Santo
Not once in my life have I ever questioned if I have the strength to go on.
I remember one particular winter when we were kids—Nico was barely five years old, just beginning to grasp the fact that we had no parents. We had nowhere to go. Every day was a new battle, each night that we survived to see a miracle. Chicago winters are brutal, but this one was particularly miserable.
We hadn't eaten in what felt like weeks, all of us half dead from the cold. I remember pulling Simo aside so our younger brothers wouldn't hear as I told him that I didn't think we were all going to make it.
"We should leave them somewhere," I'd suggested, feeling like my throat was closing up with the words alone but knowing it was what had to be done. "The fire station might be our best bet. Shit, we could do a random house, one that looks nice. That would have the money to take them in. We could find one with a nice big playground or pool in the backyard. Something they'd enjoy."
It would be devastating, losing my brothers, but I knew I'd go on. Knowing they'd be safe, warm, and cared for was all I needed. Simo and I were old enough that nobody would want us. We'd seen and endured enough that we weren't quite right in the head, wouldn't take well to being raised by strangers. We had to let our brothers go so they'd be safe.
But Simo had steadfastly refused. "I'll find a way," was all he'd said.
Two weeks later, we had a roof over our heads. We even had money, enough that the hunger pangs went away. It wasn't glamorous, but it was more than enough. Simo never told me how he did it, but it didn't matter. What mattered was that he'd found a way.
I'm not sure I can find a way out of this now.
My body has always been good at enduring the things I put it through, my mind even better at following suit. But both my body and mind are untethered now. Some dark fog is creeping up on me and slowly unwinding the strings of my consciousness. I can literally feel it, a foreign pull on my brain, parts of it unraveling and falling to the ground right before me.
The only thing that slightly fetters me to my sanity is the rise and fall of Nina's chest. Still breathing. Still alive and still mine. Focusing on that brings me back to earth—I'm just not sure for how long.
The moment that gunshot sounded with the guard on top of her, his hand on the firearm, replays through my mind until I swear I'm about to be sick. Those few moments of not knowing who sustained the bullet, while I was stuck trying to drag my injured body across the floor to get to her, stretched for a lifetime. I'll remember them forever. At the very least, they took seven years off my fucking life.
"Shit." Her voice echoes flatly as she takes a look around us. "We're out of time, aren't we?"
I can't do anything but nod. There's just no way nobody has spotted a fucking Romano helicopter hovering in the front lawn of the Genovese residence. I try to focus on anything but the feeling of my energy seeping steadily from me through the hole in my thigh, but I'm practically on empty.
"Santo."
Nina looks meaningfully at the front door, then back at her father's body. Understanding zips through me, and despite everything, I smirk at her.
"You're fucked up, baby."
"I can do it. You're—"
"Like fuck."
"I can do it."
"I know you can. But I don't want you to have to."
She tries to give me a smile, but the hollow quality of her voice counteracts it. "Fine. You like knives more than I do, anyway."
I crouch before Luciano's body. I have to resist stomping on his throat for good measure—he really is dead. Out of the both of our fathers, mine is definitely the only one with the penchant for coming back to life.
She killed him quickly—not because she didn't want him to suffer, but because she didn't want herself to, not for a second longer. My girl chose herself, and after a lifetime of everyone else choosing everything for her, I can't complain about how she chose to take her father's life.
If it had been up to me, he'd have suffered. Just like Andrea. Worse. But it wasn't up to me. I see now how she's been quietly preparing herself to kill him, how she must've peacefully arrived at that decision and kept it to herself, needing nothing—no validation from me or anyone else—except for my agreement not to take the opportunity from her.
I wonder how many times I foisted my way of things on her when I should've relented instead. When I should've seen her potential, even if it's softer than mine—a little quieter—but no less strong.
I'm thinking fondly of the way she counteracts and complements me at every turn as I pull the knife from Luciano's bloody neck. Nina heaves out a deep breath, stepping away so she doesn't have to see.
Then I grit my teeth and hack off Luciano's hand at the wrist.
