Page 4 of Forbidden Property
“What sort of personal liaisons? Mikey hasn’t been doing shit but working out and looking after CC at home.”
Well, he must have done something else, or Uncle Pino wouldn’t have summoned us here. The thought occurs to me that my uncle might not want to kill me, but he might ask me to do something almost as horrific as facing my own mortality.He could ask me to kill his own son.
I wonder if money should have been enough to tempt me down here.
“Your brother has been far busier than that,” Pino says calmly, swirling a sphere of ice around his lowball glass. “I have good information that he slept with one of the blacks we hired a long time ago and he not only did that, but he has her at home with him.”
Again, Peter struggles to hide his true feelings. He might be older than me, but it’s hard not to think about him as an imbecile when he betrays his feelings to Uncle Pino of all people without any effort at all to conceal his hand.
“Mikey wouldn’t do something like that.”
Peter’s answer is completely foolish. Does it sound at all believable that an Italian man wouldn’t fuck whomever he wanted? Clearly, Michael is guilty. If nothing else, he’s guilty of not being careful enough. The racial aspect of his break from tradition bothers me, but I don’t personally view the crime worthy of the death penalty.
Uncle Pino might think differently and worse, he outranks me. I accepted this job before knowing what it might entail with absolute trust that Uncle Pino wouldn’t ask me to do something… too difficult.
My uncle notes my silence with a pointed stare before shifting his gaze back to his son, who is far slower to catch on.
“I warned him against breaking his oath of blood purity. It would be one thing if I hadn’t warned him, but to blatantlydefy my wishes…” Uncle Pino trails off and shakes his head in disbelief that his eldest son could be the one keeping him in such an unfavorable position.
“You want me to talk to him?” Peter asks.
Again. Foolish.
Would Uncle Pino want to send such a weak message about his bloodline?
“No, Peter,” Uncle Pino says gently. Most likely because of what he’s about to ask.
“I will triple the offer I made to the two of you if you kill Michael and the bitch he knocked up. I want him to watch her die and then I want her left breast cut off and brought to me on ice.”
Peter’s face grows pale. He’s killed before, but he’s never killed a woman. It’s one of those unspoken rules in our family. Women might not have much worth, but they have enough that killing one would be at the very least impractical if not defying some silent code of honor regarding our family’s continued bloodlines.
“Dad…”
Pino returns his pleading gaze with cold indifference. “I won’t change my mind, Peter. I want them bothdead.”
Chapter Two
Geralynn
Present Day
Isit with crossed legs on a checkered picnic blanket on the dock as Nicki Taviani twists her hands from side to side as she grinds up her daily dose of New York grown weed for her Friday afternoon joint. Ever since she moved in with her brother, we always have to hang out here. I don’t know what happened and why Nicki has so much less freedom, but she does.
I’ve always known that she comes from a “weird” Italian family. I’ve had suspicions about her family over the years – they’re super rich, I can’t tell what they’re invested in, and they have super weird gender dynamics. You wouldn’t believe some of the stuff Nicki confessed to me. Still, she’s my best friend despite all the crazy differences between the two of us.
We started this weekend tradition when we got our first summer jobs atOrchard Park Super Cream, the most chaotic ice-cream parlor in our neck of Western, New York.
My fingers spread the organic raw rolling papers open as I hold the tip in place for Nicki’s herbal remedy. She uncaps thegrinder, sending the pungent weed scent wafting around us with the light, summer breeze.
She gets all the weed in and takes the papers from me to finish rolling up.
“Are you sure you’re not gonna smoke tonight?” Nicki asks.
“I’m sure.”
“Ugh.Fine.This is so fucked up, by the way.”
Nicki just landed the deal of a lifetime, but she won’t stop complaining about it. She had to move out of her apartment downtown to live with her younger brother at his lake house on the edge of Lake Ontario. The glassy blue-green looks so peaceful. It’s the perfect distraction from everything happening back in the city.
