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“You should be.”
“In these past few years, I’ve gotten better. He’s gotten older. I can take him.”
“I know you’ve gotten better,” Andrea agrees. “But if you think Cain has grown rusty, you’re wrong. You still can’t beat him or escape him unscathed if you push him to his limit.”
I touch my chin. “So he does have a limit?”
Andrea’s eyes narrow, which lets me know I’ve said too much. Have I?
I click my tongue in disapproval. Why does everyone around here think so highly of Cain? Because he can take a man down in an instant? Because no one’s been able to beat him in a fight? Or is it because he carries himself with such composure and self-assurance?
I know. I used to admire him for all those things, too, before that incident where he let Antonio die. That’s why I can’t forgive him. He was supposed to be the best. He was supposed to be strong, invincible even. And yet he couldn’t protect his younger brother who he had been explicitly asked to keep out of danger.
Unforgivable. Someone like that should not be allowed to live. At the very least, he shouldn’t be allowed to go about freely, to be revered as some kind of god or to keep thinking of himself as a superhero. One of these days, I’m going to tear off his armor and bring him down. I’m going to beat him and show him and everyone just how weak he is. The thought is enough to make me feel better.
“You can wipe that scary look off your face,” I tell Andrea after regaining my composure. “It’s not like I can go after Cain now. I’m sure he’s already gone. Besides, I’m tired.”
I am. My muscles are starting to get stiff from the laps I just took and my mind, which seems to have been dragged through a mudflat of emotions in the past few hours, is raring to shut down. I guess I’ll call it a day.
“Okay.” Andrea nods. “Go get your beauty sleep. Just make sure you see your father tomorrow morning. I told him you went to Bart’s funeral and he wants to hear about it.”
An official report, huh?
I give him a mock salute as I walk away. “Yes, sir.”
~
I stare at Alessandro Ursini as he takes a bite out of an apple.
It brings back a memory from when I was about six or seven. I was the one eating an apple back then, one I’d stolen from the kitchen after escaping from an art lesson. I was happily munching on it in the garden while lying on the grass when I heard voices so I hid behind a bush. Through the gaps in the leaves, I saw two men having a heated argument. Eventually, one of them took out a knife. As he raised it, my father appeared and blocked the blade with his own arm. It pierced his skin and drops of blood fell to the ground. He didn’t wince, or say a word. He just looked the man with the knife in the eye. Eventually, the other man dropped his knife and sank to his knees, sobbing. My father, with his arm still bleeding, pulled him to his feet and hugged him. Then all three of them walked away without a word, as if nothing had happened.
That was the first time I looked up to my father, and when I found out he was a godfather, the head of a mafia organization, I was even more in awe. I told myself I’d be just like him and then I’d be the one to make him proud. So far, everything I’ve done has been for that goal.
Haven’t I done enough yet? I wonder. Will it ever be enough?
“Stop looking so troubled, son,” my father chastises me before I hear another crunch. “I’m no longer on my deathbed.”
I straighten my shoulders as I jerk my thoughts back to the present. “I can see that. And I’m glad.”
It’s hard to believe that just a few weeks ago, he was practically a corpse. His skin was so pale I could see his veins. His bones barely had any flesh left on them. He had a tube pushed into his throat connected to a machine that breathed for him. Another machine kept constant track of his pulse and blood pressure lest they fail. Needles were stuck into his arms, keeping him medicated and nourished from bags of liquid hanging over his bed. There were times he could barely keep his eyes open, and after they opened up his chest, he was asleep for so long I was afraid he would never wake up. But he did wake up. He kept fighting. He simply refused to die.
Now, the tube in his throat is gone. There’s only one bag left hanging over his bed. Already, he has some color back in his cheeks and a gleam in his eyes. He can talk more, with less effort. He can sit up. He can eat. He’s even insisted on feeding himself. It’s only a matter of time before he regains the weight he lost and the strength he used to have so he can be back on his feet and back to being Orso, the Bear of the Ursini family.
