Prologue
Crawl inside this body, find me where I am most ruined—love me there. - Rune Lazuli
The Prince of Darkness is a gentleman. - William Shakespeare
20 years ago
The office of Dr. Amanda Erikson.
I don’t remember deciding to sit on my hands.
They’re supposed to be folded neatly in my lap, fingers interlocked, like Papa taught me. But watching his conversation with my doctor, I see he is intent on punishing someone other than me today.
In the same room as my father, Dr. Erikson looks like a child playing dress-up. Ill-fitting pantsuit, messy desk, the smell of stale cigarettes hanging in the air like she just got back from smoking, like she’s falling apart and trying to hide it. There’s something shameful about the way her makeup is smudged beneath her left eye.
He’s different. Something about him is off.
I pay you to fix him. Not sit there and tell me he’s normal.
I don’t recognize him anymore. I don’t recognize my son.
My legs stick out straight when I sit all the way back on the couch. Conveniently, Papa seems to be leaving out what he did to me.
“Your final assessment, doctor, is that nothing is wrong,” Papa backs up, speaking carefully. “Which means you’re telling me that,” he waves a hand in my direction without looking, “is normal.”
I frown as the silence stretches. I imagine snapping it like a wire. And I wonder when exactly my father, the man who practically runs Chicago, started being so disgusted with me.
Ever since I came back, it’s been this way.
He wouldn’t even look at me the whole way here. And my father is usually everywhere I am, in my head, all over me, crawling, eating away at my skin like a rash. Now, he’s withdrawn. Distant.
The big man in a suit dresses the small boy in a matching one. Then he turns his back, deciding he’s unsatisfied. Well, I am him. Papa has always told me I’d be just like him one day, and now that it’s finally happening, he acts like it’s not what he wanted?
Based on my current estimations, this may be an appropriate time to laugh. People do that when they find something funny or ironic.
“I’m saying there’s nothing pathological. His cognitive tests are normal.” Dr. Erikson clears her throat. “Trauma presents differently in children. Some withdraw, and some—”
“I don’t care about a silly test, I care about what I can see. He’s too quiet. He wasn’t like this before. It’s like he’s planning something, like he might—” Papa breaks off, running a hand roughly over his chin, refocusing. “Are you calling me a fucking liar?”
Dr. Erikson goes red, then white as a sheet. “I—never, sir. I’m simply saying... I truly believe Massimo is coping as well as can be expected. He’s been through so much, and he’s young. This is normal.Heis normal.”
It’s almost convincing, the way she says it.
But she won’t look at me either.
Since I got back, I’ve noticed the change in how people perceive me. Even my own brothers. It always takes several minutes for them to realize. And the wildly confusing thing about it for them is that they don’t know what it is they’ve realized. But the human nervous system is consistent in alerting the physical body for which it operates when something is wrong, even if the useless mind attached to it hasn’t understood yet.
Papa’s phone rings and I immediately know he will take it. He’s done with this, done with me.
“Finish up with him,” he mumbles, moving towards the door. “You have two minutes, doctor.”
He still won’t look at me. If he did, he’d see his son, little suit on that big couch, has started looking at him like he’s a waste of space.
“For—for what?”
“For your career,” Papa snaps. “After this, you’re finished. I’ll personally make sure of that.”
She sits there for a minute after he’s gone, staring off into the distance. I watch her force herself to acknowledge me. I watch her mentally reason over whether she should sit on the couch next to me, or stay behind her desk.
Ultimately, she makes the wrong choice.
“Massimo,” she says with an overly encouraging smile. “How about we talk a little, just you and me?”
Sitting this close to her, I notice the way her pulse jumps in her throat. It’s distracting.
“Your father... he just worries,” she tries again, but she’s nervous now. Her hand has risen, instinctively, shielding herself from nothing at all. “You can tell me anything, okay?”
There’s no way of describing what happens next.
It’s just that one moment the doctor is wearing her pathetic smile, and the next that smile is bleeding.
There’s blood everywhere so it’s hard to tell where it’s originating from, but these things do not have a beginning or end, which is oddly fitting. It announces itself with that slimy feeling inside, like something slithering through my chest, the brief whisper of shifting parts. By then, of course, the crucial moment has already passed, the moment of me inflicting the damage. It’s not linear, not triggered or calmed by anything. It just happens. Like the blood spilling over her lips, running down her dress, coming from somewhere I can’t see, somewhere that doesn’t matter.It just happens. And then it just... stops.
