Page 23 of Surprise Twins for the Mafia Heir

“I need you to find her, Nick,” I beg as tears fill my eyes. “I know I’m a fuck up and a disappointment to everyone but save Rosa.”

Nick nods, his nostrils flaring. “I’ll see what I can do, Vinny. But I can’t make any promises.” He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a phone, placing it in my lap.

“We’ll use that to communicate. Stash it and don’t let them see it,” Nick says. He reaches into his other pocket and pulls out a knuckle ring. I swallow hard.

“What’s that for?” I ask.

He sighs. “It has to look like I’m not showing favoritism.”

I squeeze my eyes shut. It’s the least I can take for Rosa.

The days bleed together. Nick is in and out, sending short texts of his findings. So far, it’s nothing. My body hurts so bad I start to forget what any of this was for. Larry checks in to yell at me here and there, and his boys will deliver a punch or two if they feel like it. I lose track of time eventually. I count three sunsets before giving up. The morning I wake up, I find my dad sitting in front of me. I almost wonder if I’m hallucinating. I didn’t hear anything.

“You look like shit,” he says.

I grunt. “Here to beat my ass, too?”

“Just wanted to look at my greatest disappointment,” he continues. “It was supposed to be you to bring us back to the motherland.”

The motherland, aka, Jalisco, Mexico. That’s where it all started. My grandfather married into an Italian mob family and together, the bloodlines created the deadliest gang split between Mexico and New York. Growing up in New York, I always assumed my time would be short. The summers spent with my folks in Jalisco made me yearn for a life that was simple and fast. Things were a lot more cutthroat out there with the cartel owning the land. But in order to make it to Mexico, I had to survive in New York first.

“What am I supposed to tell Abuelo Oscar? That his pride and joy screwed us?” My dad roars. Abuelo Oscar used to keep me in the summers back when I was a kid. I’d help him with his garden and get mangos covered in spicy syrups. Those times were sweet. He’d explain the family business, promising me that my childhood wouldn’t be as poor as my dad’s was. The only catch was that I had to hold the family up.

“You don’t have to lie for me. I can own up to what I didn’t do,” I finally say.

“How do you live with yourself for turning your back on your family? Do you know how much you’ve hurt your brother?” My dad presses. “He stuck his neck out for you and you made him look like a jackass.” Nothing I say will make any of them feel better. There would always be something I was doing wrong. My dad looks away and observes the small, dank basement. Even though his eyes are full of sadness, and I’m sure he hates to see me in this state, I already know that he’s here for one reason. When he looks at me, his eyes are different. He starts to speak, but hesitates, finally standing up from the chair that was pulled in front of me.

“Unlike you, I keep the promises that I make to my dad. Even with him being all the way back in Mexico, I still make sure to do what he has asked me,” he tells me as he points his finger at me. “I can’t protect you out here anymore, and I know that if you had gone back to Mexico and your grandfather knew what you were up to out here, he would have you taken out immediately.”

Death has always lingered around the entire family. In the blink of an eye, one of us could make a wrong move and be taken out, or the entire family could be taken out for a silly misunderstanding. For some reason, despite knowing that my entire life has gone down the drain because of my own decisions, I can’t bring myself to feel numb to the idea of dying. As crazy as it sounds, I want a life with Rosa.

“So, you would kill your own son, in the name of some crazy order?” I ask.

“Crazy order? That’s what you think this is? Do you think we just sit around pointing fingers trying to see who can take out the most people?” My dad steps closer to me and places his hand around my throat.

“This is about power and doing what is right by our people,” he says. “Do you want to know the real reason why you screwed up for not taking out that Newton girl?”

I nod, holding my breath as he takes his hand off my neck.

“You’re not the only one who lost a sibling in this lifetime,” my dad begins. “I never talked about it with you and your siblings because it was too much for me to handle. But I had a brother who was three years younger. We were all close with Newton and he was supposed to have my brother’s back. But Ralph set him up just for some shady deal that didn’t even go through at the end of the day.”

He walks away with his hands in his pockets. “When your uncle died it took something from your granddad. He became a shell of himself and he couldn’t operate the business in the same way. I don’t know how I was able to move on after your sister died, but I had to try because I know what it’s like when you fall from despair.”

My dad covers his face with his hands. “I love all my kids but I will kill you if I have to.”He sighs, sliding his hand down into his pocket. “I’ll have to kill you, son.”

His tone is so final.

He walks out of the basement and I instinctively check the phone.

“Spotted Rosa. She’s alive.”

I can rest easy at least.

CHAPTER 13

Rosa

Imight be stupid, but I think I can save them. My parents, of course. Of all the places to go after finally breaking free, the only place I can think of is my parents. There’s our dumpy little apartment that is full of cockroaches and black mold, and the awful storefront that my parents set up. I made a promise to myself that once I got to college I would never go back. I swore to myself that I would restart my life and pretend I didn’t have parents to begin with. However, as I took off down the highway, trying to figure out which State I could drive to, all I could feel was dread. The dread that my parents would be killed.

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