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I begged Vince to let me go with her, but he told me it was too dangerous. That was the only reasoning, like I’m incapable of being cared for by security and making safe choices. He didn’t go either because he said he had some business to attend to. Guess that makes sense, given what just transpired.
Anyway, I want to hear all about her time there. Especially now. I’ll imagine I was there, embed myself in every story so her memories become mine. It’s something I’ve done for a while now because it’s all I can do to stay sane these days.
We exit the car and head up to the front door as Vince answers the phone. He’s speaking quietly while we enter the house, and then long arms wrap around me and I feel myself sink into the all-too-familiar warmth of Olive.
“How are you here so early?!” I melt into her, partly to hide my tears and mostly because I missed her more than anything.
“Well, Tito had a free week, so we were able to take an earlier flight!“
“Tito?” I pull my head back and her deer-like, sage eyes flick with her chin. I whip around and Tito is standing, arms wide open with a grin just as spread, and I leap into him. He grunts at the impact, picking me up and spinning me around.
“Hi!” He chuckles enthusiastically. With him living in Italy permanently, running the entire tech division of the mafia, it’s a miracle when we do get to see him. He sets me down gently, but I don’t let go yet, not until my tears are wiped across his white flow shirt.
“You look like a pirate.” I sniff before pulling away, and one of his thumbs catches a tear that’s more about my horrible situation than it is from the joy of seeing him.
“Thanks, Esperanza.” He ruffles my hair and I swat him away, trying to disassociate my name from the way Adrik says it so mockingly.
“What’s been goin’ on?” He grins, looking healthy and happy— the way all my brothers have looked since falling in love. It’s a good look for him, and I’m ecstatic that he’s settled. But it makes me even more resentful that I’ll never have the same. I hold back my tears at that thought as Vince steps over to us before I can answer Tito.
“He’s here.” He nods to Tito, who quickly turns the switch to business mode.
“Who’s here?” Olive asks, never too diffident to be brazen. Tito tightens his brows as if to ask why she needs to know before grabbing my arm and pulling me along to Vince’s office.
“Cool.” Olive sarcastically remarks, with an eye roll when I glance back and give her sorry eyes just before the doors close behind us. When I turn my head, I notice Antonio sitting on the window ledge, looking very solemn.
“Hey.” He nods to me when he sees me staring, and I nod back, looking down at my hands in my lap. We’re seated in front of Vince— me and Tito, and Antonio turns towards us, like he knows what this will be about.
Vince clears his throat. “Espie, I speak for all of us when I say, I’m so sorry for what you’ve had to endure, being the eldest of anything in our family doesn’t have a great track record.”
I lift my brows and drop them, agreeing with his understatement.
Tito grabs my arm to interrupt, and his eyes shift to me. “And, it’s not fair. None of this is.”
“No.” Vince agrees. Antonio looks the worst of them all, guilty and frail. He’s never like this, never this quiet. So, I know he’s the reason I’m in this. I don't understand why I’ve deduced this, but I have. Can read it all over his face.
“So, that’s all? I get an apology and a, ‘good luck’?” It pains me to snap like this, goes against the grain of who I’ve been taught to be, but I can tell by the air in the room that it’s appropriate for me to say. Vince looks to Antonio, who sighs and steps forward. He doesn’t really like this, never had liked doing mafia family things. It’s why he’s taken over the real-estate side of our family, and why out of all my brothers, he’s the one I talk to least.
I always thought it was because when he met Stella, they made their own life and were too busy in it to call me anymore. But perhaps that’s not true at all. Perhaps he was too guilty to pick up the phone, or talk to me at family dinners, or ask me about my life instead of fading into the crowd when I turned to him.
“Stella was in danger. The Russians were holding her at gunpoint, holding her family hostage, and they weren’t stopping with them. They were going to come after us all unless Stella married Kias.” He blurts and the room gains a new silence, quiet enough that my ears begin to ring as he looks towards his shoes.
“So,” he clicks his tongue, eyes glistening somewhere far off, a terror in them as he recounts it. “We made a deal. It was the only thing that he wanted. The only thing that would stop it.” He licks his lips and I cut him off.
“We?”
“Me and Antonio.” Tito pipes up, and I slowly turn my head to him, eyes already hot with tears of shock.
“You?” Is all that comes out of my quivering lips at the betrayal of my closest brother. His eyes do the same– brimming, apologetic– but I force myself to look away because he deserves zero sympathy from me. I pull my arm away from his hand, and he doesn’t fight me on it as I wipe a tear away. None of them deserve to see me cry. Vince grimaces and hands me the contract that they signed me away in. Took the liberty of choice right out of my hands and put it right into the hands of powerful men who care nothing of my life or what it’s worth.
I sniff, shifting my jaw as I take it, wanting nothing more than to rip it up, but I know that won’t change a thing. This contract is binding. Probably has many copies by now, and I’m only holding one of them.
The only reason I’m looking down at it, is, so I don’t have to look at them as my body begins to shake with more emotion than I can tolerate— fury, bitterness, lament. Everything I am is cracking at the foundation, becoming someone I don’t recognize, someone who does not take no for an answer anymore.
“Espie, we are so, so, immeasurably sorry.” Tito whispers, and I think it’s necessary because I might break into a million pieces if someone speaks to me harshly now.
“This meeting isn’t just to explain why and how… it’s to promise you something.” I lift my eyes just slightly, only looking at Vince because it turns out he’s easiest to forgive when he wasn’t the direct cause of this mess.
“I’ve invited the Mikhailov’s to dinner tonight, and I’m going to bring up something that might be dangerous, but I’ll do it, if it means we can get you out of this.”
