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We’ll run it together until it’s just you.
Just you.
Just you.
Those words echo in the depths of my mind, clanging between my temples like clashing cymbals.
It’s just me.
Blaring sirens in the distance jolt me from my thoughts. I blink fast, but the scene in front of me remains. My legs are tight, my hands trembling.
Dad. My father. The head of the Salesi family.
Trapped. Crushed. Immobile.
I push open my door and step out of the car, gripping the door.
Suddenly, I’m looking at my own car when it was destroyed by Frank Cappodamo’s crew months earlier. I’d narrowly escaped death because of one factor.
I’d been making a right turn.
I wasn’t going straight.
Dad was going straight.
If he’d only been making a right…
The Mack truck that plowed into Dad’s car doesn’t wait for the cops to show up. And the blue minivan follows close behind.
I close the distance between my car and Dad’s, my pulse pounding harder and harder with each step I take.
I never got a chance to tell him I’m sorry.
I never got a chance to tell him I love him.
I never got a chance to tell him a lot of things.
His face is a twisted mask of blood and bruises, his glasses knocked off of his face in the collision. I grip the door handle, dropping my head, letting the tears finally flow.
Maybe I never will.