I knew something was horribly wrong as I watched Father during dinner. He had the nervous energy of a trapped animal. Talia’s eyes flitted toward me, her dark eyebrows shooting up in a silent question. She always tried to act like she was all grown up, and yet she still seemed to think I always knew more than her. But there were always more questions than answers in our house.
I gave a small shrug and cast my eyes toward Mother, but her attention was focused on Father, the same inquisitive expression on her face that Talia was giving me. None of us seemed to get answers; Father stared intently down at his iPhone, but the screen remained black. Whatever he was waiting and hoping for, it wasn’t happening. His fingers were tapping an erratic rhythm on the mahogany of our dining room table, a quiet click-click of nails on wood. Father usually wore his nails meticulously short, but whatever was turning him into the nervous wreck before us had made him forget his personal hygiene.
“Brando, you’ve barely touched your dinner. Don’t you like the roastbeef?” Mother asked. She’d spent two hours in the kitchen to prepare our Sunday feast. On every other day of the week our cook was responsible for the cooking.
Father jumped in his chair. His widened bloodshot eyes found Mother, then they registered Talia and me. Unease settled in the pit of my stomach. I’d never seen him like that. Father was calm and analytic. Little could get a rise out of him. But since the party at the Falcone’s, he’d seemed somewhat stressed.
“I’m not hungry,” Father said before his gaze returned to his cell phone.
I glanced at the pouch straining over his belt. Father loved to eat, and he never let Mother’s roastbeef go to waste.
The screen of his phone flashed with a message and Father’s face drained of color. I set down my fork, no longer hungry. But I didn’t get the chance for another questioning look at Mother because Father shot to his feet. His chair toppled over and crashed to the hard-wood floor. Mother rose as well but Talia and I were frozen to our seats. What was going on?
“Brando, what–”
Father rushed off before Mother could finish her sentence. Mother followed after him and after a moment I got to my feet. Talia was still glued to her chair. She blinked up at me. My eyes darted to the door, torn between running after our parents to find out what was going on and following the rules. We weren’t supposed to get up from the dining table without permission. I didn’t like that rule but I’d always followed it. Dinners were the only time our family ever got the chance to really spend quality time together, after all.
The door to the dining room flew open again and Father was back, two guns in his hands. He set one down, only to pull out his phone and press it against his ear. I stared at the weapon on our table. I knew what Father was doing for a living, what he was. I’d known for as long as I could remember, even if Mother, Talia and I lived a fairly normal life. Even if you tried to be blind to the truth, it sometimes smacked you in the face without invitation. But so far Father had tried to keep up the illusion of normalcy around us. It hadn’t exactly been difficult for him because until a few months ago Talia and I had both attended an all-girls boarding school and only been home on the weekends and during the holidays. And soon I’d leave for college and Talia would return to school. I’d never seen him openly display a gun. I’d never seen a gun this close at all. Father was involved in organized crime, but many people who dealt with gambling were in Las Vegas; I wasn’t even sure what exactly he was doing, except that he managed most of the Camorra’s casinos.
Mother came into the dining room, looking completely out of it, but Father didn’t glance her way. “When will you be here?” Father hissed into the phone. He nodded after a moment. “We’ll be ready then. Hurry.”
Finally he turned to us. He was trying to look calm, but failing miserably. “Talia, Cara, please pack a bag. Only things you’ll absolutely need to get by for a few days.”
Mother had become a salt pillar.
“We’re going on vacation?” Talia asked with the hope and naiveté I wished for myself.
Father always humored us if we said something silly. Not today. “Don’t be ridiculous, Talia,” he barked. She jumped in her chair, obviously taken aback by the harsh tone.
“Are we in trouble?” I asked carefully.
“I don’t have time to discuss the details with you. All you need to know right now is that we don’t have much time, so please grab a few things.”
The phone flashed with a message. Father’s shoulders sacked with relief. He rushed out of the dining room. This time all three of us followed him into the entrance hall of the house. Father opened the door and several men I’d never seen before entered. They looked rugged; ill-fitting jeans, leather jackets, sneakers.
They looked like the kind of guys I wouldn’t want to meet in the dark – or at all. Their calculating eyes slid over me. They were the kind of men that made you cross the street to avoid them.
I had to stop myself from wrapping my arms protectively around my chest. If Father had invited them in, they couldn’t be dangerous.
Father pulled out an envelope from the pocket in his jacket and held it out to one of the men. Talia’s arm brushed mine as she moved a bit closer. I wished I could give her the comfort she was obviously looking for but my own nerves were wrecked.
The man looked inside. “Where’s the rest?” he said in a heavy accent. Were those Russians? They’d looked slightly Slavic to me but I hadn’t considered the option of them actually being Russians. Father worked for the Camorra, and it was no secret that the Russians were the enemy. Weren’t we all committing treason by having those men inside our house? My head was spinning but I kept the questions to myself, from fear of making things worse.
“You’ll get it once my family and I are safe in New York. That was the deal, Wladimir,” Father said.
Talia slanted me a confused look but I didn’t dare take my eyes off what was going on. Why were we going to New York? And what had Father done that he needed Russians to protect him? He’d rarely spoken about business in our presence but whenever I’d overheard the occasional snippet about New York or Russians it hadn’t been positive.
Wladimir exchanged a look with his companions, then gave a quick nod. “That won’t be a problem. Tomorrow you’ll be in New York.”
Father turned to us. “What are you still doing here? I told you to pack your bags. Hurry.”
I hesitated but Mother grabbed Talia’s hand and led her toward the staircase. After a moment, I followed, but not without glancing over my shoulder again. The Russians were talking amongst each other. Father seemed to trust them, or at least trusted that they wanted the rest of the money badly enough to get us to New York. That reminded me. I caught up with Mother and Talia, then whispered. “Why New York? I thought we can’t go there because the ruling family there doesn’t get along with Father’s boss.”
Mother halted. “Where did you hear that?”
“I don’t know. Sometimes I overhear things. It’s the truth, though, right?”
“New York is a difficult topic. I haven’t been there in a very long time.”
There was longing in her voice. I opened my mouth to ask her about it when a bang sounded downstairs, then men were screaming.
“We need to hide,” Mother whispered as she dragged Talia toward the master bedroom. I was about to follow them when steps thundered up the staircase. I quickly pushed into the closest room, Talia’s, and hid in her overcrowded closet. There was a pile of discarded clothes on the floor and I used it to conceal myself even more. I could still see most of the room through the slits in the door, but with only the dim light from the corridor spilling in, it was difficult to make out much. I’d barely had time to crouch down and become still before the door was flung open. Someone staggered in. For a moment light hit the man’s face and I recognized him as one of the Russians. He was bleeding from a wound in his arm. He moved toward the window. Was he going to jump? He tried to push the window up but it got stuck because of his frantic movements.
I held my breath and buried myself deeper into the heap of clothes. Another man, much taller and more muscled than the first, stalked in and grabbed the Russian. Everything happened too fast to see much, but something seemed familiar about the second man. There was a short struggle. The Russian pulled a knife but he never got to use it. The other man grabbed him by the neck and twisted. I stifled a gasp as the Russian toppled over, collided with the door so it was pushed open all the way, and eventually dropped to the ground in a lifeless heap. Light now filled the entire center of the room. My eyes moved back up to the murderer. His back was turned to me. But I knew him. I had dreamt about him several times in the last couple of weeks since the party.
Growl, of course.
