by Violet Paige
He raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”
“I’m pregnant.”
His eyes grew wide and a smile spread across his face. “Is this why you came back?”
I nodded, choking back tears. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you right away. I needed to have some time with you first. I just needed to know more about you.”
“Because we’re having a baby?” He could barely contain his excitement.
“Yes. Because we’re having a baby.” I smiled back at him. His happiness was infectious.
He kissed me fully on the lip and I lay back on the pillows once more. I hoped the Chinese guy was comfortable with waiting a while. I’d make sure we gave him a good tip.
20
Luka
The next morning, I met my family at mass. I watched people walk past me with their children and I felt pride swell in my chest. I would be one of them soon. I would be a father.
I was still avoiding Vienna and her secret. She hadn’t tried anything yet; maybe she never would. I mean we were a family now. Even if she had wanted the truth about her parents before, that couldn’t matter to her anymore, could it?
I should have dealt with her. Found out the truth. But whenever she was naked, my mind went blank. I couldn’t focus on what was real and what wasn’t. All that I wanted was to be inside her. It was like she had a magic pussy or something. And now she was having my baby. Her pussy really was magic.
“Luka! Come give your mother a kiss!”
I bent down and hugged her. “Mama, how are you?”
“I'm good, my son. Good. Come see everyone! They’ve been waiting so long to see you.”
She looped her arm through mine, and I escorted her over to a group of gossiping old Italian women. They parted like the Red Sea and led us into their circle. I spent the next twenty minutes listening to how much older I had gotten and how I filled out, as well as how I wasn't eating enough and how I still looked so young. I smiled and nodded, appreciating that they didn't have any real questions about myself. They only asked what they wanted to know. None of the hard stuff.
“Now Luka, you're getting to a certain age. Gloria here wants grandbabies. When are you going to settle down and find a nice girl? It would make everyone so happy.”
Well, that was the question I wasn’t expecting. “You know me, ladies, not really a one woman man.” I shouldn’t have lied. My mother would have to find out about Vienna soon enough, she’d want to plan a big baby show. That ought to be interesting.
My mother slapped me playfully. “You silly boy! One day, he will give me grandchildren. But until then, he should have some fun. He was away for so long.”
They all nodded understandingly. Women were strange. I really didn't want to have a conversation on my sex life with them.
“Mama, the bells are going to ring soon. We should take our seats.” She waved goodbye to friends and I escorted her into the church. Members of our family took up almost half of the chapel. At least ten rows were other guys like me in suits, with old Italian mothers sitting next to them. My family sat right in the front row. Another level of respect. We received communion first and were blessed by the father first. Everyone else waited behind us.
When mass was over and we walked back outside into the summer sun, I felt free again. I never had any issues with my Catholicism before, but suddenly bringing my knife and a gun into a place of worship did not seem like the right thing to do. Besides, nothing had ever happened to us at mass. I should've just left them in my car. I saw Marco standing uncomfortably near the door, and I wondered if he felt the same way.
“It's been a while since I've been here.”
He nodded to me, but his eyes were elsewhere. He was always on the lookout. It was his job.
“What did the father say? Did he ask where you’ve been?”
I shrugged. “He told me to make sure I start coming back to confession. But I did my confessions in prison. I was one of the most religious guys in there. I didn’t want to take up all the father’s time when I got out.”
We both laughed. A man walked up to us in a dark blue suit. I didn't recognize him. I noticed that his body was tense.
He had sandy blonde hair and a light complexion. I looked into his eyes but there was no recognition there.
He extended his hand to me. “I assume you’re Luka.”
There were Jersey undertones in his speech. My body went rigid.
“And you are?” I extended my own hand.
“Luis, Luis Agnelli. Is there somewhere we can go and speak in private? I don't want to disturb the parishioners.”
I lifted my hand toward the church. He nodded and walked up the steps back into the chapel. He sat down in one of the pews about halfway in. I looked over my shoulder to Marco. “No one comes in and no one comes out. Understood?”
Marco nodded and closed the doors behind me. It was so quiet. Rarely had I come to the church when it was empty. A couple times, I'd come to pray as a teenager. Especially after Vienna had been taken. I felt small in its presence. I sat behind him and he turned around to face me. I wasn't expecting that.
“It seems you met with one of our dealers. He wasn't very pleased. I appreciated the handiwork.”
“I'm glad. But that doesn't tell me why you're here. We don't do business on Sundays. It’s the day of rest.”
He put up his hands. “If it wasn't important, I wouldn’t drag you away from your family time. I only just got out of mass myself. I understand.”
“Fine. What is it you want to talk about?”
“You have a rat. And he is playing you.”
“Armani…”
“So you already know then. And Vienna? What do you know about her?”
He was smart, and he knew too much. I couldn’t kill him here. Not in the church. I cracked my knuckles. But he couldn’t threaten the mother of my child either.
“I think the question is here, what do you know? I haven’t seen her in years, but I recently heard she is running with your family now, is that true?”
