one
Trigger Warning: This book contains themes some way find triggering, including a character who endured child/sexual abuse. While these scenes are not graphically described, I know that even vague details can be disturbing to some, so proceed at your own risk. Only you know your limits. Please read responsibly.
King
I stand in the doorway to our Manhattan brownstone, inhaling the scent that used to be the smell of home. Now, it’s more like nostalgia, like when you hear that song on the radio from a simpler time, and it punches a hole right through your gut. It’s not the song or the smell that gets you, it’s going back for a second, to a time when you still thought your parents had all the answers and made the right decisions so you didn’t have to worry about knowing right from wrong and knowing they’re both valid choices. In the end, I suppose the sum total of a man is whether he chooses right more often than wrong.
I’ve done plenty of wrong, but maybe I’m still naïve enough to think I can do right sometimes, even in the profession that’s been chosen for me.
“King? Is that you?”
Ma’s voice starts the nostalgia loop all over again. I haven’t seen her in six months, and though that shouldn’t be long enough to make her feel like a memory, it is. A lifetime has passed in those months—my sister’s life, to be exact. Ma refused to join the family for any of the it—the search for the body, the final acceptance that we’d never find it, the funeral, the grief over the gaping hole left in our lives. I can’t really blame her. She specializes in cocktails and parties on yachts and high-pitched, tipsy giggling fits with women she pretends to like but wouldn’t hesitate to viciously destroy if she overheard a piece of gossip that could achieve that.
Pain is not her drug of choice. Glamour is.
She wraps me in an embrace, and the scent of a childhood that seems a distant memory swirls around me, a boozy mixture of old houses, Chanel No. 5, and gin. “Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes,” she murmurs against my chest before pulling back to look up at me. “You look just like your father. So tall. And handsome! Just look at you. You’ll make some girl a very lucky woman someday.”
I snort at that. “I doubt it. I couldn’t risk it. I don’t know how any man in the Life can get married, knowing he could be putting his family in danger with one wrong move—or leaving them without a father.”
“A man doesn’t have to be killed to leave a woman without a husband,” she says with a little pout.
“Come on, Ma,” I say, dropping my bag off and heading into the den with her. “Are you really playing the victim here?”
“Are you saying your father didn’t move halfway across the country and leave me here on my own?” she challenges.
I sigh. “No. He did.”
“I just never thought you’d all take his side and go with him,” she says, giving me a wounded look as she settles herself onto the sofa, folding her legs prettily beside her as if she’s posing for a picture. “Make us a drink, would you, love?”
“Sure, Ma.” I pour us each a gin and tonic. After the flight, I could use it. I take the recliner, not sure what else to say to her. On the one hand, she’s my ma and I love her. On the other… Well, there’s too much shit to unpack on the other.
“You told us to go with Dad,” I remind her at last. “Remember? You said you wanted to be alone and find yourself.”
“Well, I’d never been on my own,” she protests. “I went from my father’s house to your father’s. I’ve never been a single gal in Manhattan. It looks so glamourous on TV.”
“Ma, if you didn’t love him, why’d you marry him?”
She takes a long swallow and closes her eyes in contentment before speaking. “My father wanted me out of the Life, and Uncle Al knew this up-and-coming Italian businessman who would provide for me and keep me out of immediate danger. And your father can be charming when he puts his mind to it. Just ask all his little teenagecomares.”
I shake my head and lean forward, resting my elbows on my knees. I know the mafia arranges marriages sometimes, but my parents loved each other at some point. Not something I’m dying to dissect right now, with a big day coming up tomorrow.
“Ma, can we talk about this job?” I ask. I’d never show it, but my stomach has been fucked up for days. I barely know Al Valenti. He’s mom’s uncle and the boss of one of the New York families. But I’m not sure anyone really knows him. He’s quiet, a watcher, not the boastful hothead people picture as the leader of a successful mafia empire.
My service was promised to him in some business deal long before I knew who he was. What job he gives me depends on factors I don’t even fully understand, including who my mother is, our family’s image, money, and our status with him. Probably no one really knows what goes into the assignment except his consigliere.
“You’ll do great,” Mom says, smiling proudly at me. “Uncle Al loves you.”
I’m not sure Uncle Al loves anyone, but I know I can’t let him down. I can’t let our family down, either. It’s up to me to represent the Dolce branch, to make my father proud. Ma, too. She’s a Valenti by birth, and I know that even if I don’t carry that name, I’m supposed to be tougher than I am. I’m supposed to be as tough as someone who grew up in the Life, even though I didn’t. I’ve always known I’d have to leave the nest, that I was duty-bound to step into the Life when I turned eighteen, but knowing and experiencing are two different things.
“I’ve never killed a man,” I say, voicing my greatest concern.
Ma waves a hand as if to brush away my fears. “You’re eighteen, King. Just out of high school. Al doesn’t expect you to be a seasoned veteran.”
“He doesn’t?” I ask, relief gnawing at the edges of my nerves.
“Course not,” she says, tittering into her drink. “You grew up in the lap of luxury, and he’s the one who put us there. He knows the life you’ve led. You’ll probably have a babysitter for a year or two before you even get your hands dirty.”
“A babysitter?” I ask, bristling at the insult. I may not be a hardened criminal, but I have my pride. It doesn’t help that my own mother is laughing at the thought of me being dangerous.