Page 4 of Fall
I’m running toward something.
I need to keep my little brothers out of the kind of place thattricks the authorities into believing kids would have a good life there when in truth, it's the beginning of a nightmare. The two and a half hour brisk walk in the biting fortysomething degree Fahrenheit cold is more than worth it.
I don't give two fucks that it's my sixteenth birthday today. Bloody knuckles are the best gift I give myself. It means I can take care of myself and my brothers.It says that I still stand for something, a time when everyone around me wants to tell me that I'm worthless just because I'm a motherless child, because I happen to be a teen with no parents who care for me.
But I had a mother.
One that loved and cherished me, and meant the world to me. One whose voice I still hear singing to me or lovingly calling my name before I fall asleep.Whose eyes still gaze on me with so much admiration and pride that my chest hurts. Whose arms I feel running softly through my hair. Whose vanilla and lavender scent still lingers in the scarf I have in my backpack, the one she wore to the hospital that night she died.
Just because she’s dead now doesn’t change the fact that I’m somebody to her.
And I made her a promise that I won’tlet anyone break us up.
To watch over Josh and Joey after she passed away.
The soles of my feet fucking ache by the time I make it to the edge of the main boulevard street where my brothers are staying. My hands and ears are so fucking cold that I can barely feel any sensation in them. The muscles in my body are all screaming and tense from the long walk and the bitter cold. Andmy stomach is growling like a fucking lion. Still, I wouldn’t change a thing if it means not making it to my brothers’ sides tonight. I have enough cash to buy us three bus tickets to my Godmother Jeannie in Tallahassee. The state turned down her claim for us because she’s seventy-six and they think she’s too old to parent us. They’re fucking idiots. She might not be our flesh and blood, but she’sfamily, and she wants us. We’ll have a good life out in the country. A better life than this foster system shit. And we’ll be together like it should be.
All I have to do is take my brothers away from this place.
There’s just one problem.
I arrive at the edge of the property to find seven or eight black late model vehicles parked on the long double driveway of the house. Lincolnstown cars and Cadillac SUVs neatly line the street too. This is a fucking problem. I can handle a pair of foster parents, but I’m no match for the dozen or more people inside. They’re likely to be witnesses at best, or in the worst case scenario, will side with the foster parents, call the cops, and stop me from taking my brothers with me.
I may not even make it to the front door at all.
And as I catch sight of the man in a business suit stepping out of a stretch town car limo, flanked by four massive walls of men protecting him, my breathing stops, my stomach heaves, and my heart sinks.
This is gonna be a long night.
Paolo Romano, one of the most notorious mob bosses to ever run the streets of western New Jersey, is about to step foot inside the house wheremy brothers are staying. The man owns this town and controls several sections of New York City and Philadelphia. Everybody who's anybody knows it. I'm a kid, and even I know it. From the cops to city hall, from businesses to the most reputable charities, from soccer moms to sports coaches, the Romano name commands respect. What that means is my kid brothers' foster parents are off limits. The factthat he's visiting their home like this means they're under Romano's protection.
But as hard as it’ll be to get Josh and Joey out of this house tonight, I’m not gonna back down.
One way or another, the three of us are going to be together from tonight on.
Together.
I’ll do whatever it takes to protect them.
I just wish I had some way I could bargain with him,somehow. At my age, I’m not prepared for a man like him.
From my spot behind a cluster of snow-covered bushes, made more scant by the loss of leaves during the fall, I study Romano as his hands run down the lapels of his suit jacket, smoothing over the fabric and doing up the one closing button. I stand at the edge of the property for less than a minute, then I make my move. No point tryingto come up with a plan.
I don't assess options or gauge risk. I'm a teenager for fuck's sake. We're expected to be impulsive and impetuous. But I have to admit that I'm nervous as fuck. And tired. Night falls before five in the evening, so it's been a long evening, and it's not even eight thirty.
I've already been shot at.
I might’ve already killed a man too.
And thenI walked for close to three hours to make it here.
His men see me long before I can get close.
“Get the hell out of here kid,” says one of his men providing muscle for the evening.
“I’m here for my brothers!” I shout up to him, but he grabs my shoulder and starts to rough me up, shoving me back in the direction I came from.
But Romano stops him. “Who’s this kid?” Romanoasks.