The first strike doesn't go all the way through the bone. Neither does the second, or third. Fourth. Fifth. I'm using a fucking butcher knife when I should be using a power saw. I feel like a madman, unleashing all the remaining strength in my battered body on this dead man's limb.
It's not working.
"You just need the thumb," she strangles out from behind me. "I've watched him use the touchpad before."
"Thanks for telling me now," I huff out, sweating.
I raise my arm to take off the fucker's thumb when a gunshot sounds from somewhere behind me. My body turns in a dazed panic. Nina's holding her father's gun over the body of another guard who must've just come running—a little late to the party—but now is slumped dead at her feet. Shot straight through the forehead.
She looks down at her firearm. "I think I'm starting to get the hype with these things."
"Don't get all bloodthirsty on me now," I mutter, delivering the final hit.
Note to self, my girl knows how to use a fucking gun.
Part of me wonders if it'll sink in for her later that she killed three men tonight, but looking at her now and the way she nudges the guard's arm away from her foot with a disgusted scowl, I don't think it will. This girl is stronger than I've given her credit for in the things that matter.
A sudden sense of belonging swells deep inside me. It's the first time I've felt so explicitly that she belongs to me, and I to her. When I looked at her, I used to see someone tainted by my world. But it's her world, too. And she finally has the strength to do more than just survive in it.
And look sexy as fuck doing it, standing there impatiently waiting for me to finish mangling her father's corpse.
I might as well levitate to the front door, because I have no fucking clue how my legs are working. Blood trails behind me, and I'm not sure if it's mine or hers or everyone else's. How tired I am of the damned stuff—in a way I never have been before. Just seeing it all over her, the way it clings to her skin and hollows her eyes out when she looks at it, is enough for me.
It takes me several precious seconds to figure out how to work the touchpad at the door.
"Fucking idiot," Nina mutters. "Bet he never anticipated he'd die in this house, just like her. Much less that he'd ultimately help us get out of here."
I'm not sure if we both subconsciously think it won't work, but when the beep sounds and the door unlatches, we both just stare at each other for a moment.
"You did it," I breathe. Because she single-handedly got both of us to this point. I may have killed a couple more, but that's only because she fucking got to me in the first place.
On a disbelieving laugh, she rips open the door to a never-ending gust of wind that blows our hair back and waters our eyes.
The helicopter is hovering a couple feet from the ground, and I barely make out Simo's steel face behind the controls. I keep forgetting the motherfucker went and got his pilot license years ago. My body threatens to wilt at the sight, at the knowledge that my brothers are right there. With Nina by my side, my family is all here now. For me. The thought fills me with unexpected emotion.
We start towards the aircraft, and that's when I see it. The other shoe dropping.
Off to the side, Antonio has a gun to Tommaso's head. My brother is struggling, but for some reason, it doesn't look like he's using all his strength.
I watch, frozen, as Antonio pulls the trigger.
+
Nina
I really don't know how Santo, or any of his brothers, have maintained their sanity all these years.
I suppose it can be argued that they might not be in full possession of said sanity—some more than others. I happen to think they've done well for themselves, all things considered.
Watching Antonio now, I feel like I'm witnessing the answer for every single question I've had about Santo's violence, Massimo's emotionlessness, and Tommaso's... well, his behavior.
Antonio Romano looks completely wild. His hair is whipping violently all over the place, face sweaty, the blades of the helicopter disrupting his perfect businessman façade and revealing the primitive man beneath. His sanity is stripped away, scooped from those dry bones until all that remains is this crazed skeleton. The change is frightening.
This man has sired a generation of men who are wild and unhinged in their own right. What he's put them through—it's unimaginable. Why do parents do that? Why do they give the worst parts of themselves to their children?
I don't think I'll ever know. My only potential answer to that question lies on the floor inside my childhood home, in a puddle of blood.
Massimo's stuck in the cockpit, and the aircraft pitches slightly as he looks back at Tommaso. He sees us, standing there glued together and bloody, right as I notice a flicker of motion at the wide-open belly of the helicopter. It's Samuel with both arms around Nico's chest, holding him back as the youngest Romano tries to go to Tommaso.
