Chapter 14 #2
“Your vocabulary needs some work.”
“My vocabulary adapted to my surroundings.”
“Touché, Ms. Burch.”
She huffed, every line of her face tense and her posture rigid with discomfort. “Why are you here?”
“We’ll discuss it on the way to pick up Boyan Fell. He was where you were headed next, no?”
Her face flashed with uncertainty, eyes sweeping the street, my car, me, and back toward the youth center.
“The car’s not going to eat you, Ms. Burch.”
She grumbled a bit and cursed my name, but gingerly chose to sit in the front passenger seat, each movement slow and pained.
“Good choice.” I walked to the driver’s seat and sat.
As the passenger door clamped shut and Ainsley adjusted her seat, Ricco’s disgruntled face took over the rearview mirror while he tried to get comfortable with the minimal legroom in the back seat.
I put in directions to the community center, where Ricco said she picked up her foster brother every day during the summer break, and put the car in drive.
“Why didn’t you buy yourself some clothes with the money I gave you?”
“I did.” She crossed her arms. “You just ripped one.”
“Don’t lie to me.”
She growled a shriek. “I spent it on food, okay?”
“All of it?” She wasn’t skin and bones, but compared to her photo from a year ago in the file that Vinny gathered, she was gaunt and getting close.
“The first hundred. The other two were stolen.”
My tightening fists squeaked over the steering wheel leather. “Who?”
“What does it matter? It’s gone.”
“Your foster parents? They don’t feed you. They beat you, and then they steal from you?”
“I don’t know if it was them.”
“Who else but—ah, the older foster brother, Micah.”
I could feel those innocent little eyes on me. “How did you—? Don’t hurt him. He’s had a crappy hand, worse than I think I know about. Maybe he needed the money.”
“More than starving kids? You need to be more aware.” I flicked her cheek, snorting as she grimaced.
From Ricco’s reports on the seventeen-year-old boy’s comings and goings, the crew he hung out with was robbing homes a few blocks from where Ms. Burch and he lived.
It wouldn’t be long before they were caught and sentenced.
“He’s headed for jailtime soon if he’s not careful. ”
“Like you, then?”
Cheeky little pest. “You wish.”
“’Course I do. Helps me sleep at night.”
It was the first time I’d seen her smile.
It made her look younger, freer, and in need of far more protection than a simple checkup after a beating.
A fierce guardian instinct flared inside me.
The need to shield her. To save her. To protect whatever was left of her innocence.
A feeling similar to what I had felt all these months searching for my sister.
“Why do you let them hurt you?”
“You think I haven’t tried to fight back? You think it’s that easy?”
I parked the car in the community center parking lot and faced her.
Anger and sorrow were furrowed into the grooves of her forehead.
Determination and fear quivered in her tense jaw, while hurt and the promise of hope haunted her deep brown eyes.
So much raged within her that I understood and had seen before.
Every child deserved the best chance humanity had to offer. That didn’t mean they got it.
“Why are you here? Why bring me”—she gazed around and reared back, only now realizing we had arrived at her foster brother’s youth center—“here?”
I didn’t have an answer to give, other than I felt invested in her story.
How many people let life-altering events beat them down?
But this girl fought back—foolishly, arrogantly, and in a way that would have gotten her killed with anyone else.
It was brave. It was foolhardy. Most of all, it was admirable.
She dug her clenched fists into her lap, letting out a high-pitched growl. “You’re enraging, you know that? Seriously, who fudged up your brain so much for you to become this cruel, manipulative, heartless murderer?”
I sniggered. “We are what we are made to become.”
That seemed to take her aback, all her fight fleeing in an instant. She gazed out the window listlessly. “What does that mean for someone like me? For Lou? For Boyan?”
There wasn’t a fixed answer to that. It all depended on how she lived through the next few years, but I could change that.
I’d been looking for a purpose since the void left by Persetta’s reappearance opened up.
I needed someone new to care for, and this kid fit the bill.
Defiant, shrewd, and full of rage—she was the perfect challenge to keep me busy.
“Go get your brother, and I’ll drive you to pick up your sister.”
“Just like that?”
“Just like that.”
Her eyes jumped between mine, scrunched with confusion. She started for the door, then turned back.
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why are you helping me?”
