by Raven Dark
I put in a call to the cops. When I’m patched through to the correct department, I give a description of the incident. The girl, the van, the men, the location.
I also note the time in my report. It’s eight in the morning, an hour before work. God, that girl was probably headed off to school. She’d probably been happily walking along, right past my dad’s building ten minutes before. It’s an ironic thought. My dad’s arm is very long in this city. He might be an asshole, but if he saw something like that, I’d have given it a hour before those guys would have ended up caught and buried six feet under by a couple of his goons.
The officer on the other end of the line assures me that they’ll send someone out straight away. I hang up, relief and adrenaline making my head swim. My heart threatens to hammer right out of my chest.
Yeah, being the daughter of a mob boss makes contact with the cops a cardinal sin. My dad has always said that if I was in trouble, I was to call him. But as a student training for my license in social work, I can get in serious trouble for not reporting any incident where I even suspect a child is in danger. Even if fifty other people on the street saw the incident, I’m required by law to report it. Second, in the year that I’ve been training, I’ve already seen some of the shit kids go through when they end up in the hands of monsters like those men.
Mafia ties or not, and regardless of the law, for me, calling the police on an incident like this is non-negotiable. Besides, I made a promise to myself years ago never to involve my dad or his crew in any part of my life. If he hadn’t been practically twisting my arm to marry Antonio for weeks, I wouldn’t have been headed to see him at all. I’m done with that life, and when it comes to the Mob, there is no halfway. It’s all or none.
I put in the second call I’m obligated to make, to my field instructor at Child Protective Services. Then, still shaking, I skip the visit with my father and head for the office. Aside from the fact that I don’t have time to see him unless I want to be late, I can’t deal with the conversation he’ll want to have about Antonio now.
That, and it would be hard not to tell him. Not only is he exceptionally skilled at getting information out of someone, even me, but he knows how to read people. Hiding what I’ve seen would be almost impossible, especially when I know how often children who fall victim to this kind of thing aren’t found in time. My dad would have taken care of it a lot faster than the authorities, and there would be zero chance of those fuckers getting off on some sort of technicality.
By the time I arrive at the office, I’ve collected myself, and even with the midmorning traffic, I’m only ten minutes late.
The three hours until my lunch break crawls by. I spend most of the time out on calls with my supervisor, or making reports on said calls. At least the day is busy enough that I don’t have much time to think about that girl or wonder if her attackers have been caught.
At lunch, I call the station. The same officer gives me the first piece of good news I’ve had all day. The men and their skeezy-ass white van have been found, the girl is safe at home with her family, and her assailants have been brought up on charges.
It’s a happy ending all around. Thank god. If only more cases like that ended up so rosy. And the positive resolution means I won’t have to consider violating my promise to myself and calling my father.
My shift was supposed to finish at five, but with paperwork, shitty road conditions, and missed connections between the bus and the subway, it’s going on eight before I get home. I drag my tired carcass up the stairs to my apartment building, an old two-story walkup in New Jersey, which my father has been trying to get me out of since I moved in when I started college. I’ve worked an eight-hour shift, but it feels like fifteen.
I head up the inside steps to my door.
A rustling sound reaches my ears. I whirl around, peering into the ill-lit stairwell, expecting to see someone there.
A cat wanders up the stairs, giving me a yellow-eyed stare and a meow.
Letting out an irritated sigh, I take out my keys and unlock my door, sticking out my foot to discourage the feline.
The incident with the girl has left me jumpy. The neighborhood and the building alike are loud, not the safest place to be, and the rent is through the roof, but, at least the place is mine. I’ve paid for it all on my own by working as a data entry clerk online between classes instead of taking the money out of Daddy’s deep pockets. No one with half a brain lets him do anything for them unless they’re prepared to owe him. Besides, if anything, what I saw today proves that a fancy house in a supposedly perfect neighborhood doesn’t always make things safer. My father lives in one of the best parts of town. His area is all huge, multi-million dollar apartments and top-notch security, and yet look what had happened to that girl.
My phone buzzes, and I ignore it. It’s probably him, calling to ask why I didn’t show up this morning.
Inside my dingy one-bedroom apartment, I flick on the light at my door, toss my keys on a table in the hall, and twist the four locks on my door over until they each give a satisfying click.
The phone buzzes again. I make a frustrated sound, take out the phone, and glance at the screen. The caller is Isabella, my twin sister. Great. She’s likely to be as bad as him.
Isabella might be the spitting image of me, but she’s as different from me as night is to day. Loyal to my father to the point of obsession, she’s the perfect Don’s daughter. If I answered, she’d let into me for avoiding him.
Isabella is happy marrying one of his capos, spending her life organizing dinner parties and being a trophy wife, using her expensive Harvard education to make her husband-to-be look good. One of these days, I hope they both take their blinders off and realize they won’t change who I am. It pisses me off that she takes my refusal to marry the man Dad chose for me the same way he does, as if I’m thumbing my nose at the Mob itself.
I shut off the phone and make my way into the living room, about to take my shoes off. The lamp in the corner flicks on as if by itself, and I jump.
