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Pietro couldn’t really do that, could he? Kill his own brother?
Gun him down in his own home, maybe force him to tell him their father’s location so he could get to the whom he really wanted?
I retched at the thought.
Pietro was protective, always willing to fight for his family, especially after dad’s death, so finding out someone had hurt our mom in the most unforgivable way must have driven him mad.
I could see him knocking on this Nicola guy’s door with a smile, introducing himself as his brother and saying it was so good to finally meet and could he come in. He wouldn’t have had to break in.
Nicola would have had no warning at all.
“I’m your big brother, so I’m always going to protect you!”That’s what Pietro had said to me when I was little.
He was Nicola’s big brother too, and I wanted to believe he couldn’t do something like this, but…
I thought about the sharp, predatory look on his face in that picture.
I always knew that Pietro hid his darker side from me, but I had never imagined he was hidingthatmuch.
He looked like a stranger. Maybe a stranger capable of murdering his brother.
The idea shook me down to my core, but I couldn’t deny it.
The evidence was right there in front of me, and I was naïve, not stupid.
My older brother, who always comforted me and made me grilled cheese after school because it was the only thing he knew how to cook, was possibly someone I’d never really met.
Whether he’d killed Nicola or not, the Pietro I knew wasn’t capable of making a face like the one I’d seen in that picture.
I didn’t hear any of what the police chief said after that.
I just sat there and stared at the corner of the screen where the picture had briefly flashed as I scrambled to put my world back together for the second time in two days.
We’d always stuck together with absolute devotion, but I was watching my family slip through my fingers.
It wasn’t enough that dad was gone, now Pietro wasn’t even my full brother and my mom had lied about it all our lives. The truth is we were never the family I’d thought we were, and that scared me.
I didn’t know how Pietro had found out, but I cursed whatever had given it away. It would have been better if we’d just never known.
By the time the sun rose, my eyes were so dry it hurt to blink, but I still couldn’t sleep.
Ihadto figure out what to do to help Pietro.
Secret mafia son or not, he was my big brother.
I figured I’d have to start by trying to find out where Pietro had been, and at that moment the only lead I had was the photo the police had shown. Maybe I could try to cross-reference pictures online of different bars to narrow it down? I could do that.
If there was anything I’d learned studying journalism it was how to dredge through seemingly useless information in order to get to something that I could use.
I brewed another pot of coffee and fell into the rabbit hole of research.
I only measured the passing of time by coffee refills, until my phone’s ringtone blasted through the quiet air.
I nearly jumped out of my skin, terrified by the sudden jarring noise.
For a second all I could do was blink and then started rooting around on the couch below me to find the offending device.
“Hello?” I asked.
