Chapter 17
That trip to the pizzeria changed everything.
It started small, so small that ignoring my gratitude for a warm, filling meal for my siblings and me felt like the easiest thing in the world.
I didn’t thank him. After all, one meal was the least my nemesis could do for taking Noah from me.
But then came the breakfast bars, muffins, or breakfast burritos, and afternoon snacks for the three of us every day, starting the next morning.
Ricco delivered them, picking us up at seven thirty a block down from the Hayes house, with two brand-new car seats in the back seat.
He picked us up in the afternoon too. The only reason Ricco gave for the food and transport was “The boss told me to.” At first, I wanted to refuse on principle, but Boyan and Lou needed everything they could get.
Marlene had “forgotten” to leave out portions of cereal for us from the locked cabinets again.
I didn’t even try to protest the next day. For once, Boyan and Lou had energy. They weren’t lethargic with hunger or worry. They ran. They played. They laughed. It was a beautiful thing to see.
Then came the clothing—shirts, pants, jackets—and the shoes. None of it was old and threadbare or a couple of sizes too big or too small. No more holes or cramped toes. No more chilly walks to school. All of it was warm and comforting, expensive and designer brands.
When I rejected them, Ricco’s eyebrows shot up, and his face paled. His mouth slacked in what I could only assume was horror. Before I knew it, he was shoving his phone against my ear.
“Ms. Burch.” At the gruff sound of Renzo’s voice, I death-stared Ricco. The guy simply shrugged.
“Mr. Iannelli.”
“Don’t give me that tone. Accept the clothing, Ms. Burch. I’ve seen what you and those kids wear. You look homeless.”
“What do you get out of all this? This some kind of act of charity? Look at all my generosity as I donate all this overpriced clothing to underprivileged children. We won’t be tools to make you look good.
” Because there had to be a reason for his giving mood other than kindness.
The man didn’t have a kind bone in his body.
“You should be ashamed of yourself for taking advantage of kids in the foster system for your personal gain. We’ve been through enough without you adding on top of it. ”
“I don’t make it a habit to get to know children in the foster system. You and your foster siblings are the only ones, and I certainly have never personally gifted any others clothes or food. Charity fundraisers handle that for me.”
“But…w-why?” I sputtered. “Is it regret?”
“No.” How could he be so cold about something that meant so much to me? My brother wasn’t just any other person. “The clothing. You’ll accept and wear them. All three of you.”
“We can’t.”
“You can, and you will. Don’t fight me on this. You’ll lose. Learn to pick your battles, Ms. Burch. It’ll serve you well when you’re older.”
“No, I mean, we really can’t. You only sent us designer clothing. Who in their right mind is ever going to believe three foster kids admitted to summer camps on financial assistance could ever have those? They’ll think we stole them. Our foster parents will too.”
Marlene would either beat us half to death and then call the cops on us or sell them off for her own profit.
“Not my problem. Figure it out.” He hung up.
I stared at the phone, flabbergasted. What the hell was that supposed to mean?
“Figure it out.” What kind of stupid fudging response was that?
What was I supposed to do? Make a post and try to sell them on a classified ads website?
I considered doing that for all of two seconds.
It wasn’t worth the hassle and risk. He told me to choose my battles.
I did just that and refused every item, only for Ricco to drop it all off on the Hayeses’ driveway on his boss’ orders.
Seriously, fuck that guy. His so-called generosity made me haul ass across town on public transit with two young kids to drop it all off at thrift stores before anyone in the neighborhood noticed and complained to Marlene.
All the while, Ricco followed us by car.
He wasn’t allowed to drive us there because that would be defying the boss, but since he was supposed to be watching us, he had no choice but to tag along. Ridiculous.
God, it hurt to leave all that beautiful clothing in the donation bins for others to find and wear, brand-new and with tags still on, all in style, all the right sizes for the three of us. There was no choice. We didn’t need more notice from the Hayes couple.
I went through all that trouble, only for Ricco to deliver a whole new set of clothing and shoes the next day. This time, all brands from common department stores.
