Welcome Home
Marcello de Luca’s ears popped. The sensation of being held head underwater made him see enemies where there weren’t any. The two-story house towered above him like a bad omen. Shrinking into his seat, March started to put the car in reverse when a horn blared from behind him.
Of course, his brother had chosen now to arrive and box March in. He had no choice but to put his black SUV in park and take a step outside.
It took a moment for his vision to clear. The crumbling porch steps and peeling paint looked nothing like he remembered. March grimaced as Angelo strode across the driveway to where he stood.
Two years his senior, March’s older brother white-knuckled his shoulder as he took in the belly of the beast. Lace, white curtains hung from the windows. Unlike the faded exterior, they were spotless.
“Not like you last saw it, huh?” Angelo grinned. “Dad says he’s going to pay somebody to fix it.”
March rolled his eyes. When it came to their father, he would rather cut costs by using his sons as manual labor. Another excuse to force him to come home.
“Let’s get this over with,” he grumbled.
After months away from the city, March didn’t have an excuse to miss Sunday brunch. He had squandered those before leaving. He contemplated staying home and claiming to have slept through his alarm but decided against it.
Vincenzo de Luca would skin March alive if he broke another promise to his mother. He took the steps in a single leap and raised a hand to knock.
“You don’t have to sound so excited,” Angelo said as he sidled up next to him.
“Go to Hell.”
“I missed you too, asshole.”
“You’re not already causing trouble, are you?” His father’s smile didn’t meet his eyes as he wrenched open the door.
March couldn’t tell whether the question was directed at him or Angelo, but his shoulders straightened as he rose to his full height. He refused to cower in Vincenzo’s presence, even if he felt like he had been dragged back beneath the surface.
“Everything is fine,” he lied. “Angelo and I were just catching up, weren’t we?”
Angelo nodded, but his elbow slammed into March’s rib cage as he pushed past his brother. March froze at the foot of the stairs. A part of him wondered if they kept his childhood room the same. Were his sketches still taped to the walls? Would it be a safe place?
Laying a hand against the railing, he waited for their procession to make it to the living room before taking another step. The stifling heat made his shirt sleeves wilt. He blinked at a large, framed portrait of Myriam.
He remembered swinging his legs against the toilet seat as she unfastened the rollers from her hair and the spritz of flower-scented perfume. When she leaned in to kiss March on the cheek, he flopped over in her arms like a dead fish.
Vincenzo caught him studying it. “Your mother is going to be happy to see you.”
“I would’ve come sooner, but I had a few things to take care of back at my place.” Another lie.
March overturned his suitcase onto the mattress without having sorted anything and called it unpacked. He threw his button-down in the dryer to freshen it and smooth out the wrinkles from being wadded into a ball.
He didn’t want to be here at all, but he needed to try and keep the peace.
A sheet of plastic covered the floral-printed sofa. Orange blossoms were printed across the fabric, which had a color similar to nicotine-stained walls. A Magnolia lamp sat on the end table.
Everything in this house looked like it had been frozen in time. He could shut his eyes and imagine Vincenzo hunched across his desk with a corded telephone. He chomped down on a cigar before barking out orders. The glass of whiskey emboldened him, and the fights that followed made the house shudder to life.
Angelo shrugged out of his suit jacket, rolled up his shirt sleeves, and pressed onto the dining room. He had always been the one to mediate when things got out of hand.
“She’s going to want to hear about your trip,” Vincenzo told him. “Wash your hands and help set the table.”
The hiss of bacon grease snapped March back to reality. It smelled heavenly, but he didn’t know how much he would be able to eat with the threat of retaliation hanging above his head.
Vincenzo’s brown eyes had a murderous gleam to them. Though he wore his black hair cropped closer to his skull, the apple hadn’t fallen far from the tree with Angelo.
He had the same chiseled jawline and hardened stare. March slid past him to the kitchen, breathing a sigh of relief when a hand didn’t shoot out to intercept him. He wanted things to go right for a change.
Myriam no longer resembled the woman in the portrait above the mantel. She bustled back and forth in a kitchen the size of a postage stamp. Loose strands of hair escaped the bun at the nape of her neck.
Beneath her apron, Myriam wore a black dress with tiny, purple flowers. The shoulder pads dwarfed her slight frame. Her hands were shriveled and she stood on her tiptoes before throwing her arms around March’s neck and kissing him. He wiped the waxy lipstick stain from his cheek with a scowl.
