Mafia Obsession

Book Title: Seducing Mr. Mafia

Scarlet

It’s hard not to feel like a kid when my parents argue. Our bedrooms are jam-packed together, just like every room in this apartment, the walls barely thick enough to separate them, let alone block any noise. I’m sitting on my bed, like when I was a girl, my hands pressed against my knees. I’m nineteen. I shouldn’t have to feel like this anymore.

“Then why did you borrow it?” Mom screams.

“I wanted to give us a better life,” Dad roars back. “Why is that so goddamn hard to understand?”

I close my eyes and imagine I’m somewhere else, but my imagination doesn’t go very far. Singing usually helps with feelings like these, not that I’m good. But focusing on my voice-blocking out everything else-often makes things easier. The issue is I’ve been crying, and my throat is raw.

“Loan sharks,” Mom says in a quieter voice but still loud enough for me to hear, obviously, since we can hear everything in this apartment. That means Mom and Dad might’ve been able to hear me crying when they first started arguing, and they didn’t care.

“Loan sharks,” Mom repeats. “Jesus Christ, Philip. What were you thinking?”

“We’re going in circles, Jessica,” Dad snaps.

“Maybe I want you to explain it to me one last time.”

Opening my eyes, I stare across my small bedroom and my tiny desk with the chipped paint. We didn’t always live in a rundown apartment. When I was younger, we had a three-bedroom house in the suburbs, a white picket fence, and birds singing in the morning instead of people screaming at each other. That was before Dad started his get-rich-quick schemes, which inevitably always became get-poorer-quick schemes.

“It was a sure thing,” Dad says. “That butcher has been in business for decades. How was I supposed to know there’d be a black-market meat scandal the day after I bought in, huh?”

“I remember our old bed linens. They were so soft. This stuff makes my skin crawl, and you stink of booze.”

“Jess-”

“You reek of it. Stop pretending this is all about business. I bet you never even bought into this silly butcher’s. It all went on liquor, didn’t it?”

I’m relieved when my cell phone rings, Charlotte’s name appearing on my cracked screen. Charlotte’s the only friend from our old life who still bothers to stay in touch with me. Not that I can blame anybody else. They’ve got college and relationships and life to keep them busy. Charlotte and I have always been Char and Scar.

I leave my bedroom and go into the bathroom, the furthest room from the argument. “Hey,” I say, sitting on the cold toilet seat.

“Howdy,” Charlotte says, her voice upbeat despite the circumstances. “I wanted to check in about the you-know-what.”

Charlotte knows all about Dad’s latest scheme. “He lost all the money. They’re arguing about it now. Apparently, loan sharks will be kicking down our door any day now.”

My voice sounds way too flat, way too resigned. It’s like I don’t even care, but that’s not exactly it. It’s just that I’ve been through this too many times.

“Are you… angry?” Charlotte asks.

“I don’t even know,” I tell her. “It just is what it is. It’s like the color of the sky or grass. It’s like the fact we breathe oxygen. Dad borrows money. Dad loses money. We move to a cruddier neighborhood, but I’m unsure how much further we can slip.”

“I wish there was something I could do,” Charlotte whispers.

“You’re helping just by calling. Believe me. Anyway, it’s not like you can fly over here and fix everything. How’s college?”

“It’s… fine, yeah, okay, not great.”

I roll my eyes. “You don’t have to pretend just because I’m stuck here. Be honest.”

Charlotte sighs and then starts telling me about her latest assignment. I try not to get jealous or let my mind fill with foolish visions of having the time to pursue my own dreams. Not that I think I’ll ever become some majorly successful singer. Maybe a backup singer or part of a choir, anything that gives me that beautiful feeling of disappearing and not having to think.

Slam. The argument is spilling into the living room. “I’ve got to go,” I tell Charlotte.

“Okay. Keep me posted.” “Will do.”

I hang up and go into the living room. Dad has his suitcase open on the coffee table. Mom is in the doorway, throwing clothes at him. Dad catches them and shoves them into the suitcase. My chest tightens, my heart aching when I notice Dad purposefully not looking at me.

He zips up the case, then finally glances at me, only for a second. He’s fifty-four, bald, a little round around the middle. His features are tightly lined, and his eyes are bloodshot from the booze. I’ve never felt truly loved by him. We’ve never had a real father-daughter bond. It’s sad, but I can’t linger on it. Otherwise, I’ll go crazy.

