“No, Mike. I quit now. Effective immediately.”
He cocks his small head, and his glasses slide down his nose. “You still have the monkey game—”
“Goodbye, Mike.” I adjust my satchel over my shoulder and saunter down the hall to the elevator. It lights up the floor where my feet are as the doors part, and I step inside.
“You’ll regret this. You—” Mike calls after me, but the doors close before I can hear anything else.Goodbye and good riddance.
TITO
TWO WEEKS EARLIER
Violence is such a perplexing principle of the life I’ve led since I was very young. It's a requirement in the family I’m a part of, although I’ve done my best to eschew it whenever possible. WhatIwant, what I’ve tried to accomplish for years now, is to convince my family to accept that there’s a way to blend technology with our existing lifestyle to lower, if not extinguish, the body count that they don’t seem to mind racking up.
Unfortunately, all it’s done so far is get me labeled the family nerd and mostly ignored. Today, though, I’m starting fresh, and that has me just outside my older brother Vicenzo’s office with a PowerPoint pitch on my iPad tucked under my arm.
“Come in,” he calls a moment after I’ve knocked. I step inside, and Vince looks up from his work, a hesitant smile on his face as he meets my eyes, as if he knows what I’m here for. “Have a seat, brother.” He motions to the chair across from him, and I do just that, placing my iPad on the desk between us.
“What brings you downstairs for the first time this week?” He laughs, and I crack a grin as I shake my head.
“Well…” I scratch the back of my head as I unlock my iPad, revealing the PowerPoint. Vince looks at it for a second, flipping through the slides before shifting his eyes back to me.
“You want us to use your inventions?”
“Not just you. Our entire Sicilian mafia family all over the world.”
He seems immediately drawn in, more so than usual, so I don’t waste time flicking through to the next slide. “This could be a way to initiate peace. Better technology, fewer deaths, and more trust between our alliances who will eventually get administered tech too. It’s the perfect way to show we value life without breaking that New Era objective by using old methods.” I swipe to the next slide, where there is a list of my inventions and descriptions of their use. This goes on for about ten slides. Hundreds of inventions with multiple services. Essentials and luxuries, but all equally useful in the grand scheme of things.
Vince sits back, and I expect the usual spiel,Pops will never go for it; it’s too expensive, too unusual, an unproven method that could just be a waste of time. The excuses have always been limitless. But this time, he surprises me.
“Maybe it’s time to consider it,” Vince says slowly. “I’ve been talking to our father–”
“Exactly!” I rush forward without allowing him to finish, too excited for this in to think my words through. “With the progress we’ve made in other areas, this could bolster our current course of action. We could even break free from the Russians with this type of tech. Get Espie out of the horrible deal Antonio and I made with them a year ago–”
Vince’s face goes suddenly pale, his eyes widening, and I realize what I just said.
Shit.
“What deal?” Vince’s voice is harsh. “Tito–”
“Look, the point is, the tech–”
“Tito, what deal?” Vince snaps, his voice taking on a tone that I normally only hear from our father, and I cringe back in my seat.
“I–we–” I sigh, wishing Antonio were here to smooth-talk our way out of this. He could stall a stampede with his words. Our original plan was going to be much more tactical than my spewing. By the time the matter was brought up, if it was brought up, it’d already be resolved. But that all has been on halt because Antonio and Stella have been so busy lately, I’ve barely gotten a hold of him to see how we are meant to work this shit out.
With Kias dead, it leaves Adrik, the next oldest brother, to wed Espie. I don’t know much about him, except that he’s rumored to be the black sheep of the family.Rough around the edgesdoesn’t begin to touch the rumors I’ve heard. He’s no one that any brother would want coming within a hundred miles of their sister, that’s for fucking sure.
“Tito, fucking answer me.” Vince snaps his fingers in front of my face.
Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fucking fuck.I’m on my own in this, and I can see all of my carefully constructed plans for this meeting falling apart, all because my mouth ran ahead of my brain. A problem since I was a kid, but never with these kinds of consequences.
“What deal did you make with the Russians?”
I let out a sigh. “A deal to join our families in marriage. We promised Espie or Olive, whoever was able at the time, to marry into their family.”
“You what?” He spits at me, words hitting together like a car wreck, causing me to cringe in the silence that follows.
“We—”