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"You understand what happens next, right?" I smile.
"You're going to kill him. You're going to murder my dad. I'll call the cops," she threatens, as if I'm afraid of what the cops will or can do to me. "You can't kill him!"
"I can. Very easily. And we can wipe away every trace of the crime. I could steal you this moment and never let you speak to another person if I wanted."
George is crying. He knows what comes next.
"I'll never let you do that," she says, a hint of menace in her voice. "Well, you have a choice. You can prevent it. Or I can pick up my gun and kill your father in front of you."
"I'm going to prevent it. Obviously."
"Great. You have one hour to pack whatever you need from this house."
"What are you talking about?"
"You're coming home with me. And Kelly, I'm not your uncle anymore."
George is sobbing now, watching me rob his young and mostly innocent daughter. Oh, I know that she likes to party and have a good time. She’s probably kissed a few boys. She’s a pretty little thing.
But she's never been with a man like me.
Chapter Four
Robot
Kelly
All of my movements seem robotic. I don't know what I just agreed to. Do I have much of a choice? In a court of law, duress would negate my agreement.
But I guess that's the way that criminals do it. Some people say plata o plomo, silver or lead. He threatened me with lead. And because apparently my dad can't pay back the money, he's taking something in exchange.
Me.
I don't understand how I got here. I'm a college student. I just came home for the weekend to talk to my dad and make sure that he's okay.
Now I'm moving in with a Mafia don.
We're going to have a long talk about me going to school, because there's no way that my dad would ever condone me skipping a semester of school.
I laugh at myself, but the laughter has no humor in it. I can either drop out of school or be forced to watch my dad die at the hand of his former best friend. I imagine the blood spraying from my dad’s head onto our dining room table. I can almost smell the gun smoke rising from Uncle Iacopo’s weapon.
I nearly vomit.
When I was little, I thought my dad and Uncle Iacopo were superheroes, sort of vigilantes who fought against the system’s injustice. I'm old enough now to understand the spin that they put on everything, but there was a part of me who really believed that my dad was a superhero.
That part of me is dead. Now. Today.
I've just agreed to exchange myself for a man I don't really know. But I guess the die is cast. We're crossing the Rubicon right now.
Most of my stuff is at school, so I only have enough for a few days at home.
"Ready, Kelly?"
Iacopo's eyes are cold as he surveys my room. Yes, I had my dad paint the walls pink when I was five and was too lazy to change it. I have stuffed animals in the corner because they're collectible and I never wanted to get rid of them. I love my bear collection. My furniture was bought when I wanted to be every single Disney princess, so their faces are on everything. There are princess stickers on my bureau.
"This is the room of a child."
"A very lazy adult," I counter. "Plus I never cared enough to buy new stuff."