“Well,” Mom says, striding into the living room, her eyes as wide as saucers from her pain pills. She had a fall last year, and even though her hip has healed, she says the pain is still there, always there. “What are you waiting for?”

“You know it’s not me who will suffer here,” Dad snaps. “I can disappear. Leave the city. Do whatever the hell I want. The sharks are going to come looking for you.”

Dad grabs his suitcase without looking at me again and almost runs for the door. Mom chases after him, screaming, calling him every name she can think of. I stand in the bathroom doorway the whole time, watching numbly. There are no more tears now. I’m retreating into myself, a secret room inside, with perfect acoustics and no pain, no doubt, just music.

Once he’s gone, Mom turns, falls against the door, slides to a sitting position, and starts sobbing. Maybe a good daughter would go to her, hold her, and tell her everything will be okay. However, since the pills started, my bond with Mom has begun to fray. It’s even more depressing than with Dad. At least he and I never had much of a relationship to begin with.

I go into my bedroom, shut the door, sit on my bed, and stare at the wall.

At first, I think I’m dreaming. The bang-bang-bang seems like it comes from inside me. I peel my eyes open and focus. It’s coming from the front door. This is another familiar routine. Dad leaves, vowing never to return, and then he comes stumbling back. Mom’s probably too dosed-up to answer the door. I have a double shift at the restaurant tomorrow, so I need my sleep.

Groggily, I drag myself through the apartment and open the door. “Dad, it’s late.”

A cold hand clamps over my mouth, sending an icy shiver through me. The man is wearing a balaclava, eyes narrowed as he shoves me against the wall.This text is © NôvelDrama/.Org.

“Don’t make a noise,” he says.

I was about to scream, so I bite down. My heart’s banging in my chest so hard that it hurts.

“Your father owes us money, Scarlet. Where is he?”

I shake my head, made difficult by the fact he’s holding my mouth, his grip crushing my jaws like he’s trying to twist my head off.

“You don’t know?”

I nod, wondering if I should try to remember any details about him. Green eyes, his accent indistinguishable from anybody born in the rougher parts of the city.

“That’s not good for you,” the man says, “but I believe that family is the most important thing in life. Don’t you?”

I nod again, but only because it’s what he wants me to do. So far, he hasn’t produced a weapon. He hasn’t tried to do anything to my hands-hold them in place, handcuff them, anything. I’m under no delusions about my ability to fight. I just need to let him get his speech over with, but what if he turns violent?

“That means this debt belongs to your entire family,” the man says. “I’m a generous man. I’ll give you three days. Do you have any questions?”

I nod a third time.

He slightly loosens his grip on my mouth. I can taste the leather of his glove. It makes me sick. “Don’t scream, Scarlet Smith. Don’t do anything stupid.”

It’s not hard to guess why he’s used my full name. He wants me to understand that he knows everything about me. About Mom. About Dad.

“How much?” I say, trying so hard to keep my voice steady.

“Thirty-two thousand,” he replies, “but it’ll be thirty-five tomorrow and thirty-eight the day after that. Tell you what. We can call it an even forty in three days. Unless you have thirty-two right now?”

“N-no,” I whisper.

He turns and looks into the apartment. From the way the balaclava shifts, I think he’s smirking. “I didn’t think so. Don’t worry about finding us for the payment. We’ll come to you.”

He lets me go and backs off into the hallway. Another detail is that he’s not very tall. Just a couple of inches taller than me. I’m five-five. So he’s around five-seven. Why does that matter, though? It’s not like I can go to the police. He doesn’t even need to say that part. Dad has borrowed from bad people before. Never this bad, but still. No police.

It’s like the man reads my mind. From the hallway, he says, “Call 911 if you want, Scarlet. I’d enjoy that.”

He walks down the hallway. Once he’s gone, I stumble against the wall, shaking all over. All I want to do is cry and scream that life’s not fair. There’s only so much I can take, but now the debt’s on my head and Mom’s.

I remember a few years ago, before the most recent move, Mom and me in the kitchen, Mom kneading dough, singing a few notes, then looking over at me with a daring, alert glint in her eyes-the kind of glint she never has anymore. “Go on, Scarlet. I know you can do better than me…”

When I sang, her whole face lit up. I think about that all the time. It’s one of our best moments. Whatever else is true about Mom-the pills, the hopelessness-she doesn’t deserve this, and neither do I. So what the hell are we going to do?