Page 14 of Lies He Told Me (Bratva Crime Syndicate 1)

“As long as the city is out of our control” I say, thinking out loud now, “it will be our enemy.”

Ludmil knows the look on my face well. “What are you suggesting then? We conquer the city?”

We chuckle. It’s just like Ludmil to word it like that. “In a sense. Why not beat the Skull Kings at their own game? Only we don’t buy the politicians; we become the politicians.”

“By we, you mean …”

“I mean that I’ll do it,” I decide with a nod. “I’ll run for mayor.”

In chaos, there is also opportunity.

4

Joy

I know when I get close to home because of the smell.

It’s the kind of eye-watering noxious assault that you can’t imagine real-life human beings actually having to deal with—until you yourself do. All because some genius decided to sell a plot of land in the shittiest part of town to a dump contractor who cared about properly burying and sterilizing the trash as much as he cared about saving the koala bears. Which was, apparently, not a whole lot.

So, as I dodge raggedy grandmas with vacant stares, roving around with fake pearls and rubbish-filled shopping carts, skinny junkies looking at me like I might be hiding loonies in my teeth, and an unhappily married couple pretending that he doesn’t beat her, I get to enjoyeau de our-life-is-shitwafting in my nostrils.

Inside 55 Clair Creek isn’t much better. The apartment owner keeps the lobby just okay enough to pass inspection. He cleans it every few weeks or so, but only so no authorities look too closely at what lurks further in.

Like how the antique elevator skips every floor but four and decides to trap someone for a day with clockwork regularity. Or how the hallways are littered with so many cigarette-butt-filled dust balls, rat turds, and strangers that your best bet is sprinting down to your door as fast as you can.

On our floor, the third, some doors are open permanently—Mr. Anderson’s for instance. Even as I run past, his high-pitched voice calls out, “Joy, is that you? Joy, honey? Say hello to your Uncle Andy!”

Ms. Dalulua’s and Mrs. Paul’s doors are closed, not that it’s making much of a difference with the way their babies are apparently having a who-can-scream-the-loudest competition.

Even the rats are crouched in their holes, heads poked out warily.

Our door is the only one decorated, a white wreath and purple flowers from Dollarama that Mom and I made. I jam the key in, fight with the unwilling, gummed-up lock, win, get in, then finally exhale.

I made it.

The first thing I see as I’m taking off my sneakers is Damon, his flab parked on our sunken, sinew-colored couch, with a bunch of empty beer cans around his feet, and a Molson in each hand. His eyes don’t so much as flick my way. He’s clearly deep in hisHockey Night in Canadatrance.

I bite back my standard sarcastic, “Hi to you, too.” There’s a reason I call him the DD—short for ‘Deadbeat Damon’—behind his back.

The story is that he ‘injured’ his arm in some unspecified way at some unspecified factory job, so will have to be on disability for life. Miraculously, that disastrous injury doesn’t prevent him from hauling the twenty-four-pack beer cases from the bodega down the street to here, but what do I know about soft tissue damage?

“There you are!”

It’s Mom. Her thin face is beaming with enough genuine happiness to almost make me forget what a shit day I’ve had. She bustles forward and throws her arms around me, her marmalade scent settling around me like a hug of its own.

I sink into it, into her. Warm. Mom. Safe.

This time, though, I almost knock her over. She forces a giggle, and I force one too, although I don’t let her go.

Mom’s been losing weight. She loses weight when she gets stressed. We both know what Mom’s stressed about.

“Haaappy birthday to you! Happy birthday to youuu!” Mom breaks away to sing, that determined smile on her face now. As if she can sing away all of this—our shit lives, Damon, the day I just had.

“C’mon, Damon!” she calls over to him, but continues bustling me over to the kitchen regardless, even when he doesn’t bother to reply, “Happy birthday, dear Joy! Happy birthday to you.”

And for a few seconds, when I see the cake—heart-shaped, all lit up with twenty little candles—I do forget.

All there is for me is Mom’s love, big as its always been. So big that I can hardly believe it, even now.

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