Well, not anymore.
His hands were sliced off at the wrists.
He was wearing them around his neck like fucking jewelry.
Fucking hell. She did it for me.
After the night I’ve had. I’m not doing any more fucking clean-ups. I meant what I said about her tempting me. There’s a reason I distanced myself from my family.
I park behind the cluster of Italian sports cars. I’m last to arrive as I enter the old church. Voices echo from somewhere inside. It’s colder than a nun’s tit but I pull off my glove and dab some holy water in the sign of the cross. I’m not religious per se, but I’ll be fucked if I let any of my family see me walking in without making a blessing. They’re a bunch of superstitious fuckers.
Only Kristian would choose to fucking meet in a House of God while being wanted for running a money laundering op, and murdering his own wife.
Three of my uncles and two of my cousins greet me as I enter the room at the rear of the church, but it’s my brother I only have eyes for. His blue eyes, near-identical to mine, look to me from his seat at the table. An expensive bottle of champagne is open in the middle and several glasses are half-filled. It looks like a fucking celebration. I guess in a way it is.
I put my phone away.
“Baby fucking brother, grab a glass. We’re just about to make a toast,” he calls at me.
I steel myself and walk over. “To what?” I say gruffly.
Kristian looks at me, searching. Searching for fucking what? My face is neutral. I know better than to show any kind of emotion that I don’t want to be used against me.
He hands me a glass. “To fucking freedom from bitches and witches.”
Bitches. He means Nancy, his late wife. Witches. He means our fucking whore of a mother.
I don’t miss a beat.
I take the glass and toast him back, gulping down a mouthful of wine.
He breaks out into a huge grin. “My fucking baby brother,” he exclaims, bear-hugging me while our uncles and cousins laugh and toast around us. Then it’s on to business. The kind of business you don’t want to know about. Who owes who. Who’s fucked over who. Who needs reminding that they’ve fucked up. The list goes on…
“I thought you’d given all this up? What did you want to be? A rally driver or some shit?” Kristian says. It didn’t take long for him to make a beeline for me after the meeting. I knew he would. I’ve not seen Kristian for several years. I was barely in seniors when he was kicked out of Sacred Heart for disfiguring a teacher. Kristian was never the type to let sleeping angels lie.
“MotoGP.”
He looks at me blankly.
“Bike racing?”
“Really? You any good?”
“I was until I got suspended.” Eighteen months they gave me, for a fucking test that was rigged.
My brother pats me on the back. “Harsh mate, fucking harsh. Could be a good thing? We get to spend more time together, eh?” He pats my back again, so hard this time I choke on my fucking beer.
After he left school, he was almost never at home. Then he got married to Nancy Haines, daughter of some East End upstart gangster who thought he could move in on our business. Kristian shot her point-blank in the head on their goddamn wedding night for dobbing him and his operation into the cops. Not that she was completely innocent. Nancy Haines had a reputation for being a cold, heartless bitch.
“We’ll see.” I can’t lie to my brother, but I don’t plan on doing anything of the sort. It’s the wrong thing to say because Kris’s eyes glaze over and he grabs me by the jaw, squeezing hard enough to almost dislocate it.
“You’ll see? What’s this I hear about you sending fucking bodies to my factory to be made into fucking fertilizer?”
I can’t speak with him holding my face, so I just glare at him.
“That’s my business you’re putting at risk. The crematorium, the factory, the supply chain, all of it. You may be my brother and I love you. But don’t you ever fucking forget what’s mine.” He lets go and pats my cheek, all fucking smiles. “Welcome back to the fucking family.”
“Don’t do that again,” I say in a low voice. “I’m a Vice, not one of your pussy men.”
My brother laughs.
It’s the same laugh my brother used on the phone when he called me up after he shot Nancy.He’s as fucked in the head as our mother.
Welcome back to the fucking family.