Page 56 of Redemption
It went to shit.
Or not.
Depending on how you consider a life in luxury built on filthy money, climbing to the top of the food chain over a growing pile of bodies.
We’re not your average American family, but we are what we are. When my classmates played baseball and pulled girls’ braids, I learned how to shoot a gun. When I was a freshman in high school, I killed my first man. On Mom’s order.
Yeah, not your average family.
“She’s off limits to you, Christian.”
Salvatore has brought us together for a dinner and a small family gathering. Nathan and Sydney have come all the way from their primary home in New Orleans. She’s a petite brunette with doe-like eyes, rocking a small baby bump. I can’t help stealing glances at her, at them holding hands, and fight the feeling of a serrated knife twisting in my chest at the thought of how I fucked it up. I’ll never have that. I had my first shot ever at meeting a woman I actually admired, respected, cared for, and I went and destroyed it fundamentally.
Next to me sits my younger brother Matteo who has unexpectedly graced us with his presence, and at the foot of the table, opposite Luci, sits Mama Bianca Russo. Both have flown in from Chicago.
Luca and Angela are missing. Luca is still only on the brink of getting into the business. He’s made some foolish decisions in the past, and Salvatore hasn’t forgotten them. Angela wouldn’t come even with a gun to her head.
“Yeah,” I grit out, “you’ve made that clear.”
Fuck me, I’m not staying away.
“You went and screwed a hit?” Bianca’s voice cuts through the room like a diamond saw through glass.
Nathan’s fiancée flinches. She’s not happy with what our family does, but she has chosen him, and she doesn’t have much choice. Like any of us.
I open my mouth to retort, but Salvatore beats me to it.
“Your boys have a healthy sexual appetite, nothing wrong with that. And he shoots sharp!” He barks out a laugh and slams his palm to the table, making the cutlery rattle.
I exchange a glance with Bianca, hers disapproving as all hell.
“It happened,” he continues. “Now, we do damage control.”
Everybody looks at him, waiting for him to continue.
“Matteo. Put one of your men to keep an eye on the girl. Make sure nothing happens to her. Anyone hurts her”—he shoots me a glance—“you take them out.”
“Got it,” says my brother.
“Sydney!” Salvatore turns to her next.
Nathan’s fiancée jumps at hearing her name. “Yes?”
“You’re to befriend this girl, keep her close. You’ll have a baby soon, and so will she. You also have more than that in common”—he looks pointedly at Nathan and then at me—“and I’m sure you’ll get along.”
Sydney gapes, opening and closing her mouth. Nathan starts saying something, but she interrupts him.
“I sort of wondered why I was here. Look, I’ve got a business to run. I can’t—”
Salvatore waves dismissively. “That’ll be taken care of.”
“I don’t work for you!”
“See it as a favor to me for letting your man out of my… shadier side of business.”
Her lips tighten into a thin white line as she glances at us all in turn.
“I’m not doing it for you,” she finally says, “but I’ll do it for a scared lonely girl who happened upon a Russo.”