“Haven’t seen her, really? I’ve heard otherwise.”
I maintained my innocence. “Why would she be here?”
“No idea. A little crush I guess? Everyone knows you’re out. Armani has been talking.”
“And now so have you.”
He shrugged, “Not the same. See Armani got planted here by Roberto, to keep an eye on you. He wasn’t supposed to do any real business. But he got greedy, and he took some of my customers. I told Roberto but he won’t listen. So I figured I’d tell you, and you could take care of the problem for me.”
“Sounds fair, you get your business back, we get revenge on a rat. But Roberto will kill you if he finds out.”
“Doubt it.”
Roberto killing him wasn’t my problem, why did I care?
“Why?”
“Because I’m the only one who knows he planted Vienna here to kill you, and if I tell the family, well, they won’t be too happy about it. We’ve been under your father’s radar doing business on these docks for three years, if he fucks that up with some personal vendetta, he’ll be the dead one.”
“So what do you want me to do about it?”
“You take care of Armani. I keep my mouth shut. And this meeting never happened.”
“Obviously.” I thought about it for only a moment. “Fine. My father is meeting with Armani tomorrow at one of our restaurants. I’ll take care of it then.”
“Where? I want assurance the job is done.”
“We own a restaurant, down on Fifth. Best manicotti in town. Come there at 6pm and you’ll see. But not with your crew. I hate extra people.”
He nodded at me. “Sounds delicious. And I agree, extra guests just means extra problems. Besides this a favor for me, and me alone.”
“Fine. I don’t want to deal with any more business today.”
“See you around 6 PM. And just a reminder—I am the arms dealer at the table. So obviously I’ll be packing.
If you don’t finish the job, I will.”
“I wouldn’t imagine it going any other way.”
Both of us sat there in silence for another minute or two before I stood and walked out. Marco held the door open for me and I descended the steps. I walked up behind my father. “Tomorrow’s meeting is being watched. I’m finishing this.”
He smiled at me like I just told him a funny joke and continued his conversation with some of the other regular churchgoers. I walked to my car and started it up. There wouldn’t be any Sunday dinner for me. I had to prepare.
21
Vienna
I looked at my phone, considering calling Roberto, but also considering smashing into a million pieces. Luka hadn't shared any shiny new information in the few days that we'd been together. And if nothing had come out yet, it wasn't going to. I made a clear decision in my mind. Luka had nothing to do with my parents’ deaths.
At least that was what I was telling myself.
I sat at the apartment without anything else to do. I considered going out for a walk or to go do some more shopping, but everything just seemed so frivolous. I’d come out of hiding to do a job, and I hadn't been successful in my uncle’s eyes. But I decided to call him and tell him my decision anyway. It was the easiest thing to do.
“Roberto, it's Vienna.”
“What did you learn?”
“Nothing. The Giotis had nothing to do with the death of my parents. It's time to let it go.”
There was silence on the other end of the line.
“Roberto? Are you there?”
He sighed, “Of course I'm here. You're wrong, Vienna. I will convince you in the end.”
“You can try. Luka and I are together now. I'm not going to lie to myself and deny my feelings anymore. I want to be with him. And you're going to leave him alone, and leave me out of it.”
“Don't you want revenge? Your whole life was destroyed because of them. Don’t you realize that?”
I had realized that. Luka was building it back up piece by piece, and I couldn't risk things with him. We were starting our family now. I was terrified to leave Roberto—he might even try to come for me—but I needed to move on. “I built my own life now. Don’t ever call me again.”
“You’re just like your dumb mother. Running out on family, that's a death sentence. Look at what happened to her.”
“Luka will not let that happen to me.” I ended the call before I had a chance to listen to anything else he had to say. I made my decision. Now we just had to tell his family.
I walked over to the closet and pulled out one of the new dresses I had bought. A surprise at Sunday dinner would be perfect. Just get it all out in the open at once. I would call Luka and ask him to meet me, tell him everything. In the end, I hoped he would understand.
Just as I was about to slip into the dress, I heard keys in the door.
“Luka? Is that you?”
The door opened and I walked out of the closet, expecting to see him in his Sunday best. He left the apartment this morning in a sexy suit with a dark blue tie. I hadn't seen him ever look hotter. But as I held the dress up to myself and turned around, I stifled a scream.
My uncle was standing in the bedroom. And he had a gun pointed at my head.
22
Vienna
“What the hell are you doing here? Put that gun down!”
I looked at the man in front of me. He looked completely deranged. His usual suit was replaced with jeans and a T-shirt. His hair that was usually combed to one side was disheveled. His hands shook and his finger was on the trigger.
“I've been watching you. I knew you would side with them in the end.”
“Side with who? The Giotis? They haven't done anything wrong! What you're doing right now is wrong. Put the gun away, Roberto!” My voice wavered. I felt like I couldn’t breathe. What was he doing?
Was I going to die over this? Would I lose the new family I was building?