“Seriously?”
“Don’t make me tell him you gave these away too,” Ricco pleaded.
I shook my head. As if I would. They needed a little roughing up so that neither Marlene nor Micah looked too closely—Charlie wouldn’t care—but they were more than I could’ve hoped for just a few days ago.
The kids finally had pants that didn’t show their ankles and shirts that didn’t show their bellies when they raised their arms. If careful, I could even pass these off as donations received at summer camp.
No one would ever look twice. Hopefully.
Boyan tied his new shoes. He jumped in place, his smile so wide, his scars creased.
He showed off his new jacket, repeatedly telling me how warm and soft it was inside.
Despite Lou being shyer, she showed off her newly missing front teeth with a large grin, admiring her new kicks and twirling in a knee-length dress over tights.
For me, it was nice to finally have a new pair of tennis shoes.
Still, I didn’t thank Renzo Iannelli. He was the devil of my nightmares.
The man who now haunted my every waking moment with constant reminders.
First a phone, then food, and next clothes.
He was toying with me, mocking me, really.
I expected blackmail, maybe death threats, or even trouble with the cops or my foster parents.
Instead, his manipulative bribes, or whatever these were, were driving me crazy.
If that wasn’t bad enough, a week later, when Lou and I missed out on a field trip because the Hayeses refused to sign the permission slip and fork over twenty dollars for each of us, Ricco took us to the movies instead of the youth center, on Renzo Iannelli’s orders.
It was complete with popcorn, soda, and candy, things I once took for granted.
Twenty minutes into the only under-ten-year-old-appropriate animated feature, I bawled my eyes out.
I didn’t get why he was doing this or why any of it mattered to me.
And Lou, bless her, didn’t understand why I cried as the hero and her sidekick on-screen started their adventure.
She was just so overjoyed to have something as simple as a trip to the movies.
And me, I was confused but happy. For her.
For me. And that was the worst part—I was happy, and I hated that he had any part in that.
“Why do you work for him?” I asked Ricco as Lou climbed up the jungle gym and Boyan descended a slide.
The screams of happy children and the chatter of bored adults echoed around the closed space that reeked of food grease, body odor, and old foam.
We’d been at this indoor playground for the last hour, my siblings hyped up on a mix of excitement and oily pepperoni pizza, hot dogs, and soda.
They’d been running, climbing, and sliding since I gave them the okay to have fun after they finished their food.
Who was I to ruin their rare moment of fun?
Lou didn’t talk about her life before foster care, but from the way she hid in closets whenever Marlene yelled, it was obvious it hadn’t been good before her mom’s first overdose and the state took custody.
Boyan, on the other hand, remembered nothing before foster care since he’d been found on the streets alone at the age of two.
“Because I look up to him.”
I blinked, stopping the hot dog halfway to my mouth, shocked by the utter seriousness on his usually childlike face.
“You can’t be serious.”
“I am. I’d do anything for him, and even that wouldn’t be enough.”
I didn’t even know how to respond, other than a desire to smack some sense into him with my sauce-slobbered hot dog.
He scoffed. “Don’t look at me like that.”
“Like you’re crazy?”
“Like you’re judging what you don’t get. He’s a good man in a complicated position.”
Now it was my turn to sneer. “You sound brainwashed.”
“No, I sound like someone whose life finally makes sense because the guy whose car you tried to burn down saved it and gave me a chance. I’d be dead right now, my mother too, if he hadn’t been there.
He helped us start back up and move forward.
I graduated high school because of him. My mom got to go back to nursing school because of him. I owe him everything.”
I picked the relish off my hot dog. “He saved your family but killed mine. Why is yours worth more?”
“You don’t think he’s trying to make amends?”
I slammed my food down on the table between us. Ketchup and mustard sank between my fingers.
“I don’t want his fucking apology.” I flicked off the sauces. “I want my brother back. I want my life back.”
“Well, boo-hoo, you’re not the only one with a sad story.
” I flinched back from the venom transforming Ricco’s face into something dark and riddled with pain.
