by JM Darhower
“Is Carmine number three?” The words flew from her mouth before she had enough sense to restrain them.
“Yes, but I doubt you want to call it. Any trouble you encounter won’t be nearly as bad as the trouble that follows my youngest son. So if you need anything, call the first two.”
“Okay.” She stared at the phone. “How do I do that?”
Sighing, Dr. DeMarco gave some quick instructions on how to place a call. A flurry of thoughts hit her as she listened, but Dr. DeMarco cut them off. “I’ll know any time it’s used, so don’t get any bright ideas like calling 911.”
Her brow furrowed. “Who’s 911?”
He stared at her as if he thought she might be joking. “Let’s just say calling 911 is the last thing you want to do, child.”
Dr. DeMarco left, and those words ran through Haven’s mind as she wandered the house. She ended up back in the family room after a while, standing in front of the white telephone once again.
Picking it up, she turned it on like Dr. DeMarco had shown her. She hit the ‘9’ button before pressing the number ‘1’, her finger hovering over the ‘1’ again. She stood there for a moment, her heart pounding rapidly, before pressing the button to turn off the phone.
She did it three more times before placing the phone back into its cradle and leaving the family room, too frightened to press the last number.
The sun was setting by the time Haven ended up in the library again. She came across some paper and swiped a few pieces, finding a pencil before eagerly running to her room. She lay down in bed and started sketching, her mama’s face emerging on the paper. With no pictures, Haven was desperately afraid she’d forget what she looked like, afraid her memory would fade with time. She missed having someone to talk to, someone who could understand. She’d never felt as alone in her life as she did at that moment.
Drawing had come natural to Haven. When she was little, around the age of seven, her first mistress, Monica, gave her paper and crayons. It was the first time she’d given her anything, and it turned out to be the last, but it was a gift Haven cherished until the last crayon disappeared.
As she grew older, she’d sneak supplies from the ranch house, but afterward destroyed all evidence so no one would find out. She usually folded the sketches and stuck them in her pocket, burying the paper in the desert ground the first chance she got.
Haven lost track of time as she immersed herself in the drawing of her mama, and it was nearing midnight when the sound of music captured her attention. It was earlier than she’d heard it the other nights. Curious, she set the drawing aside and climbed out of bed, creeping toward the door.
Carmine sat in the library, holding a tan acoustic guitar. Darkness obstructed Haven’s view of his face, but the glow from the moonlight illuminated his hands as he plucked the strings.
She took a few steps forward, entranced as the music smoothed out and grew louder. It swirled all around her, goose bumps springing up as the melody seeped into her skin. Her stomach fluttered and limbs tingled, warmth spreading throughout her body. She closed her eyes, reveling in the foreign sensation, until the music stopped.
Haven’s eyes snapped back open, and she could see his face then, still partially encased in the shadows. He frowned, staring at her with questions in his eyes, but she had no answers to give.
Turning on her heel, Haven ran back into the room and closed the door, pressing her back against it as the music started up once more.
* * * *
The next morning, Carmine woke up earlier than usual and grabbed a bowl of cereal, his footsteps faltering as he stepped into the family room. Dominic sat on the couch with a Sports Illustrated in his hands, and Haven was beside him, neither of them speaking. Baffled, he just stood there as his brother glanced in his direction. “What’s up, bro?”
Before he could utter a single word, Haven leapt to her feet and scurried from the room. Carmine watched her retreating form before taking the seat she’d vacated. “She acts like I’m diseased and she’s gonna catch something by coming near me.”
Dominic nodded. “I noticed.”
“I haven’t done anything.” He paused. “I don’t think, anyway.”
“You just don't realize how abrasive you come off,” Dominic said. “You don’t even have to say a word. It’s the way you look at people.”
Carmine shrugged. There wasn’t anything he could do about that. It was just the way he was. “Whatever. There’s obviously something wrong with her.”
“Have you taken the time to ask her what it might be?”
“Didn’t have a chance,” he said. “Like I said, she runs from me.”
“Well, maybe if you took an interest in her, she wouldn’t act so sketchy around you.”
“Is that what you did—took an interest?” Carmine asked. “I’m not sure Tess would be happy about that.”
Dominic shoved him, spilling some of his cereal. “I was nice to her, bro. You should try it sometime.”
Carmine brushed some of the stray Lucky Charms from his lap, glaring at the wet patch from where the milk had soaked into his pants. “Asshole.”
* * * *
Vincent DeMarco was an easily recognized man. The people in Durante knew him as the talented doctor, the dedicated single father, the wealthy bachelor that women rigorously pursued. With his deep olive skin and chiseled features, he wasn’t hard to look at, either. Although he had accumulated a few wayward gray hairs, he appeared younger than his forty years. He was like his father in that way. Antonio DeMarco had died at fifty when he looked more like a youthful thirty-five.
Genetics, Vincent thought, was a peculiar thing.
Although he was well-known, very few people actually saw the man behind the mask. Vincent felt like he was living two vastly different lives, both equally real yet at odds with each other. He liked to believe he was that family man the others saw him as, but he knew he was also committed to a different type of family.
