Page 51 of The Sicilian Brotherhood I

I ordered them to keep her with us. Of course, riding out to Chicago with a kid meant not all of us could take bikes. So Elena drove and I led the charge of bikes across the country to the Midwest.

Despite all my problems, hanging on to the back of a bike felt good. I allowed the wind to whip through my hair and clutched my monster of a bike as we tore down the highway.

We drove over in one day, and outside of Chicago, in a small, humble town called Crystal Lake, we settled in a hotel for the night. I took Millie into my room, knowing she’d be safer with me and settled her in a bed.

“Hungry?”

She shook her head.

“Thirsty?”

She nodded.

I lumbered over to the sink and got her a glass which she gulped down eagerly.

“Sure you not hungry?”

She nodded again.

“Any idea where your ma is?”

I knew it wouldn’t work. She glared at the question and I saw a single tear roll down her cheek. But no words. And I could tell I’d pissed her off. She folded her arms and stared straight ahead.

“I have to leave now,” I told her.

She looked up and nodded.

“Lock the door. If anyone knocks, no matter who it is, don’t answer. If they sound scary, you run into the closet and you hide and you don’t come out, no matter what. You understand?”

She nodded.

I stood there uncomfortably, not quite sure what kids needed, or wanted. She was fed. She’d had water.

“Uh… Just don’t get up to trouble.”

I grunted and started packing up for our quick drive. One handgun, two knives, and a taser. That should be enough to make someone’s life hell enough to get them to listen to me. I didn’t say much else to Millie after that and when I left her, I got a strange sensation in my stomach that took me a while to place.

Worry. I worried about her.

Damn, Giacomo, I thought to myself, you’re getting soft.

Outside, Pietro waited for me, leaning up against his bike with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth. Santo followed from the hotel a few moments later, his auburn hair freshly washed as if we were heading to prom and not to do a job.

“Is that cologne I smell?” I asked.

Santo glowered, “Quiet.”

Pietro chuckled, “He’s going to see Angelica for the first time since they broke up.”

With a measure of disdain on my face, I looked Santo up and down.

“Is this true Santo? We’re going to work.”

He turned a bright red color to match his hair and growled, “Quiet, Pietro. We have work to do.”

He was right. We mounted our bikes and I led the charge as we zoomed the twenty-five miles down the open highway towards the modest ranch house in Crystal Lake, tucked away in the quiet, middle-class suburbs of modest homes built in the 1970s. Those homes had been built around the time my papa had come to America for the first time and I remembered a Roman contact back then had me and my ma stationed out in the burbs for the summer while my father worked.

That summer he'd raked in $10 million from a bank heist and lost three of his Sicilian brothers in the process.

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