“You need to get over yourself and realize that you’ve got someone rooting for you.
You’ve got food. You’ve got clothes. You and those kids are looking healthier.
You’ve got more than a lot of other people.
But you’re so stuck on what you used to have.
What you lost isn’t going to come back, and after three weeks, I’m sick of hearing about it.
I’m sick of you being ungrateful. I’m sick of you trying to bring down a person who fights for those he cares about. ”
“He’s—”
“I’m going to stop you right there. I already know what happened to your brother. All of it.”
“He told you?”
“Yeah, he thought I should know since I’m out here all the time.”
“Then you know why I can’t accept this.”
“He’s not responsible for your brother’s choices, and your brother…he chose the wrong side. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time, but he chose to be there. Do you even know what kind of man he was?”
It was all because Noah wanted a better life for me. But I couldn’t voice that out loud, not when all these people were staring, and it felt like my heart was being carved into.
“It wasn’t just drugs and guns with Elio Iannelli. He dealt in organs. In people. In sex.”
“Noah would never have done any of that.”
“Doesn’t matter though, does it? Because in some way or another, whatever he did for Elio helped the man do all the sick things he was doing.”
His eyes brimmed with the kind of hate that boiled your insides until all that was left was a mess of bubbled goo, turning up into down and down into up. I understood it. I’d been feeding off that magma for months.
“You hated him,” I whispered.
“No less than he deserved, but much less than the boss did.”
The same boss who’d murdered my brother and thrown me to the wolves. The boss who’d refused to hurt me when he could have. The boss who’d been taking better care of me and two other kids than people appointed by the government. How disgustingly ironic.
“He doesn’t stand for that kind of crap,” Ricco continued.
On the top floor of the play structure, Lou called my name, waving with her whole little body. I did the same.
“The boss—he can be brutal and harsh, but he’d never lay a hand against a woman or child in anger. Not ever.”
It just sounded like a whole bunch of BS from someone who thought he walked on water. Ricco was nice enough, but the guy needed to get his head checked before Renzo Iannelli brainwashed him any further.
“That black eye you had, you’ll never have another one.”
I straightened, not sure exactly what he was saying, but I kept my focus on the kids, refusing to get sucked in by whatever he was selling.
“You’re not even a bit curious about what he said to your foster parents?”
“What?” He had my full attention now.
“He was real clear they weren’t to lay a hand on you or those kids again. Or else.”
“He threatened them?”
“Let’s just say, it was a warning they aren’t soon going to forget.”
I wasn’t sure how to process this. Now the last few weeks made sense.
Marlene hadn’t raised a hand against any of us since the day Renzo confronted me about the black eye.
Charlie also kept his distance, drinking himself half dead most nights.
However, while the physical abuse was on pause, the verbal assaults got worse.
Now I was called a hussy at least three times a day, a good-for-nothing piece of meat, a bimbo not even worth a good mattress since the streets would do, a sellout for quick cash and a bad time…
The list went on. Coming from Marlene, they were just words.
I didn’t take them to heart. When someone never treated you right, how can you care about what they say?
My thumb aimlessly scratched at my lip before my hand swept over my face. I felt adrift, not sure which way to turn, to go, to be.
“If they do it again, he’ll make sure they stop.”
“Enough! Just stop.” I wouldn’t think of Renzo Iannelli as a decent person. I couldn’t. I needed to remember why I despised him, why he wasn’t worth any empathy.
“No matter what, you’re going to need to get over this hang-up you have.”
“Not likely.”
“Once the paperwork goes through—”
“What paperwork?”
Ricco’s eyes widened, his mouth clamping shut. I backhanded his shoulder.
“That hurt.”
“Wimp. What freaking paperwork?”
“I shouldn’t have said anything. You weren’t supposed to know yet.”
“Too late. What paperwork?” I might have been small compared to him, but the way his throat bobbed as I rose over him made me feel ten feet tall. It didn’t take long for him to cave and spill everything.
Then I picked up my phone and initiated contact with Renzo Iannelli.