Chapter Text
It was eleven o'clock on the night of the thirtieth of September, 2016, when Father ordered my brother to report to his office at the downtown casino in Tribeca. Whatever demanded Tyler's attention couldn't possibly wait until morning.
The leather car seat stuck to my cheek despite the air conditioning blowing ice-cold through the vents, an artificial cold that made my sinuses ache. I shifted against Tyler's side, trying to find a position that didn’t leave me compressed into a human pancake, but the seatbelt had other idead. The seatbelt cut into my ribs with every breath. One foot went numb beneath me, pins and needles crawling up my calf in that god-awful tingling way that made me want to shake my entire leg out. But if I did that, then it would feel so much worse.
It's a whole thing.
Outside the tinted windows, the city slid past in streaks of yellow streetlights and red taillights, blurred by the drizzle coating the glass. The tires hissed against wet pavement, a constant white noise punctuated by the occasional honk of a taxi or the distant wail of a siren. The driver said nothing.
“Mi dispiace, dolcezza,” Tyler said for the fourth time since we left the house. There was a hollow quality to his endless apologies because he was always sorry. Sorry for this. Sorry for that. “We'll be home soon. You know how I feel ‘bout leavin’ you alone.”
I did know. Tyler had a thing about me being by myself in that huge, empty house when Enzo was out conducting business. He never elaborated on what exactly he thought might happen—intruders, maybe, or just the guilty image of me rattling around those cavernous halls like the world's most pathetic child ghost. Either way, it meant I got dragged along on these midnight excursions, folded into the backseat like an afterthought, my presence both necessary and inconvenient.
Lately, though, those late-night summons had become less of an occasional annoyance and more of a routine. Over the past few months, Father seemed to need Tyler at the casino more nights than not. I watched him now from the corner of my eye. His knee bounced against the seat, a nervous rhythm that made the whole car vibrate slightly. His fingers drummed against his thigh—thumb, index, middle, ring, pinky, then back again. Over and over.
Personally, I believed Tyler had nothing to worry about if he left me to my own devices, much less a hypothetical break-in. Anyone who tried had to be thick as shit. I could count on one hand the men who took that particular gamble. One of them ended up in shallow graves. The other got fitted for concrete shoes at the bottom of the Hudson River.
I couldn't tell you for certain happened to all of them, though. Enzo Nero's reputation preceded him. I wasn't stupid, even if I didn't know the gritty details.
However, from up here in my ivory tower, I wasn't sure I wanted to know.