Page 168 of Vows of a Mobster

“I don’t think I want to meet your extended family, Marissa. They must be scary as shit.”

“You like my brothers, right?”she asked Brianna and Brianna’s eyes got wide.

“Please don’t tell me they kill people,”she whispered.

“Of course not!”Marissa lied to Brianna. Her brothers were already working for me at that point.“You used to have a sailboat, right?”Marissa asked Brianna, changing subjects.

“My dad, yes. What does that have to do with anything?”

“We can dump them out into the sea and then sink the boat.”

“And do what? Swim back in the dead of the night? Besides, I don’t have a sailboat anymore.”

“I know of one,”Marissa retorted.

“And what do you suggest I do with Emma? I can’t take her onto a boat.”

“I could stay with her,”Daphne suggested hopefully.

“This is freaking me out. Standing here with dead bodies.”Brianna announced, wrapping her arms around herself.

Marissa went somewhere and came back with the white sheet.

“We’ll need to pull their teeth out.”

“What?”Brianna looked like she would pass out.“No!”

“They can be identified by them even after twenty years.”

“Marissa, no. I can’t do this.”She leaned over, looking pale and queasy.“We should just call the police and explain.”

“Explain what? That instead of calling the police we ran to the warehouse with a gun and then shot both men that didn’t have a weapon.”

“I wished I never called him,”Brianna’s whimper was full of regret.“I can’t pull his teeth out. I am sorry.”She kneeled down, putting her head between her knees.“I think I’m going to be sick.”

“Okay, forget the teeth.”Marissa took a deep breath. “I can’t do it either. I guess we’ll have to just pray for some luck.”

“Great, we are doomed. Because my luck has been shitty for a few years now,”Brianna muttered. “My dad was a cop for Pete’s sake. I was never meant to kill anyone.”

“Well, your aim is deadly,”Daphne tried to joke in a shaking voice. Brianna winced at the crude joke. Emma was still crying but at least she wasn’t screaming.

Brianna's eyes returned to the dead body.

“Should we- should we close his eyes? I think I saw it in the movies,”she muttered. “I don’t know. I never saw a dead person before. When dad died, my mom wouldn’t take me. By the time my step-father took me, we barely made it to the gravesite on time.”

“You are rambling. Stop freaking out.”Marissa went to the top of the body.“We have to wrap him and put him in the car.”

Brianna swayed on her feet.“Don’t you fucking dare pass out now, Brie.”

Her body leaned against the wall.“I’m going to throw up.”

“No, you can’t. It can be traced to you. DNA or some crap like that.”

Her body retched but she didn’t throw up.

Brianna went to pull away from me but I pulled her back to me. I wouldn’t allow her to have her walls up anymore. “Don’t you even think about getting away from me,” I muttered into her hair, my body focused on my wife.

“I can still taste the bile in my throat from that night,” she muttered, her eyes glistening with tears. “I forced myself to swallow, in fear that Marissa was right and they’d trace DNA to me.”