“Hello, Rora.”
I bite back a yelp, clutching my heart. “Dad. Jesus.”
Vincent Romano sits in my favorite plush chair by the lamp he obviously switched on, his legs crossed, his hands folded over his flat middle.
“What the hell are you doing here, Dad?” I usually speak to him with a lot more respect, but scaring the crap out of me has a way of obliterating my civility.
My dad flashes one of his million dollar smiles, the one that’s resulted in him having two mistresses—that I know of—and a string of brokenhearted girlfriends in every major city.
He picks up a glass of my one expensive indulgence, a red wine he got me hooked on. “Didn’t mean to scare you, Rora. Have a seat.”
“How did you get in here?” Taking off my coat off, I ignore the impulse to snatch the glass from him, as well as the slight businesslike tone that suggests he’s there to lay down some sort of law. He shrugs and I wave the question off. “Never mind, I don’t want to know.”
He probably charmed my landlord into letting him in. There’s no need to ask him why he’s there. He’s come to strong-arm me into a loveless marriage to a man I can’t stand, and probably to lecture me on standing him up.
He straightens his tie and carefully picks a piece of lint off the blazer of a custom made suit that probably costs more than a year’s worth of rent in this place. “What did you do today, Rora?”
I freeze, dropping the coat to the floor.
If there’s one thing I know about my dad, it’s that he has zero interest in my work. After six years of schooling following graduation, and another year of mandatory field training, he’s never once asked me a thing about it, or even how my day was. The only reason he’s let me enter my chosen field is because it doesn’t interfere with his business, and it doesn’t violate Mafia code. As long as the man I marry has no issue with it, he doesn’t care.
I take my time picking up my coat and setting it
on the back of the sofa, thinking fast. If I tell him I called the police today, this conversation will take on a very different tone.
“I went the same place I do every weekday, Dad. Why the sudden interest?”
“Antonio and I were expecting you this morning.”
“Something came up.”
“Something like what?”
The suspicion in his tone makes my stomach tighten with an absurd stab of guilt. I can see it in his eyes, he knows I called the cops.
“If you have something to say, Dad, just say it.”
He nods as if taking pity on me. “I received a call from Detective Banner today.” Perfectly casual.
My heart stutters. Detective Banner, one of the many officers in the NYPD who happen to be in his pocket.
There’s no point in lying to him; it’s too easy for him to find out all the details if he doesn’t already know. “Okay, look.” My voice is tight as I sit down. “If you’re about to launch into one of your lectures, it isn’t necessary. I didn’t have a choice.”
He puts up his hand. “You always have a choice. What did I tell you to do if you ever needed help? Rora, I’ve taught you better than this.”
I put my head back. “Dad, please don’t make this about us, or about your business. I saw a girl being kidnapped today, do you know that? She was snatched right off of the street, three blocks from your house.”
“I know.”
I grind my teeth at his cold, removed tone. There’s no question as to how he knows, and it isn’t necessarily because Banner told him the details. Nothing goes on in my father’s neighborhood without him knowing about it.
“She was pulled into a van in broad fucking daylight,” I huff. “If I don’t report something like that, I—”
“Language, Aurora.” His use of my full name lets me know he means business. Dad is the only person who calls me Rora, and he only uses my full name when he’s annoyed.
He heaves a sigh. “You’ve always been such a bleeding heart. There is no curing you of that, I suppose. You will never appreciate what I do, I know that, but I thought you’d at least show respect for those codes that protect my crew.”
I can hear it in his voice. He’s baffled that I don’t have the same unfailing respect for the laws that govern the syndicate as Isabella. The disappointment in his tone is stifling.
“This isn’t about you,” I bite out. “And it has nothing to do with how I feel about your work. I can’t believe you would expect me to watch a child being kidnapped and not call it in.”
Not to mention, if I didn’t call the cops, I would have put my job at risk.
His chest pushes out on another sigh. He gets up from the chair and lowers himself down beside me on the couch. His fingers brush my thick curls off my shoulders. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done, Rora?”
I blink up at him. The implications are written all over his face; I’ve made a bigger mistake than violating Mafia law.
My father deals in guns. He arms the streets. Thankfully, nothing he does involves children, and nothing that happened as a result of that call would have affected his work. Yet the heartsick look on his face says this is personal, and his disappointment goes beyond my simply having failed to measure up to his expectations by refusing to follow protocol.
I draw back. “Okay, what am I missing here?”
Dad rubs at the vein that pulses on his forehead. “You’re in a lot of trouble here, Rora. Do you understand that?”
His voice isn’t mean or threatening. My dad almost never raises his voice or uses direct threats. He’s much more subtle than that. I’ve never seen him hurt anyone, but I’ve heard stories about how calm he is even when he gives his telltale nod that means someone is going to die. He orders an execution in precisely the same tone that he uses when he orders dinner. It’s unsettling.
“No, I don’t understand. I didn’t call the police on you.”
His jaw hardens. “I can’t protect you from this one, Rora.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
He strokes my hair, two long passes of his warm hand as if he’s committing the feel of it to memory. “There are some things even a father can’t save his daughter from. I wasn’t the only one Banner called.”