“It’s good to see you, Ma.”
“You weren’t at the service today.”
“I had things to do.”
They always did this same song and dance. Myriam wanted her sons to attend church. Both of them racked their brains for adequate excuses, but Angelo would be more likely to give in to her.
A man could only withstand so much torture.
“You ought to come home more often,” Myriam clucked as he reached into the china cabinet. “Your father and I won’t be here forever.”
That was a relief, he thought. Myriam had never been the greatest cook, but they were forbidden to complain. She scraped scrambled eggs from the bottom of a frying pan. French toast drenched in syrup slid around a serving platter.
“Bring the coffee carafe,” she instructed as March retrieved the silverware.
He grunted in acknowledgment. It looked like something that belonged at a restaurant. When March told people that his family ate Sunday brunch together, they imagined a house full of warmth and laughter.
Angelo’s fingers were clasped as he waited for the food to be brought to the table. Vincenzo glared down his nose as he rifled through a newspaper. His glasses slid forward, but he made no attempt to reposition them.
“Jim Monaghan is awarding baseball scholarships to the city’s most distinguished athletes,” he said with disdain. “That man can’t leave anything untouched.”
“At least this time it will do some good,” Angelo offered.
“He just wants an excuse to put his name on the stadium,” Vincenzo snorted and folded the newspaper into quarters.
“Why stop there? If I had that much money, there would be a statue of me by the main entrance.” March scoffed.
He always said the wrong thing. But he meant it. He wouldn’t kiss anybody’s ass pretending to be modest.
“Yeah, well. You could afford to be knocked down a peg or two.” Removing his glasses, Vincenzo cast him a look that said they were going to be having a talk very soon. “Thank your mother for taking time out of her day to prepare you a meal. She doesn’t have to be as good to you boys as she is.”
March coughed to try and disguise his snort. Angelo kicked him beneath a table and they both muttered their thanks.
“I’m just glad to have all my family in the same room again,” Myriam remarked.
Strike one for March. There was a reason he didn’t come home every weekend. Unlike their golden boy Angelo.
March scooped a spoonful of eggs onto his plate. They jiggled against the French toast. His stomach churned. Stabbing a piece of bacon with his fork, March tried to hide a grimace. A sip of watered down coffee burned his tongue.
Angelo leaned forward in his seat. With his face low to the table, he shoveled food into his mouth and glanced between March and their father like he expected things to boil over at any minute.
“Why don’t you tell us about your trip?” Vincenzo suggested. “With all the excitement from the press, I’m sure you have at least one story worth telling.”
March blushed. When he and his partner agreed to guard Goldie Lovelace, he didn’t expect anything to come of it. They were the muscle behind the camera. It gave him a chance to escape beneath his father’s watchful eye and get a taste of a world vastly different from his.
Things quickly got out of control. March didn’t regret it for a second, even though he had technically broken their contract and brought bad press to their family.
“We stay out of the public eye,” Vincenzo always reminded them. “Better to lay low than to give them something to speculate about.”
In their small town, it didn’t take much for people to speculate. They didn’t live glamorous lives, but their name was well-known among the community.
“Nothing happened,” he said around a forkful of rubbery, unsalted eggs.
Balling a napkin in his fist, March spat out the offending food. He refilled his coffee cup and swallowed thickly in an attempt to avoid further conversation. It didn’t work.
“You’ve never brought home a woman before. Is this Ms. Lovelace somebody you see yourself having a future with?”
“Nothing happened,” he repeated through gritted teeth.
“It didn’t look like ‘nothing.’” Vincenzo glowered at him. “But we can talk more about that later. How did you like the big city?”
“I didn’t have much time to explore,” March said.
Angelo laid his fork against the table. He had already cleared his plate.
“Did you sleep with her?” he demanded.
“Angelo!” Myriam looked affronted.
“What? That’s what everybody wants to know, isn’t it? You went out there on a job, but word on the street is that you slept with her.”
“This isn’t an appropriate conversation to have at the table. We’ll talk about it later,” Vincenzo spat.
Angelo raised his hands in defeat. Taking his dishes to the sink, he smirked at March, whose jaw clenched. He wouldn’t freak out. His fists tightened in his lap.
“The important thing is that Ms. Lovelace recommended our services to her friends. It will establish trust within the community, and help further that area of the business. Now, we need to talk about what we’re going to do moving forward.”
