Chapter 3
CHAPTER THREE
LUCA
“ F ather, to what do we owe the pleasure?” my brother asks as I walk through the front door with a smile and a bottle of Mom’s favorite wine.
“Don’t be a smartass,” I tell him, dropping my smile and feigning disdain.
He shoves my shoulder as he strides closer.“Just showing my respect to one of the Lord’s disciples.”
My brother John is as non-religious as one can be. He hates organized religion and all it stands for. Though in my early years, I tried like hell to save him. But I settled for him just being my brother. It’s better for both our sanity that way.
“Luca, my sweet boy!” Mama says, swaying out of the kitchen as she wipes her flour-covered hands on her apron.
It matters not that I’m thirty-eight years old; I’m always her little boy.
“Mama, how are you?” I hand over my gift, and then she tugs me into her soft body for a hug.
I melt into her, letting her tea-tree-scented shampoo waft into my senses and soothe my soul. I’m convinced that a hug from this woman could end wars.
“Something is wrong with you?” She peels me off her, grasping me by the shoulders in both hands.
John smirks at me, then moves toward the kitchen with the wine. Mama knows everything. Always has. She can tell if it will rain hours beforehand and always knows when something is afoot with one of her family members.
She’s like a human lie detector.
“Nothing is the matter,” I tell her, lying boldly to her face. It would earn me a spanking if I were younger. But at my height of six feet three, it’s unlikely she can get me over her knee. Not that I’ll push the issue because she might damn well try.
She tsks at me, dropping her hands down to her ample hips. Her eyes grow hard as she glares at me in a way that says I’d better spill soon or suffer the consequences.
I’ll be honest: I fear my mother’s wrath more than the almighty himself.
“Mama, drop it. I’ll be fine.”
“Your health is okay?” she asks, narrowing her gaze.
She won’t give up on this anytime soon.
I lick my lips, contemplating falling on my knees before my mama and admitting defeat, admitting that I am in a crisis of conscience and faith.
That I’ve lost my way in the world and need reassurance and help.
But I need to be the pillar of strength. That’s in my job title.
“My health is fine, Mama.”
“Something is bothering you, my love. And I will find out what. But for now, dinner is ready. Come.”
She comes to my side, sliding her arm into the crook of mine, beckoning me to lead her into the dining room.
I do so, heart palpitating because of her threat to delve into my secrets. All my life, she’s been able to find out anything she wants to. So, I know she will manifest her words and get the information she seeks, and I’m afraid of what she’ll think of me when she does.
“Crisis over? The man of god alright now?” John asks, pouring wine into two glasses, where water sits already poured over ice in mine.
Sunday night dinners are a staple in this family. We’d reinforced their necessity after Papa died. He’s been gone five years now, but Mama is just as fragile as she was the day we buried him.
John and I take turns checking in on her, ensuring she has all she needs, and giving her a hand where she needs it.
She’s a strong woman, our mama, but she hides a lot of hurt and weakness beneath that tough exterior.
I haven’t seen her attend Mass since Papa’s death, and I expected as much. Though I thought she’d return after some time had passed.
It’s normal, the anger toward God when someone leaves the earth before their time. So, I knew it was coming after we laid Papa to rest. I knew she’d need time to go through the grieving process and douse her anger.
It seems she’s more stubborn than anyone gives her credit for because even her habit of blessing before dinner isn’t something she does anymore, and John is all too quick to follow and discontinue the tradition.
I cross myself as I say amen and raise my head back up.
Neither one of them looks at me; they only continue eating.
“Did you hear that Collins’ girl is missing? I saw it in the paper last night.”
John swallows a healthy mouthful of wine, placing his glass back down as he nods. “Yeah, it was on the news this morning, and a buddy at the precinct downtown said he picked the case up.”
I nearly choked on the mouthful of chicken parmigiana before swallowing it with gulps of water. Still, I bang on my chest to ensure nothing gets stuck.
“What do you mean, she’s missing?” I ask finally, clearing my throat of the need to cough afterward.
John rolls his eyes at the stupidity of the question. “What does missing usually mean, Father Russo? She’s missing. No one’s seen her since she left a club in the Bronx nearly two weeks ago. Her best friend reported her missing.”
I swallow.
Panic is rising in my chest, and I battle it to remain level-headed. My hands shake, so I place my fork down against my plate.