The words send the first real chill of terror up my spine.
Two memories simultaneously whirl through my spinning thoughts. The first is of a dog I had a child, Fetch. I was ten when he got sick and had to be put down. When he was put to sleep, my father stood at his side with me, gently stroking his fur as his eyes closed. He’d petted that dog exactly as he is doing with me right now. The second memory is of one of his closest friends, a member of his crew who tried to sell him out to the cops. He is reported to have said the exact same thing to him before he had him shot.
I can’t protect you from this.
Confusion wars with mind-numbing fear. A hundred times I’ve heard how scared people are of my father, but I’ve never felt that kind of terror. Not of him. Not until now.
“Dad.” I push to my feet, hating that my voice wavers. “Obviously, I’m not getting the whole picture, here. What the hell is going on?”
“I had a deal in the works this morning, Rora. Your call destroyed a year’s worth of work.”
“What?” I burst out. “How?”
“That girl you saw being taken. She was supposed to seal the deal. She would have made a number of men very happy. You have no idea what you’ve done.”
My brain stalls. For a second, all I can do is stare at him. There’s no way I heard him right. My father is a lot of things, but this?
“What?” I finally grind out between my teeth.
He stands, then clasps his hands behind his back, his expression the picture of calm. Ice blue eyes pin me with a stare that is utterly without remorse, without regret.
My hands are shaking, but I’m too outraged and horrified to care. “You did this?” I hiss.
His expression doesn’t change. Betrayal chews up my insides.
“Your response in the next five seconds will dictate the course your life takes, Rora.” He nods to the couch.
My legs are shaking. I sit as if he’s willed me there. He sits beside me, the loving father having a much regretted talk with his daughter. It’s like I’m suddenly fifteen and I’ve cut class or something. When he speaks, his voice is low and measured.
“If you had known it was me who had ordered what you saw today, would you have still called the police?”
I swallow, feeling like a hangman’s noose is tightening around my neck. His question cuts to the heart of the problem that has always laid between us. It’s what makes me such a disappointment. My actions today confirm for him a deeply rooted and long-held suspicion—that I am not truly one of the Family.
“Shit. How can you even ask me that?” I croak out.
“I am asking you.” His tone takes on a steel edge.
There is no point in lying, but I can’t bring myself to tell the truth, so I turn my face away. I don’t know who this man beside me is, but he’s not my dad. My dad would never have done this.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see him nod slowly. His hand reaches out and strokes my hair again, once more the way he’d stroked Fetch in his final moments. The feel of his hand on me suddenly makes my stomach roil and I flinch at his touch.
“God…don’t touch me.” I bolt to my feet again. “This is ridiculous. What did you expect me to do?” My voice sounds slightly hysterical.
He sighs, a heartbroken sound. Then he takes out his phone and makes a call.
“Gio,” he says quietly into the phone. “Come up here, please.”
Gio. Within the Family, it’s a known fact that when my father calls Gio, it’s the same as signing a death warrant.
I freeze in place, unable to move, torn between disbelief and horror. I can’t think, can’t even seem to breathe.
Until the apartment buzzer goes off.
That’d be Gio,
coming to deliver daddy’s justice.
It’s a stupid move, considering that my apartment has only one exit and Gio would be on me before I got very far, but survival instinct won’t allow me to stand there waiting for a bullet to the brain. So when my dad nods to the intercom for me to let Gio in, I walk over to the buzzer…and then bolt for the door.
The door opens and Gio steps in. I back away, my heart in my throat.
Gio is enormous, with huge arms and shoulders that bulge inside his leather coat. Usually, when I see him, I have to stifle a laugh. Almost cartoonishly muscled, he looks like what he is, a Wiseguy. I’m fairly sure my father supplies him with steroids. Now, though, he’s pure terror, advancing on me like a large bear.
Fuck, I’ve spent countless nights as a little girl sitting up with this man talking and laughing with him about his seven-year old girl’s latest misadventures. Never would I have imagined I’d be the one staring at him with wide-eyed panic as he prepares to take my life.
“Gio, wait.” Hands in the air, I back up into the living room until I bump right into my father. I’d been so focused on Gio, I hadn’t noticed that Dad had gotten up from the couch and walked in behind me, blocking my path.
When he comes into the living room, my father’s enforcer glances between his employer and me as if I hadn’t spoken. Disgust flits across his face. Disgust that I’ve betrayed my own father, and the syndicate.
Panic morphs into something close to hysteria. I whip around to my father. His eyes meet mine, dark and almost sad. He gives Gio one of his fateful nods.
“Bring her to the docks, Gio.”
I close my eyes. This cannot be happening. This absolutely cannot be happening. The docks are so well known for their purpose as an execution spot that nearly everyone in the city will relate some rumor about how the Romano Family uses them as a death trap. Among those who know the truth, the mention of the docks with any seriousness causes grown men to shit themselves.
“So you’re really going to do this, then?” I snap. “You’re going to kill your own daughter.”
