Chapter 33
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Fiero
Fifteen years ago.
Rainwater seeps into my shoes as I run the considerable distance from the PATH train to the school gates.
It doesn’t help that holes are worn into the soles.
I once waited until Papa was in a good mood when asking him for money to replace them, but I misjudged. Needless to say, I haven’t asked again.
Nora, our housekeeper, sometimes brings clothes her kids used to wear, for me and my brothers. They’re often made for younger kids though, so even though I’m short for my age, the pants don’t quite meet my ankles. She sees how Papa neglects us, but she isn’t stupid enough to say anything.
I don’t understand our papa. He doesn’t care about appearances at home.
He leaves us to our own devices, never makes us meals.
We pick at the leftovers he leaves around the house or steal from the local grocery store.
Again, Nora has come to our rescue on more than one occasion with some home-cooked meals she snuck in when Papa was out.
He’s never been involved in our upbringing, even when Mama was alive. But after she died, his treatment of us—in particular, me—worsened. I’m no stranger to the feel of his fists and the imprint of his boots.
But appearances outside the home are different.
He boasts about his family of boys, as if his masculine sperm is entirely responsible for creating four tiny penises.
He buys us clothes for formal events that make us look half respectable.
In his line of work, there are funerals to attend frequently, so we each have a tailored black suit.
Appearances aren’t just about the clothes. Papa wanted me to go to a school in Manhattan—Berman High. It’s notorious for raising mobsters. The sons of many a Di Santo capo have attended this school. It’s where they form alliances and build armies.
Berman High spews out generation after generation of made men. There has to be a steady supply, after all. Half of them are shot dead or go missing within their first year after graduation.
Papa is a mob man himself, but in Gianni Di Santo’s sweep of the small-time gangs, he was pushed south into Jersey, back to his home state where he turned his focus to Atlantic City.
And he’s bitter about it.
He wants me to re-establish our name in New York, and I can only do that by being in the right place at the right time. Namely, at Berman High during my formative years.
Problem is, no one in my class is from a mob family. There are a few kids in more senior years, but they wouldn’t notice a small kid like me, let alone form a fucking alliance with one.
It’s a relief in a way—fewer people to feign friendship with. I don’t have the brain space for friends. It’s hard enough having the energy to look after three younger brothers without worrying about the latest meme or Yankees win.
Schoolwork comes easy to me. I often finish tasks faster than any other kid in class, so I find myself with a lot of free time to watch people, to observe.
There is one girl in class I especially enjoy observing: Pfeiffer McAllister.
She isn’t the ringleader, but she is popular. She has this ability to make you feel like the most interesting person in the room. Well, at least, that’s what I observe, because she never speaks to me.
She seems kind, funny, bright. She’s sporty and really good at science. She sucks at math though, and I pray every night that she’ll ask for my help, because I would help. I’d do all her homework for her. I’d do anything she asks of me.
I watch her every day from the back of the classroom. I learn which of her laughs are genuine and which are designed to put someone at ease.
I’ve started to notice patterns. Mondays, she’s quieter. Midweek, she’s at her brightest. Fridays, she seems off somehow. A little on edge. No one else seems to notice—only me.
Now the pattern has lengthened. As the weeks have gone on, the quiet girl on Mondays has become closed off. The vibrant girl at midweek manages to raise one or two smiles at most, and the off girl on Fridays has become nervy and agitated.
It happened so gradually that most of our peers put it down to teenage attitude, mild hormonal depression, or just plain personality problems. We’re teenagers—anything is possible.
But I’ve been watching. For months.
And I know something isn’t right.
I decide to do it before class begins. That way she knows at least one person in this room has her back. At least one person cares. Maybe it will be a nice start to her day. I mean, people like to be asked how they are, right?
The teacher has yet to arrive, so the class is loud and distracted.
I take some deep breaths, readying myself.
Talking to women isn’t something I have a lot of experience with.
Since Mama died five years ago, my life has been filled almost exclusively with men and boys.