She stares at me. Her pen hits the floor and rolls away. Hand grapples at her throat. Useless—all it really does is get the blood all over me, too. She dies quickly but it doesn’t matter. Each second feels like a different lifetime. Complete with its own birth and death and all the useless stuff in between.
The blade in my hands... I know it. It normally resides in the bottom drawer of Papa’s desk at home.
I must have brought it with me.
I must have wanted to.
Dr. Erikson’s suit looks two sizes bigger on her now that she’s dead; or maybe it’s just the way she’s splayed over the back of the couch. Like a bird that flew into a glass window. So small and useless lying on the ground without its wings spread.
Then there’s nothing left to do.
Time behaves differently after that. It stretches thin, like elastic. I sit back on the couch. I put my hands in my lap. I wait.
The sun has started to go down by the time Papa comes back. It’s clear he went on an errand, dealt with some business; maybe he forgot about me. He stares at the body for a long time. Once he finally looks at me I know he’s treating this like a negotiation, not a crime scene; that he sees me as an expense, not his son.
“What did you do.”
My legs shake when I stand. The room tilts—not violently, just enough that things don’t line up anymore. That pressure in my chest releases now that he’s back.
It’s time to show him. Time to end this for both of us.
“What happened to you?” Papa’s face breaks in disappointment. What a contradictory, pathetic mass of flesh, my father. “I gave you everything. I taught you control, I did everything in my power to fix you.” He hauls me closer, fingers biting into my shoulder. “You’ve become a liability, Massimo. Tell me why I shouldn’t kill you right now.”
By way of answering, I bring the knife to my own throat. Shuddering at the cold feel of it, at Dr. Erikson’s blood smearing my skin.
Papa isn’t looking at me. He’s staring at the body like he’s getting an idea. He’s staring at it so intensely I don’t know how he anticipates my next move. I don’t know how he stops me from plunging the knife deep in his throat.
His hand crushes my wrist, the blade mere inches from his skin. His face breaks into a smile, cold and delighted.
“Oh, Massimo. You and I? We’re going to have some fun. I’m going to bring you into rooms that others would kill to be in. You’ll meet men with more power than they know what to do with. Whatever they did to you—you’re no longer my son. But that doesn’t mean you won’t be useful.” His fingers tighten; the bones in my wrist protest. “And that’s the last time you fucking try something like that, soldato.”
Soldier. Just like that, I work for my father.
I’ve been recruited, not judged.
He releases me, but not before prying the knife from my hands. Dr. Erikson’s blood is all over me and I’m just beginning to notice the smell, the feel of it. I suddenly want to run to her, sit her up at her desk, prop up her pen and notepad, just to make her look normal again. My head is pounding so hard I can hardly see.
I stand there mute as Papa calls people to deal with the body.
I wish I could cry. Wish I wanted to beg him for forgiveness, for things to go back to normal between us.
I just have this feeling, like I missed an important opportunity. Like things are going to be very different because I didn’t kill Papa today.
I almost wish that he’d send me away again.
Because looking at Papa is like looking into a mirror, looking at my future.
♛
14 years ago
The office of Dr. Adamo Mezzasalma, L.P.C.
My leather Oxfords stumble to a halt as I let myself into the familiar office. There’s a man sitting behind the desk, an older gentleman with a black and white speckled beard that stands out against his tanned face.
“Where is Dr. Johnson?”
The stranger smiles. “Dr. Johnson is no longer employed here. I’ll be your new therapist—if that’s alright.”
I look at the door. Dr Johnson’s plaque is gone. In its place is one that reads ‘Dr. Adamo Mezzasalma.’
Dr. Johnson made it longer than I expected. She’s not the first therapist who has quit because of me. Most take one look at my file, convince themselves they can handle me, and give up a few weeks in.
At my father’s orders, I’ve been seeing therapists and doctors my whole life. They don’t tend to like me much. The dislike—or should I say discomfort—always takes root in that first session when they’re forced to sit alone in a room with me. It takes between ten to fifteen minutes for them to become uneasy, for them to form their conclusions about me. They mentally wash their hands of me, tell themselves I’m another therapist’s problem. They do their due diligence, of course. Give it a few weeks.