March rolled his eyes as Vincenzo launched into a spiel about the charity fundraiser. They would be bumping elbows with important people. That meant that Jim Monaghan was going to be there.
Even if their families weren’t in the same ballpark, Vincenzo hoped to one day wipe the smarmy grin from the other man’s face. He had a chokehold on the city and owned the more lucrative businesses.
Having bought members of the police force, the mayor, and the shipping industry, he could decide at any minute to turn on the de Lucas and put an end to their enterprises.
For the time being, Jim found them useful. He needed a scapegoat when things didn’t go to plan. March couldn’t help being impressed. As much as he hated the Monaghans, he longed for that same level of success.
“Wait, why am I going?”
He hated these things. Making small talk had never been March’s strong suit, but especially not when it involved the country club crowd. His tattoos and ringed fingers made it clear that he didn’t belong.
“I want the entire family there. It’s for the children’s hospital, and we need to show a united front.”
March didn’t doubt his father had an ulterior motive. He had never been required to attend before, and he only made a handful of appearances depending on the venue. Anything having to do with children didn’t interest him.
“It’s a black-tie event, so make sure you have a tuxedo.”
March waved his brother away. Angelo’s fashion sense left a lot to be desired. He wore a pair of suspenders and black and white, wingtip Oxfords. Thick, black curls fell across his forehead. He snatched the coffee carafe from the center of the table and poured the dregs into his cup.
“That shouldn’t be a problem,” Vincenzo said. “But you’re going to need to clean up your appearance. I want you looking your absolute best.”
Thin stubble lined March’s jaw. His eyes were bloodshot. The return from the city took longer than he expected, with rush hour traffic tacking an extra hour and a half onto the drive. Dread prevented him from falling asleep the previous night. Regardless of what he wore, Vincenzo would find something to yell at March about.
“Is that all?”
“You’re not in a rush to get out of here, are you? What are your plans for the day?”
March wanted to take a nap, but that wouldn’t fall on the list of acceptable answers. He hadn’t cleaned his apartment before leaving, and the clothes on his mattress could use washing.
“I have a few errands to run for my neighbor,” he said.
They wouldn’t deny him the chance to do good for somebody. Signora Rossi often needed a ride to the pharmacy. Her widow’s pension didn’t cover enough for cab fare and her nieces and nephews visited sporadically.
March chauffeured her to the food pantry and bridge club. Chances were high that she needed something, so technically he hadn’t lied.
“Your neighbor isn’t going anywhere,” Vincenzo huffed.
“I wanted to check in on her.”
Whether he did or not, his family would be none the wiser. Signora Rossi shuffled outside of her door when he exited the elevator and asked about his family and love life. It didn’t feel as intrusive coming from her, and March could easily escape the conversation.
“How altruistic of you,” Angelo remarked.
“Some of us have friends,” he fired back.
“That’s enough, you two.” Vincenzo raised his hand. “Stop antagonizing your brother and clear the table. Marcello, I expect to hear from you at the antique shop later tonight. You and I have a lot to discuss.”
“I’ll be there.”
One of Vincenzo’s rules was that they didn’t discuss business at home. After thirty years of marriage, March doubted he did it for Myriam’s benefit. She had to know what her husband did for a living. But Vincenzo’s old-fashioned views meant that he swept it under the rug.
The antique shop doubled as his father’s office. Soft, amber light swept across the empty showroom. March didn’t know whether they ever had an honest customer, but men milled in and out of the back at all hours.
March started to make his way toward the door.
“Aren’t you going to say goodbye to your mother?”
Breathing through his nose, March forced himself to turn around. The arms he draped across Myriam’s shoulders were wooden and the room surrounding him became farther away.
“Don’t be a stranger,” she scolded. “Angelo is just as busy as you are, and he always makes time to come and see his family.”
Angelo had always been quick to kiss their father’s ass. Not like it did anything to stop his wrath. Vincenzo liked the idea of having a family but he didn’t care about them any more than he did the grunt workers who lined up to do his bidding. He hated this house, and retreated to the safety of his car with his thoughts ablaze.
March leaned against the steering wheel and buried his face in his arms. He didn’t want to drop money on a new tuxedo. After living dangerously the past two weeks, his credit cards were close to maxed out. Why should he have to spend his hard-earned cash to impress people he didn’t even like?