Her gaze darted over to Ricco, compressed in the back seat, then back to me.
“Do I need a reason?”
“After I barbecued your car? Abso-fudging-lutely.”
“Then consider it a reminder of what you owe.”
“Like I could forget.” She got out and slammed the car door shut.
I watched her scurry up the sidewalk, tossing furtive glances over her shoulder, and disappear past the entrance. I tittered under my breath at the doubt I’d seen on her face.
With the push of a button, the phone rang on the car speakers.
“Yes?” Vinny answered.
“I’m in the mood to adopt a kid.”
“Tell me you’re not serious. God damn it, you are. What kid?”
“You know which one.”
“The girl?”
“Yes.”
“What is it with you and this kid?”
“Remember us when we were that age?”
“Don’t tell me you feel sorry for her sad story.”
“Couldn’t give a flying fuck, but she’s got potential. She’s got arrogance, and if given the space and time, she will defy me and run. This will keep her under my thumb. What better way to humble her for her act against me than to force her to live in the home of her brother’s murderer?”
“It’s a costly lesson. You want to link the girl to the Iannelli family?”
“She won’t have rights to inherit. Don’t worry.”
“You want her indebted to you.”
“I want her loyal. I want her to know that she lost and to accept it. She’ll be part of what she hated and look up to the man who killed her brother. What better punishment is there?”
Loyalty was something built and constructed over time. Once the groundwork was laid and the foundation was set, it was only a matter of time before, brick by brick, it was set in stone.
“You sure about this?” No, I wasn’t, but this was something to pass the time. Becoming a step-in father couldn’t be that hard. “There’ll be protests from your future father-in-law once it’s done.”
“I know. An added bonus.”
“This you finding a way around your wedding?”
No one was going to dictate when or whom I married. Especially not my pig of a father, who had delayed the marriage for years in hopes of a better deal. “Just see that it’s done.”
“Even if we grease some palms, it’s going to take a bit.”
“The girl’s not going anywhere.”
In fact, there she was, across the building’s courtyard and visible through the gate and over the bushes.
She held a small boy’s hand, the two of them chatting, rocking their joined hands back and forth as he skipped and jumped.
The kid looked a bit too skinny, his head far too big for his body, a patch of hair missing over his left ear.
He wore no sweater, and his pants ended halfway up his calves, exposing his socks.
Even in July, the general mild climate forced you into layers, especially a kid who looked like he would easily tumble over.
Neither seemed to mind though. There was honest joy on Ms. Burch’s face—his wasn’t visible, turned as it was—as she spoke to her foster brother, like she didn’t have a care in the world.
It made me think back to the last time I’d felt such levity.
Never. Everything I’ve lived through was tainted one way or another.
“Renzo?” Vinny’s voice over the car speaker tugged me back to the conversation.
“Yes?”
“Something going on?”
The curious look on Ricco’s face in the rearview mirrored Vinny’s tone.
“Dimakos bite yet?” I asked, trying to distract them both.
“No. But Natale reported there’s been an increase in men hanging around Dimakos’ estates along the coast.”
“Prepare the mattresses. Ten to three, no more than one step.” Three safe houses, ten men each, all within one mile of the Dimakos Marina Del Rey villa.
Vinny and I established this code years ago, before my father went to war against the cartels for territory in San Diego.
If Dimakos meant to hit us, we’d be ready, with all the little piggies left blissfully unaware.
“You got it, boss. Evenly spread, or keep it focused with Natale?”
Before I could answer, Ms. Burch exited the gated area, hunched over in a bad attempt at hiding, and headed in the opposite direction. Why the little shit. I pulled out quickly, put the car in drive, the tires screeching, and cut her off.
“Stop right there, Ms. Burch.”
She pulled the boy into her arms, covering his head as if I meant to hurt him.
“Burch? Renzo, where the hell are you?” Vinny snapped through the speakers.
I sighed, exasperated.
“Vinny, tell Tore I want focus on Natale’s men but with a ten to twenty percent spread with no more than a two percent damage to our bottom line.” Until war was declared, it needed to be business as usual, but Natale’s security business would suffer if all the surveillance fell on him.
I cut the call.
“Now, Ms. Burch. You going to get in the car the easy way, or the hard way?”