He flashes me a sheepish look, then averts his gaze. “I’m sorry.”
“Sorry for what, exactly?”
“Being an insensitive ass.”
“And?” I say in a sharp voice.
“And for taking advantage of your good nature,” he mumbles, sneaking a look at me. His lips curl into a grin.
“And?”
“And for wearing my shoes on the shitty rug.”
I flop onto the worn sofa that we were lucky enough to score from a nearby Salvation Army store. Although, it’s more apropos to say we were probably luckier that it wasn’t infested with anything that could eat us alive or spread a communicable disease. “What the hell are we going to do?” I murmur, dropping my head into my hands.
Frankie sinks down next to me. “Chell, we’re gonna be okay. I promise.”
I roll my eyes, collapsing against the back of the couch. “Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. I’ve, ah, got some things in motion.” He scrubs a hand down the front of his face and I see his spine stiffen.
I jerk upward. “Frankie,” I say slowly. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
He shrugs, still not meeting my suddenly panicked gaze. He’s almost thirty and hasn’t had a legitimate job in his freaking life. He worked with Papa as an enforcer and made plenty of cash over the years, but he’s been struggling to find work for the past six months now that Papa is behind bars. I’d hoped it would light a fire under him to get a real job, but that hasn’t happened. I love my brother to pieces, but he’s not at all the hard-working type. He’s more the avoid-hard-working type. And by avoiding hard work, I mean doing shady things that can get him hurt, arrested, or killed.
It’s how we got into this mess in the first place.
“Why aren’t you answering me?” I say. “Do you want to end up like Papa? Rotting in some minimum-security jail cell because he chose the life over his family? Because he was always after the money and never cared about consequences, which, by the way, is why we were chased out of Sicily years ago? He lives in that prison hell just waiting for someone to pop him! I mean, it’s only a matter of time!”
His eyes blaze as he stares me down. “Don’t say that shit about Papa,” Frankie grunts darkly.
“How can I not?” I yell. “I mean, look at us! Mama is gone and we have collection agents camped outside our door, breathing down our necks for hundreds of thousands of dollars we owe in medical care, legal fees, and an assortment of other bills that got pushed aside while we were trying to make ends meet?”
“Papa did the best he could,” he retorts.
“Well, I don’t really see things the way you do,” I mutter. “He could have gotten out. But he made a choice! A lot of choices. Really bad ones!”
“He did what he felt was right for our family!”
I let out a disbelieving laugh, waving my hands around me at the small, cluttered space we now call home. It’s a far cry from the penthouse apartment where we lived in Central Park East. Now we have an Inwood address, so far uptown, we’re practically in the Bronx. It’s clean-ish, and that’s probably the best it’ll ever be, regardless of how much I scrub and sanitize and disinfect. But it’s still in the city, the only home we’ve ever known other than Sicily. And even though it takes me almost an hour by subway to get to my job downtown, I can feel that connection to Mama just by being here. She always loved living in Manhattan and I inherited that same love. Living in Sicily was great, but the action and the energy here is something we both adored.
So Frankie and I scrimp and pinch to get by until things get better. And good God, I hope they get better soon because I’m quickly running out of patience, almost as fast we’re running out of money.
“Yes, well, that’s exactly what I’m trying to do right now and why I need to go to work at an actual job, to make real, legitimate money to pay our painfully real, legitimate bills.” I give my head a quick shake. “What the hell are you doing, Frankie?”
We’ve had this argument so many times in the past six months. It gets super-heated when it comes time to sign away all of the hard-earned cash I’ve made for the monthly payments we’re now responsible for handling.
Mama’s long battle with cancer came to a devastating end, but the bills keep coming. I didn’t realize how much financial trouble Papa was having when she was sick. But he’s not the kind of guy to ever admit defeat, so he stole from Peter to pay Paul and it finally caught up with him. I rub the back of my neck.
Christ, did it ever.
I keep waiting for the call from the prison that someone iced him in his sleep the night before. Whenever my phone rings with an unknown number, my chest tightens and I can’t squeeze out a breath until I hear that it isn’t the warden bearing horrible news.
“Fucking-A, Chella!” Frankie jumps off the couch. “You think you know everything, but you don’t! You have no idea—” He stops, mid-shout, and I furrow my brow.
“I have no idea about what?” I ask, my eyes narrowed. “I may have been young, but I know why we had to leave Sicily. I remember…” I suck in a quick breath. I remember the events so clearly. Another family. A business deal gone seriously bad. A falling out. A lot of threats made against us. The humiliation of having to leave our home because Papa had screwed over so many people to climb the proverbial ladder.
I’ve never forgotten any of it, especially my brother’s best friend.
Roman Villani.
The guy I’d dream about, night after night, while I waited for the day when he’d see me as a woman and not only as Frankie’s little sister. Unfortunately, that day never came because Papa screwed over Roman’s father, Paolo, his own business partner. Papa didn’t like that Paolo was making moves with other families, and he wanted to take him out.
Instead, we were the ones who suffered.
“Papa never learned,” I say softly. “He made enemies everywhere, and if you’re not careful, you’re going to fall into the same trap.”
“He isn’t some deadbeat, Chell. He saved…” Frankie’s voice trails off and once again, his gaze drops.
“He saved what, Frankie? Who?” I say. “Because as far as I can see, there isn’t one single person in this family who isn’t struggling to put the pieces of their life back together right now after his latest mistake. Not one.”
Frankie stomps into the kitchen, which is about five steps away, and pulls open the refrigerator door. He peers inside and grabs a can of Miller Lite, popping off the top and guzzling the beer before answering.
I let out a deep sigh. I really didn’t want to get into this with him tonight but the pile of bills staring at me on the kitchen counter got my mind and mood in a serious twist. I walk over to him and place a hand on his tensed shoulder. “Look,” I say in a quiet voice. “I don’t want to fight. We’re all we have, and I love you, okay?”
He slams the empty can on the counter and turns to look at me. “I love you, too, sis.”
“We’ll figure things out,” I say. “Hey, maybe we can go for a run in the park tomorrow if you’re around? Get some fresh air, maybe scrounge some money together for a dirty water dog or five.” I grin, nudging his shoulder. “It would be fun.”