Angel's Mafia (gxg) ✓

XLIII | Blood Of My Blood

YEAH. THIS IS SOME GODFATHER-TYPE SHIT RIGHT HERE.

The biggest, baddest Mafia lord in the city is my grandfather.

And he has my name tattooed on his hands.

I also have a gun to his head.

He doesn't say anything about the gun as he continues. It's almost like he can't see it. "Your father is the rat who gave me away. After he had you, I only saw you once. When you were maybe two or three. It was a wedding, one of our relatives, and at the party, your father informed the police I'd be attending."

I know this. I remember this.

A memory of blood and song.

This is how I knew I had held a gun, before I ever came here.

My first memory―my finger on the trigger. No wonder this has become so natural to me. No wonder. Maybe I was always destined to be this way.

"A fight broke out. Our family, Mazzoli, against the police. We won, of course, but not without many dead. It took me a while to win back my power and respect, but I have it now. But that's not important―at the party, your father tried to protect you but you ran away. It was me who saw you pick up the gun and shoot a police officer. You were little then, but you knew: you were always going to be loyal, a warrior. I took the gun from you and I knew what I had to do. I took the blame, and I was arrested, placed in a maximum security facility, deep underground. For almost twenty years."

My hand shakes so uncontrollably the gun isn't even pointed at him anymore.

"During that time, I became what they call the Grim Reaper," he says. "No less powerful, no less dangerous . . . just more hidden. The old ones, some still remember my name as John Mazzoli. But the new Mafia, they call me the Reaper."

"Your reputation," I say. "The rape, torture . . ."

Without even noticing, I have lowered the gun.

This is when I realize why his blue eyes are familiar.

It is because they're mine.

"A lie," he says smoothly. "All a lie, to build up respect and fear. They answer to me―all of Sicily. I cannot have that without their terror."

"My father," I say suddenly. "He's dead."

"I know," the Reaper―John Mazzoli―Grandfather says softly.

"How―do you know who?"

His face is grim as he says, "Yes, but it won't do you any good."

I harden. I'm sick of people not telling me things, of keeping me in the dark, of thinking I won't understand. The entire time we were together, Angel never told me what she had done. "Who?" I say, and he needs no further persuasion. He must be able to see something in my eyes.

"Madelena and Roberto Falcone."

I don't know the names, but I piece it together. "Angel's parents."

He gives me a nod of assurance. "That's right."

I don't know how to feel. A slow, tingling feeling starts to burn beneath my skin. Angel's family killed my father . . . "Why?"

"Business. Pure business. After I was in prison, your father took the role―but he didn't want it. So he left with you and your mother to Los Angeles."

"Then why'd they kill him?"

"As long as he was alive, he was a threat, because at any time he could come back reclaim the Mazzoli name. Conti comes from my wife's side, it's the name your father used to protect you."

"But they found him."

"Yes. They found him."

With a rush of breath, I confess, "I saw it happen. I was there. I led the men up to my father's room. It's my fault."

John Mazzoli, the Grim Reaper, pulls me into his arms and kisses the top of my head. As the tears start to fall, he says fiercely, "No, they would have found him regardless. And you are brave, you are strong. You witnessed it happen, but you didn't crack."

What I want to tell him is that he's wrong. That I did crack. That I'm broken.

But I let him console me, because it feels good to have someone understand me, to act fatherly. I haven't had a parent since the day my father died. My mother is a drug addict, and I'm sure she stopped loving me when I tried to get her clean and sober.

Briefly, I wonder where she is. Probably high out of her mind. Laying on a coach, a syringe spilled on the table, her arm bleeding with the scar where she punctured it. She probably doesn't even know I'm gone, and that makes me cry harder.

"Call me Nonno," the Reaper says. I register that this means "grandfather" in Italian, and I nod. He pats my shoulder before helping me to my feet.

No wonder there are no shackles, no chains. There is no lock on the door, no bars in the window, because I'm not a prisoner. I'm a guest.

Except Angel didn't know that.

No, for all she knows right now, I'm strung up to a wall, bloodied and beaten, being used as a sex slave.

I hate her.

But I haven't stopped loving her.

It's a war within me, roiling, churning, a storm. I am a battlefield.

"Where are we going?" I ask, as the Reaper leads me towards the door.

He turns back with a dark, sharp-edged smile, and I see a little of myself in that smile. A little madness, a little violence. I see what I could become, if I stay here―this creature of ambition and power, this queen of blood and worship.

I follow him even before he says, "It's time for you to reclaim the family name."

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From the moon and back,
Sarai