In his twenty-four years, March made a plethora of bad decisions. One had been rejecting his brother’s suggestion to hire a financial advisor. He insisted he didn’t need help managing his money, and he especially didn’t want to pay somebody to do it for him.
That had been a mistake. Angelo hadn’t intended it to be condescending. Now he needed more money to dig himself out a hole, but he refused to ask for help. He wouldn’t even let them know how bad it had gotten.
March would set himself on fire if it meant that his family burned with him. They didn’t need to know that though. As he turned into the pockmarked driveway of his apartment complex, March cursed his poor decision making skills once more.
He could’ve at least had the good sense to find a home in a better neighborhood. Weeds sprouted from the cracks in the sidewalk. The asphalt needed repaved and the metal security doors did nothing to deter crooks or criminals.
Nobody had ever given March a hard time, but he looked forward to the day one of the punks skulking by the doors tried to pick a fight. It would give him an excuse to bash their heads in. March sidled inside.
The elevator reeked of piss. When the door groaned open, the smell became even more nauseating. March didn’t have the energy to take the stairs. Not that they fared much better. He would whip the people in this building back into shape if it killed him.
It clanked against the shaft as it carried him to the third floor. She teetered out of her apartment just as the elevator came crashing to a halt. March heard her cane scratch the floor. Signora Rossi’s free arm came crashing around his waist. She smashed March’s face to her bosom.
“You could’ve called to let me know you were alright,” she scolded. “I thought that something happened to my favorite boy.”
“Sorry, Signora. I got back from my business trip late yesterday evening and I didn’t want to wake you.”
“Nonsense, I love to hear from you.” She released March in a cloud of perfume.
He gave her a sheepish smile. No matter how much he dreaded talking to her, he thought of Signora Rossi like a grandmother. It soothed his shattered nerves. March didn’t want her to worry about him.
She had enough on her plate.
“You’re home early today,” he remarked. “Anything I can do for you?”
“One of my nieces gave me a ride.” She wrinkled her nose. “If she leaves that no-good husband of hers, maybe you can propose.”
“He can’t be that bad.” March laughed.
He heard the opening theme to one of her soap operas and said a quick prayer.
“Maybe another day you can stop by for a cup of coffee. You look like you could use a break.”
Like his mother, Signora Rossi attended Mass regularly. Unlike his mother, March doubted that the skeletons in her closet were anywhere near as dark.
Maybe she cheated a bridge game a time or two, swore at the cashier for taking too long, or got too invested in her soaps. Her hair floated around her head like a cloud.
“I would like that, Signora. If you need me to take care of a body, just say the word and he won’t give your niece any more trouble.” He winked at her.
Signora Rossi laughed. March omitted certain details about what he did for a living. He made jokes at his own expense because he knew the elderly woman would never take him seriously.
Where everybody else saw March’s hardened shell, she thought of him as nothing more than a good neighbor. Somebody she could share church gossip with over a cup of coffee without fear of it getting back to the other women.
Though it shamed him to admit it, he took after his father in more ways than one. March didn’t look forward to their conversation later. Unlocking the door to his apartment, he threw his keys on the kitchen island.
He stripped out of his button-down and tossed it onto the black, leather sofa. It covered the pizza box that contained the remnants of last night’s dinner.
March sniffed the pair of pajama pants that were crumpled next to the hamper. Despite having drank enough caffeine to make his pulse feel electric, his eyelids were heavy and he missed his bed. He needed to lie down.
The hotels that he and his partner stayed in as they rotated shifts were nice, but they weren’t home. The king-sized bed took up a majority of his room. When he swung the door open, it rebounded off the metal frame.
March flinched as he crawled beneath the comforters. For the first time since that morning, he could breathe without feeling like his lungs were on fire. His eyes were clearer. March’s sketchbooks and ink bottles were littered across the dresser. Would it be such a crime if he spent the rest of the day here? Didn’t he deserve that much?
He wanted to give Vincenzo the finger. March’s father expected him to drop everything to be at his beck and call, as if he didn’t have a life of his own. But his stint in the big city proved that no matter how many miles were between them, Vincenzo had the means to find his son.
He wouldn’t relinquish his power over March. Short of death, March would never be able to escape.
With a groan, March reached for his cell phone and set an alarm for later that evening. He plugged the damn thing in. The low battery signal would’ve made a perfect excuse, but that wouldn’t stop Vincenzo from coming here.