Mama shakes her head. “It’s a difficult situation, the incident with her father.”
I cast my eyes down, keeping the tears at bay.
My best friend, Raymond Collins, has been gone nearly as long as my papa has. Three years ago, he overdosed on God only knows what. There were so many drugs in his system that they deemed it a suicide.
I hoped the daughter he left behind would be alright in his absence.
I kept up with her here and there for the first year afterward. Her mother had custody of her, and while she was almost eighteen at the time of his death, I still didn’t think Belinda was suited to care for her.
She was the catalyst to Ray’s death, and I fucking know it.
Sure, he was into some dark shit long before she came along, but her presence didn’t help him. Neither was suited to be a parent, so of course, they got pregnant early in their relationship. It was tumultuous and toxic.
I was the only one at his funeral, watching as they lowered his casket into the ground at the cemetery. Not even his daughter came to bury him.
It was sad.
Even those who live the darkest lives are God’s children, and deep down, there were visages of the friend I had known since childhood beneath the mask of drugs and alcohol, veiling them.
“Rough business,” John mutters. “That’s an understatement.”
I nod in agreement, pinning my brother with a no-bullshit glare. “What is your buddy saying? What do they know?”
His eyes flicker with amusement at my questions, likely a smart-ass comment brewing and begging to be let loose. But he contains himself. “Not much. She was walking home from the bar, and they think she was struck and kidnapped. A couple of cameras caught her walking past, but then she just vanished before she hit the next one. Why, you going to save her?”
I swallow.
What does he think he knows?
Mama eyes him before leaning closer and smacking him in the back of the head. “Leave your brother alone, Figlio. If you focused on being a good brother to him instead of giving him a hard time, you two would be inseparable.”
“My job is to save people,” I retort, ignoring Mama’s words entirely.
John scoffs, giving Mama a sidelong glance to ensure she won’t strike him again. It nearly makes me laugh.
“You save people from damnation, Fratello. This is a different business, eh? Let the police do their jobs.”
I push my food around on the plate, unable to get her image from my mind. No one’s going to look for the daughter of a junkie.
Not anyone on the force.
They’re understaffed, overworked, and underpaid.
Sure, they’ll give it a few weeks of attention, and then it’ll be buried. She’s one of many who go missing daily here.
I saw a statistic once that said nearly forty people go missing in the New York City area each day. Thirteen thousand by year’s end.
She will sink to the bottom of the stack on the detective’s desk quicker than the next case lands on it.
“I’m sure she’ll pop up,” Mama says, and I flick my eyes towards her.
“What do you mean? What if something happened to her?” I ask her. I’ve seen the darkest parts of this city in the last few months of working with Ardesia, but Mama doesn’t need to know that.
As much as she hates me being in the priesthood, she can’t know that. She’d be the one who called the church and blabbed to get me de-clothed.
“She’s survived this long with a whore for a mother and a junkie for a father. She’s got backbone, is all I’m saying. A girl like that doesn’t go down without a fight.”
John nods, and there’s no arrogant look on his smug face for once.
It breeds hope in my gut, where I have had none for quite some time.
“Yeah, you’re probably right,” I agree.
Long after dinner and returning home, I can’t shake the idea of Ray’s daughter being out there somewhere. Who the hell knows who could have her? The streets of New York City aren’t safe at night, and a girl like her would know that.
Why would she be walking them alone?
Could it be she’s had such a rough upbringing that it’s bred a false sense of courage in her?
Sitting down at my laptop, I power it on and pull up a search engine.
Sloane Collins, I type in, chewing anxiously at the tip of my finger as the results load.
The newspapers had about as much information as John and Mama did.
But what they had that Mama didn’t was her photograph.
My blood stops moving as I stare at the photo of Sloane on the screen.
She has wavy hair, pouty lips, a round face, and a button nose. She’s in black and white in the article, but I’d kill to know her eye color.
Is it still the mix of green and brown it was when she was a toddler, which was the last time I saw Sloane?
Or did they darken as the world obscured and molded her into adulthood?
She’d be twenty by now.
Running my thumb over the photograph on the screen, something deep in my stomach burns too much to examine.
I snag the article and e-mail it to Ardesia, along with a brief paragraph on how I know the girl, and ask for his help.
If anything, the Ricci name may provide a bit more information than the cops can access.