The Blood Debt

Chapter 17

Holly

I've seen pictures of him online. I know who he is, but when I open the door that afternoon at my aunt's house, I don't recognise him because he's the last person I'm expecting to see at the door. So I stand there staring at him, wondering who he is, how my aunt could possibly know anyone that looks like him, and how out of place he looks on the quiet streets of Arundel, Maine.

It's my aunt's reaction, the fear in her voice as she calls out to my mother from behind me, that unlocks my state of unconsciousness.

He stands on the threshold of the door unbothered by the shrillness her voice takes, like he's used to having this effect on people, and waits as my mother appears out of nowhere, grabbing my arm and yanking me behind her. It's the type of hold that says, I've given you one daughter, you can't have another.

I'm told to go to my room and when I hesitate the instruction's repeated more forcefully so that it leaves no room for objection.

~~

He picks me up from the Park Avenue apartment we've settled into only days before. It's a fully furnished, full floor apartment. One of those pre-war buildings that date back to the 1920s, that's a few blocks from Central Park. I assume he owns it because the doorman knows him by name and calls me Miss Moore when he comes to collect me to enrol me at Trinity two days after we move in.

It's quiet in the car as he drives us to the Upper West Side, save for the occasional glance he throws my way before he breaks the silence.

"You're sister does that," he says looking at the clenched fists in my lap.

"When she's nervous," he offers.

I turn to look at him wandering what kind of relationship exists between them.  I don't want to think about how he knows what she does when she's scared.

"You nervous about being in the car with me or going back to your old school where everybody knows your old man checked himself out early."

I stare at him, my mouth agape, wondering if he really just said that, but he turns his attention back to the road ahead, turning onto Columbus Avenue before he turns back to me when he notices I'm staring at him.

"What? Were we not supposed to talk about that?" he asks.

"What the hell is wrong with you? Who talks like that?"

He smirks.

"Oh I get it," he says.

"You wanna tip-toe around it. Would you prefer I fake my condolences or pretend like it didn't happen or that I'm sad about it?" he says, arching an eyebrow at my dumbstruck face.

"I forget you Manhattanites like to tip-toe around ugly things. Speak the truth in whispers at dinner parties where the people you talk about aren't invited. My bad," he says.

"Has anyone told you you're an asshole," I breath, "and you have the social skills of prehistoric man," I tell him, forgetting for a moment that I'm talking to the leader of an Albanian New York Crime family.

Mom explained the terms of the agreement to me after his visit to Maine. It covers the house in New York and my tuition. Seeing Ayla is not part of the arrangement. She told me not to talk to him unless it was absolutely necessary, but I figure I don't need to be nice to him if he's not going to let us see Ayla.

"Yeah I get told I'm a real charmer all the time," he says without talking his eyes off the road ahead.

"Are you an asshole to my sister as well, because if you are, I swear to God I'll find a way to make you regret it," I say, getting ahead of my fourteen year old self.