t figure it out, it’s like all the energy’s been sucked out of her body and I desperately want to find the girl I spanked just the day before—but she’s gone. Drifted away, replaced by this.
“Karah,” I say and wait until she meets my eye. “What happened with Elise yesterday?”
She turns red and shakes her head. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Casso told me what happened. What did Elise say?”
“It’s nothing. It’s just…” She trails off, walks to the gin, and pours more into the glass. She skips the tonic and throws half of it back. “I used to have these fits when I was younger. It’s really embarrassing and we don’t talk about it much anymore, but it was a big deal back then. I guess I was around thirteen or so, and they got worse and worse over the years until Papa sent me to see a bunch of different shrinks until one of them put me on meds. I took the pills for a couple years, but stopped a year back, and maybe I shouldn’t have.”
“What do you mean, fits?”
“It’s hard to explain. It’s like I’m trying to remember something, but the memory’s all fuzzy and only half there and it’s stabbing into my brain over and over again, taunting me but also torturing me.” She looks up and tries to smile. “You must think I’m crazy.”
“No, I don’t think you’re crazy at all.” I drift a little bit closer. I’d heard vague comments about her dealing with some issues a while back, but I never knew the details. A strange, twisting emotion fills my stomach—is that what empathy feels like? Strange.