He shook his head and wiped sweat from his brow. “I can't do that.”
He moved toward me, and I felt the clothes against my back as I reached the corner of the closet. I didn't have any weapons, and I wasn't the type of girl to be good in a fight. I was in trouble.
“Why can't you? I'm your niece! Don't you want the bloodshed to end?”
“You can't really be with him. He's a traitor. He took your family from you. Can't you see that?”
“I guess love just creates blinders. It doesn't matter to me about the past. I'm looking forward to my future. You can have a future too, uncle. You just have to put the gun down.”
He shook his head. “You’re just like her. Running away from the family.”
“I'm not like her. I'm not trying to run away from you. I just need this to end. I've made my choice!”
“That's what she said. Right before she packed her things and got in the car with that drunk bastard that brought her here. And then she really turned her back on us by working for another family. Like they were her blood! They were not her family. We are.”
I needed time. I needed to calm him down and make my way over to the bed where the gun was hidden beneath the mattress. I needed to shoot my uncle. It was the only way I would ever get out of this alive. I had to protect myself and my baby. All of these years of pent up aggression toward my mother and wondering the truth about what happened to her had made him a crazy man.
I should have seen the signs earlier. When I first went to live with him, my grandmother was still alive. She would cook for us every night, and sitting at that table with the two of them felt like home. But every night, during prayers, my uncle would mention my mother, and it always broke my heart.
When my grandmother passed, he became more unhinged. I remembered family members coming to the house and telling him he needed to get his life together. That was when he started focusing on finding my mother’s killer. I should have noticed then. The times he would stay up all night watching Baltimore news online. How much he visited my mother’s grave. He began prepping me for Luka’s release. All the things I needed to say, to do, to make sure he fell for me.
But neither of us had planned on me falling in love with him. Or maybe I had lied to him and myself this whole time. Did I really want the truth, or did I just want a reason to be close to Luka again? I wasn’t sure. Clearly, that had fueled his insanity further. I needed to figure out a way to escape.
I refused to be his next victim.
23
Luka
As I walked up the stairs, I realized that I didn't recognize the car out front. Maybe there was a new tenant in the building. That seemed odd to me, as I hadn't seen any recent moving trucks. But I guessed one of the lofts could've been rented for a few weeks. I'd only been back less than a week myself.
In less than one month, shit had completely hit the fan. Between finding Vienna and falling back in love with her, her pregnancy, a rat, and the threat of the Agnelli family, my world was coming unhinged. And I wasn’t happy about it.
When I saw my door open, I realized my world could still explode.
I pulled a knife from underneath my pants and I crept into my own apartment on high alert. I could hear two people arguing in the bedroom. One of them was clearly Vienna, and the other had a thick Italian accent that I didn't recognize. They were arguing about her mother, actually, about both of her parents. Who would come here to talk about that? Had my father found out she was here and sent someone to finish her? I had been so careful in the church, no one had heard.
This didn't make any sense. I stood in silence next to the open doorway of my bedroom. I craned my neck to get a quick glance around the corner of the white walls. There was a man, definitely older than me, standing with a gun pointed into the closet. As I heard the conversation continue, I realized that Vienna was hiding in the closet from him.
Fucking bastard. Whoever the hell he was, he would pay for scaring my girl.
I gripped the handle of my knife and I backed up away f
rom the doorway. I would need to charge at him. And bullets were faster than people. I took a deep breath and prepared myself. I held my breath and sprinted into the bedroom, slamming my body into his and tackling him to the ground. He hadn't even heard me coming, as his focus was solely on Vienna.
As I knocked him down to the ground, the gun went off.
Luckily, it shot up toward the ceiling, and I felt the drywall fall down on us. I grabbed his gun hand and slammed it on the ground, forcing him to loosen his grip. It fell away, just out of his reach. I pinned down both of his arms, dropping my knife in the process.
“Who the hell are you?”
He didn't move. He didn't even struggle and try to get away. He knew he was outnumbered. Vienna picked up the gun from the floor and pointed it at him. Her hands were shaking; she would never be able to take the shot.
“Vienna, baby, there's rope in the closet. Get it for me.”
She nodded, sucking her lower lip; she was terrified.
“Now I’m going ask you again, who are you? And what the hell are you doing in my house?”
“Ask her.” He looked directly in Vienna’s direction. She emerged from the closet, holding a thick rope in her hands.
“Where did you put the gun?”
“I left it in there.”
I nodded to her. “Good. Now, let’s tie this bastard up.”
I instructed her to get a chair from the dining room, and she pulled it into the bedroom, where I picked his ass up and slammed it down. I half expected the chair to break underneath his weight and my force, but it held. I quickly tied his hands to the chair behind his back and I waited for someone to speak. Vienna was on the bed with her knees pulled up to her chest, chewing on her nails. She looked as young and terrified as she had when they loaded her into the police car that night. It killed me to see it.
“Is someone going to tell me what the hell is going on here?”
