Page 127 of Forgotten Sacrifice

My hand shaking, I reach in my pocket and grab my key ring. I’m the only other person with the key to the boss’s office, and I’ve never used it. Until now.

Opening the door, what I find…I wish I didn’t.

Adrenaline takes over, and I’m across the room in a flash, pulling Uncle Joseph off my crying, naked brother.

“Vince, this isn’t what it looks like?—”

He tries to put his dick up, but I grab my boss and slam him on his desk. My hands are around his throat as I squeeze.

Uncle Joseph’s knee connects with my balls, and I let out a whoosh of air, causing me to lose my grip. He lunges for his desk drawer, going for his gun, but before he can open it, I grab the gold letter opener laying on his desk, jamming it into his left eye.

He lets out an ungodly cry, convulsing wildly as blood oozes out of his eye socket as I twist the handle.

“An eye for an eye.” I press down with all my might until I’m hitting the back of his skull.

Uncle Joseph’s eyeball splits in half as his body goes still.

“Vince, that whole situation was fucked up. Nobody’sdenying it.” Sam holds up his hands. “But nobody’s walked away from the family, either.”

“Because nobody’s ever been in my fucked up situation,” I counter. “I demand restitution for me and my brother, and this is what I’m asking.”

“Restitution?” Romeo says incredulously. “You’d be fucking six feet under if not for me. There’s your restitution.”

Vince, eighteen-years old

I shift in my chair, examining the bits of dried blood under my fingernails. It all feels like a dream. I’m vaguely aware that someone took me and Aldo to Doc Caruso’s clinic, and after we dropped Aldo off with Mrs. Polaski, I was brought to this warehouse in Newark.

The image of my little brother being raped by Uncle Joseph invades my mind, and I cradle my head in my hands.

No, not a dream. A fucking nightmare.

“Gentlemen, this morning we’ve convened under emergency circumstances. Uncle Joseph is dead,” Antonio announces, and a hush falls over the room. “Vincenzo ‘Vince’ Rossi is on trial for the unauthorized hit of made man and family oddsmaker Joseph ‘Uncle Joseph’ aka ‘The Wolf’ LaVecchia,” he announces solemnly. “Vince, do you wish to say something in your defense?”

Something in my defense? I have to defend myself against an indefensible Uncle Joseph?

I hop out of my chair, fueled by indignation. “I walked in on Uncle Joseph raping my eight-year old brother. He’d been sexually abusing Aldo for months.” Indignation nearly takes a backseat to guilt, but I shove down my failings, as I continue, “I’m not sorry Ikilled the pedophile, and if he were here, I’d kill him again,” I say with venom.

“Doesn’t sound contrite enough, if you ask me,” Sergio says.

“It wasn’t your son’s asshole that got ripped and needed three stitches,” I fire off to my capo. “No, I’m not contrite.”

“That’s enough,” Antonio warns, and I sit back down. “Capos, let’s take it to a vote of guilt. Yay or nay.”

Yay I die; nay I live.

“Yay,” Sergio says. “Horrible what happened to the kid, but Uncle Joseph was the biggest earner in my territory. I’m sorry Vince, but for me, it’s always about business.”

“Would it be about business if Matteo’s asshole was the one bleeding?” I pop off.

“Speak out of turn again, and you’ll lose your tongue,” Antonio warns me, and I clamp my jaw shut.

The capos go down the line, some nays, some yays. I’m sweating bullets because it’s tied, and the boss will be the tiebreaker.

Antonio tents his fingers, and it’s so quiet I can hear my own heart beating. “Romeo,” he calls, and his son walks to the front of the room to stand beside the boss. “What say you?”

My life is in the hands of a twelve-year old.

“Vince, you were number two in Uncle Joseph’s bookkeeping racket.” The youngest made man in the family’s history addresses me. “Can you be the oddsmaker?”