But it’s always only a matter of time before they give up.
I don’t remember much before age seven. And some of the years since then have been blurry, some large periods of time missing forever from my memory. Sometimes I can recall whispers of the time before that, before everything went wrong. When I felt like I was normal. But perhaps I was just young enough that people didn’t care I was different.
It didn’t take long for me to realize there was something about me that put people off. Basic human things like silence, words, and eye contact—it was all different somehow, wrong, when I did it.
That feeling of being other has only increased with my age. Lately it’s been a subtle, lurking awareness around other people. Like there’s an ocean separating me from everyone else. Like they can see right through my pretense. I’m not fooling them into thinking I’m normal.
That’s a terrifying thought.
It makes every single inch of me itch, like there are ants crawling beneath my skin. It makes me paranoid, waiting for someone to notice just how wrong I am. For them to send me away, somewhere worse this time. It’s that feeling of knowing you don’t belong here but having nowhere else to go. The imposter with no real home.
I fully expect Adamo Mezzasalma to treat me the same as everyone else.
“Please, sit,” he gestures, straightening his black-rimmed glasses. “And I apologize for the sudden change. I know you were used to Dr. Johnson and that disrupting routines can be challenging for you. I’ve been trying to call all week to inform you but nobody in your house picked up.”
I slowly perch myself on the edge of the couch cushion, but Dr. Mezzasalma doesn’t seem to mind my mistrust. “Now, before I get into who I am, what I do, and why I do it, why don’t you tell me why you think you’re even in therapy at all? I understand you started when you were quite young.”
“You have all my notes.” My voice is scratchy from lack of use. “And I’m sure my father informed you of everything. Is there anything else you need to know?”
Papa said therapy would help with whatever made me different. That’s why I stuck with it. Mamma liked it too—even though we both knew she just liked it when I left the house. But that had been getting increasingly difficult to do lately. She was getting sick again, and I had to stay home to protect my brothers. But having me in the house for such long, interrupted stretches made her worse. Which meant my brothers suffered more.
I couldn’t let my brothers suffer anymore.
Dr. Mezzasalma regards me with gentle eyes and an open expression. “Massimo, your father is dead.”
I frown. My head gives one painful, confused pound, and I have to shutter my eyes against fluorescent lights that are suddenly too bright. One, two, three, four, fi—
“—okay? Massimo. Are you alright?”
Dr. Mezzasalma’s steady voice bears down on me in a sudden rush of noise as the rest of the world comes back into focus. I blink. An ache registers in my hands; I look down to see my fists clenched tightly in my lap.
“I’m okay. I just get headaches sometimes.”
The urges are not so strong now. I can anticipate them, see them for what they are and know what will trigger them. But they manifest themselves in intense headaches that can half blind me for hours at a time.
The memories don’t help. They come rushing back now—everything that happened in the months following that bloody day when I was eight. The things I saw. The things my father had me do, so I’d be prepared for the day he was gone. And then he was gone. That blood splatter on the wall, the gun they took away. Their casual mutterings of things like “suicide” and “two shots” and “straight into his brain.”
Not long after the day I ended Dr. Erikson’s life, my father took his life in his favorite room of our family home, that ornately decorated library where he spent most of his time. I saw the blood. I saw his lifeless body wheeled out beneath the sheet, his hand with the family signet ring peeking out into the open. But sometimes I forget that he’s dead. I get confused, I remember past conversations and think they’re happening now.
I’ve been told it’s the grief. That it can mess with memory and reality. But it’s been six years, and I don’t think I ever needed to grieve my father. Not when I still feel like he’s with me every day.
“Your father died when you were eight,” Dr. Mezzasalma informs me calmly. “Do you remember now?”
I nod.
“So it’s just you, your mother, and your brothers at home, correct?”
Again, I nod. He doesn’t press me further. As the session continues, I take note of the way he regards me head on. He doesn’t have that overenthusiastic air of optimism that every single one of my therapists has after their first peek at my file. And he doesn’t ask me how I’m feeling about things.
“I’d like for you to do a quick exercise so I can see how affected your memory is by your trauma. Let’s start simple. Can you think back and tell me what you’ve done this week?”
