Vendetta(78)

“We can’t,” he said, looking up at me through thick, dark lashes.

“Why not?”

“Because we’d all have died out by now.” He said it so matter-of-factly it surprised me less than it should have.

“But don’t mob families fight with one another all the time?” Another movie-based assertion, but I had a feeling I was right about that.

“Yes, but not with us. We are untouchable.”

“Because most of the time you’re doing their bidding, right? You provide them with a service and in return they keep you living in the lap of luxury,” I shot back. “That is so messed up.”

Nic shifted so that he was sitting up straighter, putting us at the same height again. “We are eliminating the worst kinds of people in society. Can’t you see that?”

I shook my head. How could he be so naïve? “You only kill their competition, Nic. The Mafia can still do whatever they want.”

“It’s still a service to society.”

“It’s a selective one.”

“Better than none at all.”

“Doesn’t it bother you? Don’t you think about the hypocrisy of it all? Murderers paying you to murder other murderers?” My mind was starting to spin again.

“I try not to think about it.”

“You should.”

“What?” he asked, his voice wounded. “Consider that my whole family are going to hell for trying to make Chicago a better place for people like you to live in? Consider that no matter how much freedom and protection we have, our hands are still tied by others in our culture?”

“Yes!” I urged. “Think about that!”

“Sophie, there’s nothing I can do about it!” His voice escalated with anger. “This is my life. It’s everything I’ve ever known. It’s what I know is right. It’s all I know.”

I settled my hands in my lap and fell back from him, recognizing the losing battle I was fighting. “It shouldn’t be all or nothing.”

“I know,” he conceded, exasperated. “But what can I do?”

“You could walk away.”

“The only way to leave this way of life is in a coffin,” he said with chilling finality.

Silence descended. Part of me understood. I wanted to cry for him and the future he was bound up in, but I didn’t. I was too numb, too afraid to consider the possibility that maybe Nic didn’t want to walk away from his way of life, that he enjoyed the feeling of punishing people, of watching them quiver and beg before him. I studied my cuticles while he studied me.

“It’s suicide,” I muttered.

Nic sat back and smiled, and for a second he looked like the teenager he was supposed to be. Happy and carefree, not dark and hardened. “My brothers and I, we have been training for this life since we could walk,” he said. “We can read situations unlike anyone else. We can break a man’s neck ten different ways. We have the knowledge to infiltrate gangs and the skill to shoot their leader from a hundred feet away.” He spoke like he was listing a set of everyday skills on his résumé, and not reeling off his special mob-related activities.

“Do you have to answer to the boss of your family?” I asked.

“Yes,” Nic said slowly, as though he was starting to realize something. “We follow his instructions.”

“Who is he?”

He shook his head like he was coming out of a daze. “Sophie,” he said hesitantly. “I’ve already said far too much. I got carried away … I always seem to with you …” He trailed off. “You could ruin me now.”

“I won’t,” I said automatically. I hadn’t even thought about it, but my heart already had an answer. Despite everything, I didn’t want to ruin him. He was already being ruined by the people around him. By his own family. If only he could see that, maybe I could get through to him.

“I can’t say anything else,” he said.

It didn’t matter; I already knew who the boss was.

How could their father have OK’d this when he was alive? My father saw me pretending to smoke a candy cigarette once and nearly grounded me over it. But Nic’s father probably bought him his first gun, taught him how to load it, how to aim it, how to kill with it. And now Felice? Surely he had a responsibility to look out for these boys, not use them to kill people.

I fell back against the couch, suddenly feeling exhausted. “You don’t have to say anything else,” I said softly.

Nic leaned down so that the height of our noses was aligned when he looked at me. “Are you frightened, Sophie?”

I did my best to ignore how close he was. “I don’t know.”