A family not bonded by genetics, instead forged by spilled blood and sworn oaths. LCN, the government called it, short for La Cosa Nostra, but it was known by many different names: la famiglia, borgata, outfit, syndicate. It all meant the same. The Mafia.
He’d taken a step back from the life years ago, moving away from Chicago and the center of the action, but there was no leaving the organization. Once it had you in its brutal grasp, you were indebted to it for life. He was kept on as an unofficial consigliere to the Don, Salvatore Capozzi. Vincent’s job was to play the middle-man for him, to give advice when asked and come when called, and he did so obediently, taking care of whatever needed to be handled. But just because he was good at what he did, didn’t mean he enjoyed doing it.
Vincent sat in the smoky den of the mansion in Lincoln Park, holding a full glass of scotch in his hand as he listened to the swarm of men debate business. There were nearly twenty of them, but Vincent wasn’t sure why half were there. They had no say in how things were run, some of them so new they hadn’t earned their buttons. There was no reason to trust them—no reason to confide in them—considering there was no blood on their hands.
Not to say he wanted them to be murderers. The opposite was true. He envied their clear consciences and wished he could warn them all to turn away. Get out, while they still could, because someday it would be too late… and that someday would probably end with a lengthy prison sentence.
Or a hollow-point bullet to the brain. Vincent hadn’t yet decided which outcome would be worse.
But he couldn't warn anyone. He'd sworn an oath to put the organization first, and if the organization wanted these dime-a-dozen thugs, then Vincent would deal with his ill feelings silently. He’d been initiated young—one of the youngest made men in history. Usually guys struggled for decades trying to prove themselves worthy before given the honor of joining the ranks, most never surviving long enough to see it happen. But not Vincent. He’d slipped right in the door while his father was in control.
He wasn’
t the youngest to do business with them. Far from it. Kids are recruited fresh from high school, molded into vindictive soldiers to do the family’s bidding. The young ones take all the risk, while those at the top with their names on the books lavish in the fruits of their labor. Blood money. Hundreds had died to pay for the mansion they sat in that very moment.
“We cannot tolerate these things. They are savages.”
Giovanni was speaking, his thick accent making Vincent strain to pay attention. Sicilian by birth, he'd immigrated to America a decade ago and moved up in rank to become their highest producing Capo. Some of his crew was present, sitting off to the side. Vincent had a hard time remembering the names of the soldati sometimes, but one he was familiar with was Nunzio.
Nunzio was barely an adult but had been lurking around for years. They called him Squint because of the way his eyes seemed to always be half-closed, his face stuck in a roguish scowl. He kept his head buzzed, a light dusting of brown hair showing, and his eyes were the grayish color of cracked earth. The Don's brother, Luigi, had taken him in as a baby and married his mother, so Salvatore had a soft spot for the boy.
The men continued to argue back-and-forth as Vincent swirled the scotch around in his glass, having no intention of drinking it. He remained quiet until the unmistakable voice of the Don chimed in, speaking directly to him. “What do you think, Vincent?”
I think I want to go home. “I think being hasty will backfire. I don’t like the way the Russians conduct business, either, but they've yet to hurt any of our people.”
“They will,” Giovanni said. “It is only a matter of time.”
“If they do, it'll have to be handled,” Vincent said, “but until that time comes, who are we to police another group? If they keep it up, it’ll divert attention to them instead of us.”
Vincent looked across the room at where the Don sat in his favorite chair. In his late sixties, Sal was shaped like a balloon and sounded like he was perpetually full of helium. He’d been the underboss when Vincent’s father ran things and succeeded rule after he died. Antonio dubbed him ‘Salamander’ back then. “If you scare a salamander, he’ll drop his tail and run,” he’d said. “No skin off his back. Two weeks later, he’s good as new.”
The comparison made them snicker, but it was a nickname no one ever called Sal to his face. Not if they wanted to live.
Sal nodded as he mulled over Vincent's words. “You’re right. Maybe they’ll take themselves out with their stupidity.”
Squint laughed dryly, but tried to cover it with a forced cough when everyone looked his way. The guy beside him seemed annoyed by his friend's outburst, another soldato whose name eluded Vincent. He thought it might be Johnny, along with about a hundred others running around the streets. His looks certainly fit the name—generic, undistinguishable. Another number in the crowd, easily replaced and never missed. A tail, Vincent thought. Sal would drop him and keep going.
When Sal dismissed them with a wave of the hand, Vincent was the first out of his seat. He dumped the scotch and headed for the door, but Giovanni cut him off. “I think we are making a mistake, Doc. It will do us no good ignoring them now.”
“It’s not that we’re ignoring them,” Vincent said. “We’re just not going to instigate a fight. The last thing we need is violence on our streets over things that have nothing to do with us.”
Vincent headed for his rental car when Giovanni’s voice rang out once more. “Just because we do not know of anything yet does not mean they have not violated us. There will be war.”
