Chapter 1 #2
That word rolling off his tongue feels like a finger down my spine. My whole body shudders. He walks into the apartment leaving me to close the door with trembling fingers. Despite the number of times he’s forced me, violated me, humiliated me, I’ve never once threatened my uncle.
I didn’t keep up with the self-defense classes after I moved to Boston—I didn’t think I’d need to. But now I wish I had.
My father appears in the hall and, for a split second, frowns at the sight of his brother. Then recognition lights him up, sending my stomach into a spin.
“Callum!”
Dad opens his arms as if greeting a war hero, not a man who’s obviously been stopping by while I’ve been gone.
Callum looks back at me, victorious, but I’m so deep in shock I can’t respond.
“I’ll make coffee,” I say instead.
In the kitchen I grip the counter until the tendons stand out on my wrists. My pulse is thundering and I feel sick. How am I supposed to live here with that man dropping by whenever he wants?
How am I supposed to forget he ever existed, when he’s in my life? How am I supposed to function like a whole person when just the sight of him reopens all the wounds and breakages he caused when I was just a kid?
I make the coffee in a daze and leave it on the table in the living room.
“I’m going out for some air,” I announce to no one in particular.
“It’s raining out,” Callum says, an ugly lilt to his voice.
I avoid his cutting gaze altogether. “I like the rain.”
The unpacking remains unfinished as I pull on a raincoat and open the door. But I can’t leave because an enormous body is blocking the way, with one arm lifted as if it’s about to knock.
I have to step back to see the man’s face. He’s so tall his head would hit the doorframe if he tried to enter.
“C-can I help you?”
“I’m looking for Callum McAllister.” No pleasantries. No smile. A grunt of a statement. I should’ve figured my deadbeat uncle would be hanging out with equally rude assholes.
I inhale deeply, hating the fact I have to speak again with that vile man in the living room.
“Callum!” I call out over my shoulder before returning my gaze to the very large man. “Can I ask who’s calling?”
The man looks back at me blankly, then a tiny muscle twitches on the side of his face. “Sure. Enzo Agostini. I work for the Di Santo’s.”
The hallway tips and I have to rest a hand against the wall to find balance.
“The… the Di Santo’s?”
There’s a glimmer of darkness in his features that gives me his answer.
“What is it, sweeth—”
Callum stops in the hallway behind me and I can hear his breaths shorten.
I don’t take my eyes off the man. Terror has frozen me in place. This man works for the Di Santo’s—the New York mob.
The mafia.
Surely Callum doesn’t work for these people? He’s had a chip on his shoulder about any kind of mob for as long as I can remember. None of them would have him. So, why is a member of the Di Santo family standing on my father’s doorstep?
Callum mutters a curse under his breath then makes a run for my father’s room. The window opens onto the yard below, though it’s quite a drop.
“Go,” the man barks, and another person bolts from behind him.
Enzo Agostini ducks beneath the door frame. “May I come in?”
I take a step back, looking over my shoulder to make sure Dad is still in the living room. “Um sure. Come into the kitchen.”
“Who is it, Fi?” my father calls out.
I blink up at the man, silently pleading with him to not give his identity away.
“Just a friend of Callum’s, Dad. Nothing to worry about.”
I gesture to a seat at the kitchen table, half expecting it to snap in two under the weight of the man, and I back up against the sink.
I focus on breathing steadily and not swallowing too much as we wait. Agostini scrolls through his phone like this is what he does all the time—bursts unannounced into innocent peoples’ apartments.
A few minutes later, the second man drags Callum through the apartment by his collar, hands tied behind his back, and shoves him into another chair.
As much as it pleases me to see these huge men manhandling my pathetic uncle, having two members of the Di Santo family in my dad’s kitchen is making my entire body tremble.
“Where’s our money, McAllister?” The large one barks.
Callum shrivels under the man’s calm watchful eye.
“I told you I’d get it,” Callum rushes out. “I just need a couple more days.”
“What money?” I ask.
“None of your business,” Callum snaps, but the smaller of the two large men smacks him around the head, shutting him up.
Instead of feeling smug, I feel terrified.
“You’ve had a week already. Time’s up.”
“N-no,” Callum protests. “I’m so close. Just… just two more days I promise.”
His gaze cuts to a small book on the side, my father’s scrawl visible on the open page. I walk over to it and peer at the writing. It’s my father’s check book.
The name Callum McAllister is written in the recipient box, the number 50,000.00 beside it. That’s my father’s entire life savings.
I wave the book in Callum’s direction and my voice drops so drastically, it feels like it’s been languishing in the base of my lungs.
“This is why you’re here?” I seethe. “To con money out of my father?”
Callum’s eyes widen before flicking to the check book then back to me.
“I’m not conning anyone out of anything,” he says, with a note of desperation. “Your father and I talked about it. He’s loaning me the money.”
I shake my head slowly. “I don’t believe you.”
Dad loves his brother but he wouldn’t give up all his money for him. He’s learned the hard way he never gets it back.
Callum lifts a shoulder, then glances sheepishly at the two men.
My eyebrows shoot up, undeterred.
“Let’s ask him, shall we?” I hiss through gritted teeth.
Then Callum shoots me a twisted grin. “You can ask him all you want, but he won’t remember.”