AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Nose makes a motion for him to unlock the doors. Then he makes one for me to get in the back. Nose is older than me and demands the shotgun seat. He hands me the box as we make the switch. Nose fixes his suit and then tells Carmine to drive. Carmine doesn’t even realize the box doesn’t have the usual green, white, and red Valentino’s logo on it.
I open the plain box, counting the cannoli, while the Cadillac pretty much shimmies down the street. Carmine glances at me from the mirror.
“Hey, can I get one of those?” He lifts his hand, blood on it and all, waiting for me to hand one over.
“Pull over,” I say.
“What for?” He puts his hand back on the wheel.
“I don’t think they gave me the right ones.”
“Yeah. Yeah. All right. I can see how that might piss some people off. Today’s a special day, right, Lilo?”
Nose says nothing, keeping his face straight. He might be called Nose, but he has eyes in the back of his head. He’s anticipating my next move. I move the cannoli around and then slide my hand under a lining in the box. It’s pretty deep, but it’s not totally filled with Italian sweets.
Before Carmine can finish his sentence, I pull a handgun from the box, set it behind his ear and pull the trigger. Blood sprays against the windshield, and he slumps over the wheel. The gun has a silencer, but the sound of it still rings in my ears. Heat from an unknown source seems to scald my palms, branding them, and gun powder consumes the air in my lungs.
First time carrying out orders to prove myself. I’d made my bones. I’m officially one of them.
Nose turns and looks at me, then nods once. “Good job, kid. We’re done here.” He holds out his hand.
I give him back the box, just as he’d given it to me, but I keep the gun. As we walk in opposite directions, I see him eating a cannolo as he makes his way down the street, like he’s going on a leisurely walk on a Saturday afternoon.
Sun shining. A breeze in the air. Enjoying something good from the neighborhood panetteria Italiana. Nothing to see here.
After rounding the corner of the bakery, I slip into my car. I’m late, but when the order comes down, it doesn’t matter what else is going on. I have to do what is expected of me.
That was expected of me. I was doing my job.
Carmine was doing his, too. But the wrong way. He had been found collecting money from the men he loaned it to, but he wasn’t giving the boss his fair cut. He knew the game and the stakes. The man he beat had said as much. “Besides…I paid you. YEAH! I paid you something.” Carmine wasn’t logging those payments.
Most men who made loans with the sharks were always in debt. Never able to dig out of the hole they buried themselves in. The interest on those loans was too exuberant to ever catch up. But Carmine was burying the guys too deep and then killing them so they couldn’t go around claiming they were paying him, but he never reduced the debts.
Turret lights flash behind me as the church comes into view. I’d seen them earlier, but there was a lot of traffic, and I hadn’t done anything wrong—at least when they pulled up behind me. I’m not up for the bullshit today. They can go bother someone else. Or catch and pinch me later. This is standard procedure with them, though. The stops became routine when they got a whiff of my name and my business.
My eyes narrow on the scene in front of the church. It’s not supposed to be a big affair, but a wedding needs people. I don’t even bother to find a place to park. I stop and get out.
The cops pull up behind me and tell me to turn around with my hands up. I ignore them, following small splatters, definitely blood, up to the open doors.
My father emerges from the shadows of the church, into the bright light, holding a white wedding gown. Except it isn’t all white. It’s stained with blood. My mind turns to ice. The image sticks in my thoughts—it will forever be encapsulated by the chill that runs through my blood.
My hands are scarred by that first blast of heat. My heart will forever be marked by this ice-cold memory.
Blood for blood.
As if my father can read the thoughts in my mind, he says, “Take him.” He nods at me. “He’s better off wherever he’s going.”
I don’t fight when they put me in handcuffs, reading me my rights. Through the pounding of my heart, which sounds like a blast from a gun going off every few seconds, I catch words. Failed to stop at a stop sign. Didn’t cooperate when told to. Suspicious activity. Hands pat me down.
My eyes refuse to leave the dress hanging over my father’s arms, like he’s carrying my bloody bride out to me. He’d waited. He hadn’t left. He knew I’d come, even if I was late.
I’ll always come for her. I’ll always be there for her. Because she’s always been there for me. She calls me her Shadow Man because a part of me follows her wherever she goes.
There’s a first time for everything.
First time death has come to claim me, but somehow, I’m still breathing.
That makes a first, and what feels like an end.