Chapter 5
Carmine scanned the empty closet, pulling the last clean shirt off of the hanger. He put it on with a sigh and glanced around the messy room. The small piles of laundry had somehow morphed into mountains, nearly every piece of clothing he owned now dirty on the floor. Usually it wouldn’t have gotten that far, as he would’ve taken them to the local laundry service, but he had a problem—he was broke.
He strolled through the library to the other side of the floor and grabbed the doorknob to Dominic’s bedroom door, his brow furrowing when it wouldn’t turn. He could hear voices inside and pounded on the door.
Dominic opened it a moment later. “What do you want?”
Carmine glanced past him, seeing Tess lying across the bed in one of Dominic’s shirts, and cringed at the mental image of what he’d interrupted. “I need some money. All of my clothes are dirty.”
“You want money?”
“Yeah, a loan.”
“You have a funny way of asking, bro,” Dominic said. “And how are you going to pay me back for this loan when you don’t have a job?”
Carmine shrugged. “I’ll figure it out. I always do.”
“Yeah, you will,” Dominic said. “You’ll figure out how to do your own damn laundry for once.”
The door slammed in Carmine’s face before he could respond. Tess laughed inside the room as Carmine punched the wall before heading back to his bedroom. He grabbed his cell phone and dialed Dia’s home number, breathing a sigh of relief when she answered. “What do you want, Carmine?”
“What makes you think I want something?”
“Because I know you,” she said. “You don’t just call to chit-chat.”
He sighed. “My laundry needs done.”
“You want me to do your laundry?”
“Yes. I don’t know who else to ask.”
“Well, how much money do you have?”
“None. I’ll owe you for it.”
All he heard was the sound of Dia’s laughter before she hung up.
Irritated, he picked up armfuls of clothes and tossed them in the hamper before dragging it downstairs. He cursed as he passed the office on the second floor, annoyed at the situation, but he was too damn stubborn to ask his father for anything.
After all, he thought, how hard could washing clothes be?
As soon as he got to the laundry room, his footsteps faltered when he heard the humming. Haven stood in front of the dryer, pulling clothes out and folding them. She glanced at him apprehensively as she quieted, her eyes darting from him to his hamper. He pulled it into the room and opened the washing machine door, shoving all of his clothes into it. It was overflowing, and he had to push on them to get the door closed. He looked around for some detergent and caught Haven’s eyes again as she gaped at him, holding a pair of pants.
He wasn’t sure what her problem was, but he was too aggravated to deal with it at the moment. Another week had passed with her avoiding him, dodging from rooms before he could even say hello.
“So, where’s the soap?” he asked. “You know, the Tide or whatever we use around here?”
Haven reached behind her and opened a small cabinet, pulling out a jug of laundry detergent. Carmine opened the washer door again as he took it from her, and he was about to pour it straight in when Haven sharply inhaled.
The intake of breath stalled him. “What?”
“Shouldn’t you put in the detergent first?”
He hesitated. “Should I?”
“I was taught to start it first, put the soap in second, and then add the laundry up to the line.”
“What line?”
“The line that tells you how far to fill the machine with clothes.”
“Oh.” He glanced at the washer. “There’s a limit?”
He set the jug of detergent down before pulling his clothes back out of it. Haven went back to folding, and he glared at the front of the washer. “Where’s the start button?”
“There isn’t a button,” she said. “You choose your setting and then you pull the dial.”
He glanced at her as she folded a shirt, annoyed by her nonchalance at doing laundry. “What exactly is my setting? It looks to me like the setting is the goddamn laundry room and the plot is I don’t know how to fucking turn this thing on.”
Her brow furrowed. “Should I do it for you?”
The question caught him off guard. “I don’t know.”
She reached over and turned the dial to colors. It started filling with water, and she measured some detergent before putting in half of his clothes. She worked briskly, pushing the hamper with the rest of the laundry off to the side before turning back to folding hers.
Carmine suddenly felt anxious as he stood there, unsure of what to say. All week long he’d invented conversations in his mind, shit he’d say to her when she stopped being evasive, and now that she was in front of him, he was drawing a blank. “So, you’re good at that.”
Awkward.
She smiled softly. “I’ve been doing it my whole life.”
“Yeah, well, this is a first for me,” he said. “So, who are you?”
She looked confused. “I told you my name.”
“I know, but that doesn’t tell me who you are. I mean, do you have a last name?”
She was quiet for a moment, continuing to fold her laundry. “Antonelli, maybe.”
“Maybe?”
“I don't really have one, but that’s his.”
He cocked his head to the side, studying her. “Whose?”
“My master’s.”
“What do you mean your master?”
“You know, my master where I came from.”
No, he didn’t know. “Where did you come from?”
“California, I think.”
“You think? Did you live there long?”
She nodded. “Until I came here.”
“You lived there your whole life, and you're not sure where it is?” He was stunned. “Did you hate the place or something?”
“Depends on what you mean by that.”
“Explain it to me.”
She sighed. “I didn’t like my master, but I had people there who understood me.”
“What about here?”
