Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 88182 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 441(@200wpm)___ 353(@250wpm)___ 294(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 88182 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 441(@200wpm)___ 353(@250wpm)___ 294(@300wpm)
She frowns into the silence that follows, but she doesn’t pull away. She doesn’t call me a monster like I deserve.
“Back in those days, the Fontana outfit was one of the most powerful crime syndicates in the city and I was barely more than a homeless urchin floating from foster family to group home and back again. I met Shawn at one of my more stable housing situations and we formed a tight bond, and both of us looked up to the made men that wandered around our neighborhood. Those older guys drove nice cars, they had girls and friends, they laughed loudly and were respected. To me, they were like gods. Their life seemed unattainable to a boy who’d only ever owned two sets of clothes and one pair of shoes.”
“Was Shawn the same way?” she asks.
“Even worse, if anything. He liked the glamour of it more than I did. He talked about the clubs, the restaurants. He listened when the made men talked like they were preaching just for him.”
“How old were you?”
“Fourteen. Shawn was fifteen. But he was shy in ways I wasn’t, and when I had the chance to talk to one of the made men, a guy called Alfonso, I got on his good side. I don’t know why but he took a liking to me. Alfonso gave me small jobs, and in retrospect, I realize he was probably ripping me off. I did all the dirty work, put myself in risky situations, and did it for almost nothing. But I made it through, and soon Alfonso was passing me on to other operations in the outfit, and that’s when Augustus noticed me.”
I close my eyes. I don’t want to talk about this part. Up to this point, life wasn’t so bad. I had extra money, I was gaining a reputation for myself, I was building a legend. I’d done some things, a few ugly, a few impressive, but enough that people were starting to talk. Prime Spadaro’s one to watch.
“Shawn was jealous but he was also desperate to get involved too, and I kept promising him I’d introduce him, but the time was never right. We argued about it sometimes. Mostly we were best friends, until I couldn’t put him off anymore. That’s when I got an offer direct from Augustus, a job that seemed easy. All I had to do was sit at a corner and play lookout. If any cops came, if any rival gangs were around, I was supposed to make a lot of noise. I didn’t know why or what was going on, but that wasn’t for me to ask. It was something I’d done dozens of times already and it always worked out.”
Deanna touches my chest. Her lips are warm when she kisses the tattoo over my heart. “You brought Shawn along.”
I nod, the taste of that night still on my tongue all these years later. “It was muggy. Really wet and nasty. The next day was trash day and the street smelled like garbage. Shawn loved it though, kept saying how this was it, how he’d do this job and break in like I had. We joked together, you know? Two young boys trying to pretend like they were brave. I felt better, having Shawn with me. Most nights I was terrified, but not when he was around.”
“What happened to him?”
“Nothing for the first hour. We sat in silence and shared a few cigarettes. Until around midnight a car rolled down the block, which wasn’t that weird, except the headlights were turned off. I remember Shawn standing up, cigarette dangling from his lips. He took a drag and pointed. The fuck is that idiot doing? That’s what he said, pointing right at the car. The fuck is that idiot doing? The bullet hit him in the jaw. Blood splattered my shirt and my face. The cigarette was gone and Shawn stood there for a second too stunned to realize how bad it was until the second bullet hit him in the chest and he dropped. That saved my life. I’m sure about it now. If he hadn’t fallen, I wouldn’t have hit the pavement too. I crawled to him and tried to stop the bleeding as they kept shooting. Bullets tore into the house behind us. Nobody came out and nobody said a word, only Shawn made these awful gagging sounds. The car took off, squealing tire smoke. I tried to save him, but I was a kid, and there was so much blood. He was choking and his hands grabbed at me and he looked so scared and desperate. It was supposed to be his big night. It wasn’t supposed to happen that way.”
Deanna buries her face in my chest. Her cheeks are wet with tears. That confuses me. She’s crying for a dead boy she never knew? But her sadness is like a trigger dredging up all that old pain I’d managed to shove down deep inside, except mine doesn’t come out in sorrow.