Fuck. Why is he here? Concern pokes sharply through the numbness. With how bent on being involved in business he's been, I'm sure he gave the others no choice.
Antonio locks eyes with Santo and pulls the trigger.
Santo lurches forward, but it's pointless.
Antonio's laughing, waving his gun around, wiping the sweat from his face. And Tommaso is standing there wide-eyed, clutching his chest, looking up at the sky where Antonio sent the bullet at the very last second.
Slightly unsteady, he stalks towards us, his face tightening into a frightening expression. Remembering my weapon, I point it at him. But it clicks emptily.
"Fuck," Santo mutters. We both look at each other hopelessly.
Antonio is practically upon us, and I'm not seeing a way out of this. Santo is too slow at grabbing me as I step in front of him and crack the side of the gun against his father's temple. The older man swears and grabs the now bleeding spot, looking at me like I have three heads.
"Fucking shit, baby," Santo swears breathlessly, stepping in front of me. I scowl, practically thrumming with the need to protect Santo. Especially when he can't do it for himself. And when I feel like I definitely could've gotten another hit in.
Santo moves us closer to the helicopter, keeping his body positioned in front of mine. Behind his father's back, Tommaso mirrors our movement. They seem to be hatching some plan through flickering gazes and nods. Antonio chuckles, spreading out an arm like he's personally welcoming us to the aircraft.
"By all means, go ahead," he shouts over all the noise. "I'm not after your fucking girl. I'm after you."
In a snap, I nudge Santo aside. Due to his slightly audible grunt of pain, I'm a little too rough, but I don't care. I lose it. Awareness of what's going on around me, of what my body is doing, everything—I fucking lose it. All I know is Antonio's scream of pain as I plunge two fingers into his eye sockets and use my other hand to punch his groin.
I feel weightless, so it doesn't hurt as he blindly backhands me and knocks me into the grass. I lay there laughing at him as he stumbles around, bent at the waist with his hands over his eyes.
He looks like a fucking idiot.
Pretty sure I've stunned Santo and Tommaso into paralysis, the next thing that happens is a sudden shout. Nico finally breaks free from Samuel's grip with a well aimed jab of his elbow into the older man's stomach. He tumbles out onto the ground and whips out a gun, shooting without hesitation.
The bullet rips into the back of Antonio's thigh, incredibly close to his ass. He falls to his knees with a shout.
Tommaso hoots in laughter, although the noise becomes a frantic cry as Antonio whips around, sending a flurry of bullets raining in Nico's direction.
Heart in my fucking throat, I don't breathe until Nico pops up from the grass unharmed. He's grinning proudly.
"Get inside!" Tommaso shouts, but Nico stubbornly shakes his head.
Then, I hear a groan, and I realize why Santo didn't do anything when I attacked his father like a bat from hell. He's on his knees in the grass, face frighteningly pale. He tries to stand but cries out as movement causes more blood to dribble down his leg.
Fuck. He's been bleeding too much this whole time.
"Nina," he says deliriously, seeming barely aware of anything, "get inside."
Tommaso grabs me, and he and Nico lift me into Samuel's waiting arms. Before I can process what the hell is happening, I'm dragged into the belly of the helicopter.
"There you go, short stuff," Tommaso smiles, strain pushing and trembling on his face.
"No—"
"He's not going to be able to focus on anything with you in harm's way," he snaps, already turning to where Antonio is on top of Santo, shouting unintelligible things as he hits him. "Especially not fucking surviving."
Santo's head shifts in the grass, fixating on me hanging out of the helicopter, and he seems to experience a surge of something. Antonio's too wild with his gun, and Santo sends it skittering across the grass with a hit to his arm. His father rears back his fist, and with a primal roar, Santo bucks him off, wrestling him to his back.
Nico stands off to the side, trying to take a shot but unable to without potentially hitting his brother, as Tommaso runs for Antonio's discarded gun.
Antonio gains the upper hand, Santo's fight leaving him again too quickly. And I watch as father begins to kill son.
---
Just a few chapters left, and in the spirit of deep fucking impatience, I will be putting up the next chapter as early as I can tomorrow!
- G