Nora is probably the only woman I’ve truly conversed with apart from Mama, and Pfeiffer McAllister is not like either of them.
Not like them one bit.
She makes my spine tingle and my pulse race. When I wake up in the middle of the night with a raging hard on, it’s Pfeiffer I see in my dreams.
Recalling this doesn’t help my confidence.
Come on, Fiero. Just get it over and done with. Then, you can breathe. And the next time will be easier.
I push back my chair, the sound turning a few heads. If it had been anyone else, they’d have turned away, but Fiero Bellucci never gets up from his chair, so I feel the heat of their eyes follow me.
My legs feel like they don’t belong to me as I walk down the aisle.
Don’t think. Just do it.
I stop beside her desk and she looks up.
God.
Her eyes hit mine and my brain just… stops. I can’t form a word. I can’t raise a smile. Dumb fuck that I am, I just stare at her.
Jesus Christ, Fiero. Say something.
“Hey,” I manage. But it comes out all wrong. It sounds too high—too unbroken.
Heat floods my face.
I clear my throat and force my voice lower, deeper, like the other boys.
“Uh, hey.”
That sounds even worse.
Fucking loooooooooord.
The corners of her lips flicker like she’s trying to make me feel better, which just makes me feel fucking worse.
“Hey.” She says it like it’s a question. “Do I, um, know you?”
Holy fuck. I want to scream at her. I’ve sat at the back of your classroom for three years and you don’t even recognize me as one of your classmates.
I want to sink into the ground and stay there.
“Um, maybe. I don’t know,” I mutter in my fake deep voice. “Fiero Bellucci.”
And then I go and do something so fucking epically embarrassing. I hold out my hand for her to shake.
But before she takes it, something shifts in her expression, like she recognizes my name after all.
Misplaced smugness fills my chest. She knows who I am.
When she glances down at my extended palm and doesn’t touch it, I start to ramble.
“I just—” I swallow, forcing the words out as deep as I can, but they sound croaky—like I’m recovering from a particularly bad case of laryngitis. “I noticed you’ve been… quiet. Lately. I just wanted to check if you’re okay.”
There. I said it. Can I go home now?
Something flickers across her face. At first it looks like shock, like she’s been found out.
Then it softens into gratitude, but that’s fleeting, because it’s quickly replaced by something I haven’t seen on her before.
It’s venomous. Vindictive. Almost as though she’s been waiting for this moment a long time.
Her eyes narrow to slits. “Is something wrong with your voice?” she asks slowly.
Someone snorts behind me, turning my cheeks an even darker shade of crimson.
I cough into my hand, but I can’t revert to my normal voice now—that would be too humiliating. I’m literally the only boy in class whose voice hasn’t broken yet. I’m already a fucking laughingstock.
Every head in the room is turning—I can feel it.
“I—” My throat closes. “I just wanted to—”
“God,” she laughs, shaking her head. “Why are you talking like that?”
The room goes deathly quiet except for a couple of spiteful chuckles.
“Like what?” someone calls out.
She leans back in her chair, her eyes still locked on mine.
“Like he’s putting on a voice.” She then mimics me—badly. It’s exaggerated and cruel. “‘Hey… are you okay?’”
Laughter explodes around us, hot and suffocating. My ears ring from the gleefulness of it.
“I’m not—” I try, but it comes out high again. And that just makes it funnier.
“Oh my God, he’s doing it again!” someone shouts.
“Say something else!” another voice joins in.
“Go on, ask her on a date—like she’d ever go with you.”
My vision blurs.
Pfeiffer tilts her head, assessing me like I’m some kind of medical experiment.
Then she stands. She’s the same height as me which only makes it worse.
“So, what were you thinking?” she says, her voice dropping just enough to feel personal again—but it isn’t. It’s worse. “You think I’m weak or something?”
“No,” I say quickly. “No, I just—”
“Or you just wanted an excuse to talk to me?”
The room erupts into more laughter. My chest tightens and I can’t breathe.
