We stare at each other for a minute. And maybe he’s right about me, because I’m hoping Il Diavolo shows up and puts a bullet in his brain, puts him out of his misery so I don’t have to do it.
“He wasted my talents,” Little Al says at last. “I could have been something great. I could have been a legend. Instead, I was your fucking babysitter.”
“Maybe he didn’t trust you,” I say. “Can you blame the guy?”
“I’m his fucking grandson!” Little Al throws up his hands, then howls in pain at the reminder of his broken bones. “He never respected me, never listened to me,” he rants. “I had great ideas, but he passed me over every fucking time. I’m next in line, but he didn’t teach me shit. I’m twenty-three years old, and I’m still doing the same fucking job I was doing when I started.”
“Maybe he could tell you were a sneaky son of a bitch, and he was never going to let you take over. Al’s a smart man. He probably knew you were a coward.”
“I’m not a fucking coward,” Little Al growls, his eyes looking feral in the pale lights reflected off the water. “If I were, I wouldn’t have risked it all to get him out of the picture.”
“You tried to kill your own grandfather because you didn’t get a promotion?” I ask, hardly believing anyone could be so small.
“Because I’ll never get the fucking promotion I deserve,” he rages. “Al’s not going anywhere anytime soon. The guy’s over fifty and still going strong. If no one took him out, he’d be around another twenty years. Was I just supposed to wait around until I’m almost fifty before I take over? It’s my rightful place! He had his turn. It’s my turn!”
“I don’t think so.”
“You can’t kill me,” he says, his eyes going even more wild than they already are. “I have a wife, a kid! Let me go, King. What’s it to you? Here, take my things. Bring Al my watch, tell him you killed me.” He pulls off his watch and tosses it at my feet, then starts taking off anything else he can, tossing his wallet and shoes down with them.
“You know it doesn’t work like that,” I say, but I consider it. What would it hurt if I stripped him of everything he owns, everything that identifies him, and let him run? I could tell Uncle Al I dumped his body in the river.
I think of my sister sinking into the river. What if she didn’t die that night?
But of course she did. Just like Little Al has to die tonight.
“What does it matter if you let me go?” he presses. “I was your partner, King. I did right by you. You think you’ll come back a hero if you kill me, but just watch. You’ll never move up. You’ll be stuck at the bottom forever. He doesn’t care about you. He doesn’t care about anyone but himself, the selfish old bastard.”
“And you did?” I ask. “That’s why you thought it would be funny to send me into a death trap that you set up yourself?”
“I told you, I wasn’t even thinking about you,” he says. “It wasn’t about you!”
“You’re right,” I say, cocking the gun. “It wasn’t about me, but you didn’t care if I died, if I leftmywife a widow. It was all just a cruel joke to you, pushing me to join Al because you couldn’t handle the fact that he saddled you with a rookie.”
“Don’t shoot,” he says, holding up both hands. “I’m unarmed, man. You don’t wanna do this. Please. I’ll disappear, and no one will ever know you didn’t do it.”
“I’ll know,” I say quietly. I’ll know, and I’ll never sleep easy knowing he’s out there, that he could show up and put another hit on me so I can’t tell anyone else.
I think of Little Al telling me, “get hard or get had.” I think of Eliza telling me I can do it. Of my sister, at the bottom of the ocean, sleeping in peace with her boyfriend, someone she loved enough to die for. Little Al can rest easy, too, but he’s never loved anyone enough to die for them. He’ll mention his wife and kid now, but he wasn’t thinking about them when he risked everything. Uncle Al has shown me more kindness in our few encounters than this shithead ever did. He’s the one who only cares about himself.
I care about someone else. Someone I need to get home to because she’ll be waiting and worrying, wondering if tonight will be the night I don’t come home. She’s been through so much, lost her brother and her mother and her childhood. She doesn’t need to lose her husband, too. I promised her I’d never leave. I intend to keep that promise.
I’d die for her if that’s what she needed. But she doesn’t. She needs me to kill for her.
I always knew this moment was coming. I knew before I even took the oath of omerta that I’d be here one day. That Uncle Al would ask me to kill someone when it wasn’t in a moment of passion and instinct, someone from our own family. A cold-hearted kill. I have to do it or take the target’s place. If I can’t kill a traitor, then I am a traitor. If I don’t have it in me to kill a man, then I’m a dead man myself.
Little Al made his choice. I need to make mine. To prove I’m worthy of the Life, of Uncle Al’s trust, of the beautiful, broken wife they gave me.
For her.
I pull the trigger. Little Al drops to his knees, his eyes wide, as if he can’t believe I had the balls to shoot him. He clutches his chest, his bewildered gaze finding mine. The moon behind me reflects in his eyes, and I’m grateful for what it hides.
“You—You shot me,” he says in disbelief.
“You knew what you were doing,” I say, my voice hard, as empty as my chest. “You chose to turn your back on family. You know this is the way it has to be.”
I pull the trigger again, and he falls forward on his hands before crumpling to the dirty pavement. I’m relieved I don’t have to see his eyes. But I bend and swipe a hand over his face to close them, anyway. It’s the least I can do. I didn’t hate Little Al. I’d rather it ended some other way. But this is how it is.
I turn and head back up the bank, leaving his body. When I reach the pillar he hid behind, just ten feet back, a figure steps out of the shadows. I nearly shoot before I register the hulking giant form of Il Diavolo.