Cold dread makes a home in my stomach. “Dr. Mezzasalma, I don’t think—”
“Please, call me Adamo.” He leans back in his chair, and I notice his tie is askew. “Massimo, I knew your father. Well, I knew of him. We weren’t quite friends—because I was very familiar with the kind of man he was.”
I tilt my head at the grim smile on his face. All my therapists have known of Antonio Romano as one of the most powerful men in the western United States. The savvy businessman who had a particularly deviant taste for women and alcohol, who owned casinos and clubs that were rumored to be involved in a dark business.
But it seems that Adamo Mezzasalma knew my father for who he really was: Capo of the Romano crime family. Which means he knows that title is also mine.
It also means he knows what used to happen in my father’s casinos. And judging from the look on his face, he doesn’t like it.
“Humor me. What did you do this week?”
I cleaned up a big mess I made. I made dinner every night for my brothers but I’m not as good as Mamma at cooking. So many people kept coming to the house and I had to lie to make them think she was sleeping upstairs. Thankfully it was believable since that’s all she’s done since Papa died.
“I had to babysit,” I settle on a half-truth. “My youngest brother, Nico, is two. He cries a lot.”
“How old are your other brothers?”
“Santo is twelve. Tommaso is eight.”
“And how are they doing?”
Not good. Santo’s tears have already transitioned into cold, hard anger. He’s the only other one who understands what I did. But I think he’s secretly relieved too. Tommaso is just confused. He keeps asking where Mamma is.
“They’re fine.”
“And... your mother, what about her? How has she been handling your father’s death?”
She’s not.
“Massimo?”
I killed my mother. I had to.
“She’s okay. She’s been quieter and sadder since my father died.”
The session goes on like that, with Adamo asking me simple questions about my week and my family. He doesn’t ask much about my father. He never pushes me to elaborate on any of my answers, and he doesn’t take notes. He doesn’t waste time or look at me like I baffle him. I’m almost disappointed that after today, I won’t be coming back to therapy.
It’s weird talking to someone who treats me like I’m mostly normal.
As we’re wrapping up, I make haste to leave. My brothers are home alone and with both our parents dead, I can’t leave them on their own in that house for too long. But Adamo stops me as I reach for the doorknob.
“Did your mother drive you here today? May I speak with her?”
“She’s at home. I had one of our drivers take me.”
“I see. Tell your mother to answer her cell phone, okay?”
I nod, and Adamo gets a knowing smile on his face. There’s a quietly sad quality to it. “You won’t be coming back, will you?”
I shake my head, impressed at his astuteness.
“Why not?”
Because it’s just me and my brothers now, and I have to protect them. I have to get us out of that cursed home before anyone finds her body, before it starts smelling, before people come after us.
“I don’t need therapy anymore.” Again, I settle on a half-truth. I reluctantly respect him enough that I feel obligated to that, at least.
“I see. Well, I’m sorry I won’t be seeing you again.” Adamo roots around in his pockets, holding a small piece of paper out to me. “This is my card. It has my personal cell number on there. Call me if you ever need anything, Massimo. Anything at all.”
I take the paper, pocketing it carefully. I don’t know how exactly, but I feel that I can trust Adamo Mezzasalma. It’s a slight but telling twinge in my gut—and my gut is the one thing I’ve learned to trust over the years.
I hesitate for a second in the doorway. “Please fix your tie. It’s crooked.” The door shuts on his hearty chuckle.
♛
11 years ago
The South Side Diner; South Side of Chicago.
Sheets of rain and gusts of wind shake the windows of the quiet diner. Even though it’s warm in here, the cold won’t leave me alone. It seeps through my skin and my very bones seem to rattle in protest to it.
The grizzled old man who owns the place has a beady-eyed stare that I currently feel boring into the side of my face. The South Side Diner is closed this late; he was getting ready to leave for the night before we came. The longer his phone rings, the harder I press it to my ear.
Please answer. Please.
Santo squeezes out his sodden shirt, and the old man glares at the new splash of rainwater dirtying his clean floors. It’s just adding to the splotches of mud that we tracked in despite my best efforts to have my brothers clean off outside. They were too cold and bone-weary to listen.
