Page 47 of Vicarious

With that, she heads over to the small table and chairs near the large windows with the expectation that I’m going to do the same. I contemplate just telling her no. This kind of stuff is the way that Phae calms down and channels her restless energy and emotions. But also, Phae is going to look through all this with or without me. And knowing what I know or highly suspect know about her bloodline, I want to make sure than I’m with her if and when she puts certain pieces together.

So I shove a lid on my anger for now, even as I feel it simmering in my blood and the beginning of a headache starting to form as a result. Then I roll up my sleeves and begin to read through the pile of documents with her.

After a few moments of this where I reread a paper ten times over without truly comprehending anything on it, I ask, “What is it?”

“What’s what?” she replies without taking her eyes off the document she’s reading.

“What is it that you have against this business?”

“You mean besides the obvious like the murders, ruining people’s lives with drugs, and the human trafficking? All that?”

“Yes.”

“It’s wrong. That simple.”

“Maybe. But it always seemed so much more personal for you.”

Phae doesn’t speak immediately, but I’m not deterred by that. She talks about her family about as much as I talk about my mother. And that’s to say, never. Another reason it was so easy to be with her. Neither one of us ever demanded or cared about meeting family or family secrets that came with it. But suddenly, the secrets of her family are very relevant to me.

Finally, she says, “This business has a way of taking people, no matter how good their intentions may be, and making monsters out of them. By all accounts, I should have become a monster. I was raised to become a monster. But I didn’t. And when I didn’t, that became a problem. Because you have to be somewhat of a monster to be part of this world. There’s no room for kindness or compassion. And when it became clear I was too much of both, it became clear that I couldn’t be a part of the business. And worse than that, I didn’t want to be.”

“How is that a problem?”

“Because saying you don’t want anything to do with the business is like saying you don’t want anything to do with the family. The family is the business and vice versa. And that’s how my family took it when I decided I wanted to leave Italy at sixteen and go become a journalist.”

“That’s… ruthless,” I settle on.

“Exactly. And it’s a cruel punishment. Your family becomes a fucking cult that you either comply with or leave everything and everyone behind to get out of. If you can get out of it. Or you can stay and not comply, but then you’re just the black sheep who everyone tolerates because of your bloodline so long as you’re not a liability.”

“It doesn’t have to be that way.”

There’s no way it has to be that way. Because, as Dele says, I may be a bastard even on my good days, but never so much that I’d excommunicate my child or force my child to excommunicate themselves because they don’t want anything to do with my business. Especially considering that it’s likely Leon is going to be that way. He’s like Phae. Too kind. Too compassionate. Too softhearted for this business. But I’m not going to be mad at him if he goes and becomes a race car driver as he’s so set on right now. I’m not ever going to make him feel unwelcome.

Phae contradicts that thought by saying, “It is that way. It’s always that way. And I vowed my children would never be part of it. My family would never be part of it. And then I connected with my uncle when I got here and thought he had the same values as I did and…”

“And you still became part of it.”

Phae sighs. “The people part of this life only see me as someone trying to take away their livelihood and family. But in the long run, not only will their victims be better for it, so will they.”

Dele is rubbing off on me, because I blurt out before I can think better of it, “And who are you to decide that?”

“Someone who was part of it. I could ask the same thing of you and Dele.”

Except tearing it all down isn’t my and Dele’s goal. And we’re as much part of it as Phae at this point. More part of it than her. This is our life she wants to tear down.

“What’s your plan for when this is all over?” I ask instead of answering her.

“Go live out in the country somewhere. A nice house on an estate where the closest house is five miles away. Maybe have a small farm. Some horses. With the closest town being a small place where everyone knows everyone and doesn’t care what’s going on in the outside world. With you and the children.” Then she adds, “Dele too if we can get her to settle down. You know her.” Phae grins. “Maybe if we find the right man for her. Or the right woman.”

It takes everything in me to just smirk and shake my head and not growl at just the thought of Dele being with anyone else but me.

Then Phae turns to me and asks, “That sounds nice? Doesn’t it? You could… I don’t know. Work on people’s tractor trailers or machines or something. Become a plain old mechanic. You always liked that kind of thing.”

It sounds like a torturous existence, and a painful way to wither away and die.

With a startling clarity, I realize that Phae and I have always wanted completely different things. Things that go well beyond the fact that one of my greatest ambitions is to be the boss of a mafia empire while she seeks to destroy it.

I don’t want a simple life of obscurity or mundaneness. Just living to make ends meet. To have basic necessities. To then go home to my wife, have dinner, talk to the kids, go to bed and do it all over again. I might not crave the spotlight, but I crave being the one in control. Being the hidden hand that controls the pieces on the chess board. I crave the unpredictability and danger of this business and the high that comes with being able to survive and conquer it despite the odds. And that might mean that I won’t die peacefully in my bed at ninety years old, but at least I’ll have had a good time.

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