“That it?” she presses. “You thought if you sounded all deep and serious, I’d be impressed?”
My mouth opens but nothing comes out. There’s literally nothing I can say that won’t make this worse.
She waits, her eyes dancing with spite. Then her lip curls.
“If you’re going to pretend to be a man,” she says, loud enough for everyone to hear, “you should wait until you at least have a man’s voice.”
The room explodes and it’s deafening. My heart drums faster, my blood racing, the cortisol spinning around my system like a carousel.
Pfeiffer steps back and sits down, seeming to lap up the applause she’s now receiving.
I walk numbly back to my seat, jibes and laughs punctuating every step.
I don’t remember sitting down. All I remember is feeling like the foundations had crumbled. I’d never be anything at that school. I’d never have the courage to speak again.
And so I don’t.
The news reaches home before I do. Even though there are no other mob kids in my class, the teachers are crooked, and most probably on my father’s payroll.
By the time I step through the front door, he’s already waiting.
“You embarrassed yourself today,” he says.
My throat locks as he stands slowly, crossing the room like a viper with a snack in its sights.
“You let them laugh at you,” he says, the complete disappointment lacing his tone.
The first hit comes so fast I don’t see it. I just feel the crack of it across my jaw, snapping my head to the side.
“You sounded like a child.”
Another.
“You looked weak.”
Another.
Movement to my right makes me turn. As my eyes lock onto my younger brothers, another punch knocks me to the ground. None of them call out for him to stop. They just watch, as they’ve been taught to.
Down on the floor I curl into a ball, anticipating the kicks and stamps.
They come, but they’re harder this time.
I feel a rib crack under a deluge of blows to my torso.
A boot flies into my face, fracturing my nose.
I try to hold my hands in front of my eyes but he stamps on those too, breaking three fingers.
When I think he might be done, he bends over and grabs me by the hair, then he drags me yelping and crying into the guard dog pen outside.
My brothers follow and I hear a small, quickly swallowed whimper from Brando.
When I glance at them through swollen lids, I see Remo clap a hand over our youngest brother’s mouth.
Once inside the pen with the two German Shepherds he kicks me one last time and bolts the door shut, then storms back inside the house, leaving my brothers to stare.
The pen is open air and the rain hasn’t stopped. I lie, broken and bleeding, in a puddle of mud, the two dogs standing over me, sniffing at the blood.
For the next six weeks I live out in the cold, being fed only dog food and the occasional sandwich snuck out to me by one of my brothers. I will later learn that Nora was threatened with the death of her children if she tried to come outside to me.
When I’m eventually allowed back in the house, I’m weak and malnourished. I lie in bed staring at the ceiling. I don’t go back to school. I eat the food my brothers steal from the store and I slowly regain my strength.
As soon as I’m able, I start lifting weights. I spend hours in the garage my father once set up as a gym but never used.
Every other day, he smacks me about, trying to get a response out of his eldest son, but he never does, because I don’t speak. I don’t utter a word. Instead, I lift weights, and…
I read people.
I’m still dragged out to functions and funerals, but my mouth stays sealed, and I watch.
I learn people the way other boys learn books.
Unlike words, people don’t confuse me. People are actually very simple and predictable. By my sixteenth birthday, I can read anyone. So I’m put to work. I clean up in Atlantic City. The casinos are spotless of dirty scammers in less than a week.
My father turns bigger profits than ever thanks to my no-bullshit, no-hesitation approach to finding and fucking up anyone who dares to play us.
I don’t talk, I’m efficient and I don’t mess up.
I replace my father’s best men, one by one. Then I’m promoted. Not only do I get to identify the assholes who try to fuck over the house, I get to kill them off too. Turns out not having a voice makes it easier to sneak up on people and slice their necks from behind without any friction.
I finally find my place in the world.
I become the thing my father always wanted—the thing they all respect and fear: The most lethal enforcer in New Jersey.
And the best part?
I never have to speak a word.