The Mafia Contract Series

The anger just builds the longer I sit on the porch and wait for my sister.

Flynn and Emma have left, and the party is carrying on inside. I feel pissed and want them to leave, but Ivan and Malik are intent on making the most of it and I know they need to cut loose for one night. The clock is ticking and even though we have a tentative plan in place for our future, it won’t change the profession.

Mafia. How I hate that word. That life and that birthright.

I watch them head toward the house and feel so angry I can taste nothing but revenge and as they step into the light, I look eagerly for any sign telling me I need to vent my rage on my close friend.

Instead, they walk slightly apart and if anything, Winter looks angry, in a rage even, and I wonder what happened between them.

As they head up the steps, I snarl, “Where the fuck have you been?”

Winter says in an angry voice, “Fuck you, Angelo, you don’t get to play the big brother card, not after what you’ve done.”

“What I’ve done. Are you kidding me? You’re the ones sneaking around in the darkness, and I wonder why?”

I stand and move toward them and am surprised when Alessandro throws me a warning look, telling me I’m about to be handed my balls by my own sister as she faces me, her eyes blazing.

“I thought you were better than that, Angelo?”

“You have to be more detailed, Winter, because I haven’t got a fucking clue what you’re talking about.”

“Sammy.”

I nod as all becomes clear and I shrug. “What about her?”

“You used her and left her sobbing in the dirt. You acted just like our father, and I am so disappointed in you.”

Her words almost amuse me, and I look at Alessandro and say roughly, “Leave us.”

He throws me a pitying look as he nods and heads silently into the house and I snarl, “Not here. Come inside. We need to talk about this in private.”

She follows me around the back of the house, and we slip inside, using the back staircase to reach the second floor and I open the door to the gym and usher her inside.

Jerking my head toward the boxing ring Ivan and Alessandro love to spar in, I say almost with amusement, “Shall we fight it out?”

“If I thought I’d win, I’d take you up on that.”

Sinking to the floor, I pull her down with me and just like back home, we sit side by side with our backs against the wall and she rests her head on my shoulder.

“Why did you treat her like that, Angelo? I thought you were better than our father.”

“What makes you think that?”

“Because I know you hate him, what he does and how he goes about it.

Why fuck a girl and leave her crying in the dirt? It’s something he would do?”

Closing my eyes, I lean back against the wall and say bitterly, “I’m nothing like him. Sammy came to me for a revenge fuck. She didn’t want me, just the weapon to throw back in her boyfriend’s face. No strings attached and for one night only. I was up front about that, and she could have walked away with no regrets. She knew the score and the fact she couldn’t deal with how that made her feel afterward is probably the reason why you found her sobbing with regret.”

“You could have…” “Could have what, Winter?” I sigh heavily. “Told her I loved her, that I would care for her, love her and make the bad things in life go away. Make her my girl and parade her around campus like loves young dream. We both know that is never going to happen and certainly not after a quick fuck against the wall at a fucking college party. Girls like Sammy know exactly what they’re doing when they come inside minus their underwear, looking for something they can’t live with in the morning. We meet girls like that every day and that won’t change in the outside world. This is my life, Winter and yours is even worse.”© 2024 Nôv/el/Dram/a.Org.

I remind her of the harsh reality of our fate, and she says in such a sad voice I want to smash something. “It’s so hard seeing what we could have if we were allowed to choose.”

My heart tightens with an unbearable pain as I imagine her future.

Married to a fucking monster who will treat her worse than I did Sammy. Use her to bear the next generation of mafia slaves and sentence her to a life in a gilded cage. No freedom, just abuse, and we both know there is nothing we can do about that all the time our father is alive.

“What happened with Alessandro? Do I need to kill him?”

She laughs, which brings a brief smile to my lips. “I like him and if things were different…” “But they’re not.”

I harden my voice because sentiment will just make her weak, and she sighs. “If I could choose a different life, I would head somewhere where I could be free. Maybe work as a nurse, help others and live in a little weather-boarded house by the sea with a man who chops logs for a living, not people.”

“With a family of four children and three dogs and two cats.”

I remind her of the perfect life she imagined in our childhood, and she laughs. ‘He has a boat and brings fish home for a cookout. We have a wide circle of friends and enjoy vacations in Europe.”

“I visit with my own wife and two kids who are just like me.”

“And I’m the best aunt there is, spoiling them with chocolate and corn dogs and tales of how annoying their father was as a child.”

We laugh and I’m happy that just for a moment, the tense cloud lifts and we can imagine a normal life outside of the one looming every closer.

She sighs and says in the voice of an angel. “That’s why I hated what you did earlier. This time is special, and we can be anyone we want to be away from the madness. I want you to experience love for once in your life, Angelo, something to remember when you step into the family business.”

“I have love in my life and that’s what’s killing me inside.”

Once again, the darkness circles me like the hungriest vulture, as I say with a voice devoid of emotion. “Love weakens a man and gives his enemies a way to destroy him. They take what you care about the most and use it against you. It’s why we’re taught not to feel. To shut away our heart to survive. I have a weakness and it’s you and everyone knows that. That’s what keeps me up at night. Makes me shut down any emotion. The thought of anyone hurting you because of me is like a permanent knife twisting in my heart. I can’t add another knife to that. I would be dead within a week. I need to be cold for my own survival, and I thought you knew that.”

She takes my hand and laces her fingers with mine and for a while we just sit as we have done a million times before. Two hearts created from the same embryo. As close as two people can get courtesy of our DNA and weaker because of it. I want the best for my sister, I always have and the best thing for her is to keep her safe. Deliver her to her future as agreed and work out a way to bring her back to me before the damage is done. And I don’t have long because Winter’s day of reckoning will happen the minute she graduates and I expect the man collecting her from the gates won’t be our father.