I get his frustration at four dirty, bedraggled boys stumbling through the doors of his business and begging to use his phone. We’re lucky he complied. If I were in his position, I’m sure I wouldn’t have even let us through the door, but I think he just didn’t want us to die right outside his diner.
That would be a mess to deal with. Judging from the state of his floors before we trudged in, he likes cleanliness.
He swings that dirty glare to the rest of my brothers. I find myself stepping in front of them, even though there’s nothing he could really do.
Tommaso and Nico slide behind me, eyes cast down, subdued and shivering so hard their teeth chatter. Their silence sends new worry barreling through my chest. Those two will bicker through an apocalypse. What we’ve endured feels worse than that somehow, and they look like two ghosts. Malnourishment has stolen the meat from their bones and the light from their eyes. Their dark, stringy hair hangs pathetically in their faces.
I’ve drained them. The remnants of my family stand around me soaked, shivering, and half dead. Shame and failure burn a hole through my chest.
But Santo glares right back at the old man, undeterred. His lip curls in disgust. “What the fuck are you looking at?”
Annoyed, I grab his shoulder. He swings that temperamental glower to me, the fire in his eyes not dying down at my warning glare. Wordlessly, I push him behind me with the others, unable to deal with his displays of emotion right now.
He’s only fifteen but acts like he’s invincible.
“You have one more minute, kid,” the old man grunts.
My hope is decreasing with each empty ring in my ear, and I force myself to breathe through the tight band around my lungs. I can only hope against hope that nobody followed us here. I’ll have to wait to indulge myself in the bitter taste of my failure until my brothers are safe. Until I know nobody is coming after us.
Please. Please just leave me alone.
My responsibility—my duty—is a slowly tightening noose that was placed around my neck the day I was born. As the oldest son, I’m both my brothers’ protector and expected to rise to the title of Capo. Two inescapable birthrights. And it’s all culminating now, today, as everything I’ve built is threatening to come crashing down.
If it does, it will bury us in the rubble.
I got us out of that home, and we ended up in an even more desolate position, fending for ourselves. Then I got us off the streets, made sure my brothers were safe. I’ve been protecting my family and building my empire this whole time, against all odds.
Power isn’t handed to you, you must take it. Sometimes you bleed for it, or make other people bleed. So be it. Power is a wild beast that is only tamed by the strongest. I have paved my path to the throne in the way I saw fit, the only way I could. And now, at age seventeen, everything I’ve been preparing for is right there, just out of my reach.
And it’s about to crush us.
It’s been too long. It’s unlikely he still has the same number. Think of another solution.
The call drops. I don’t have another solution. My last resort was this stupid phone number that I pointlessly memorized after walking out his door three years ago.
I nimbly redial before the old man can get any ideas about taking his phone back. One more time. I’ll try once more while I figure out what’s next.
It’s useless. I’ve exhausted all my options.
Everything we survived and everything I’ve given up—for nothing. Sickness tugs at my stomach and dizziness eclipses my vision.
No. Think.
The phone is still ringing.
One, two, three...
“Hello?”
For a few dizzying seconds, my tongue feels like lead in my mouth. Everything halts. Then relief crashes over me in a suffocating wave, heavy enough to nearly send my tired bones clattering to the floor.
“... Hello? Who is this?” I hear another muffled voice in the background, feminine. Adamo’s voice gets quieter as he talks to her. “I don’t know who it is, honey. Maybe—”
“Adamo Mezzasalma?”
I hear a sharp intake of breath. “Who are you?”
I take a fortifying breath, pressing a trembling fist to my temple. Lightning flashes outside, illuminating the empty streets. My heart skips; I’m convinced the next time the storm strips the streets of the blanket of night, I’ll see the monsters I’m running from lined up in the dark. Descending on me and my little family.
“It’s Massimo Romano. We met three years ago. You were my therapist for a day. I don’t know if you remember me.”
Please. Please. Please.
The last time I saw him, I was a troubled boy. But I’m different now, almost unrecognizable. I’ve learned how to sharpen my mind to get what I want instead of letting it trap me. Patience and sheer control is sharper than any weapon.
“Massimo,” he breathes. “Yes. Yes, I remember you.”
I brace myself against the wall, feeling suddenly like my legs can’t hold me up anymore. Behind me, one of my brothers sniffles.
And then I utter four words I’ve never uttered before. “I need your help.”
