The sound of a car door opening made me sit up straighter, and for the first time ever, I felt fear. Real fear. Today I had something to lose, the thought of leaving Ally behind, fucking terrified me.

Wrenching open my car door, I jumped outta the car just in time to see Remo Marino strutting my way. He looked older. Had gained weight, gained lines on his face, but he was still the intimidating fuck he’d always been. My stomach dropped… This fucker had been trailing me for days.

I stood my ground and watched as Remo’s lips pulled into a smirk. “Fucking, ragazzo!” he said, faking a laugh and smile. “Almost didn’t recognize you with the fucking hippy hair and beard covering your Heighter tattoos on your neck. It’s taken me a few days to make sure the lead I was given wasn’t bullshit.” He waved his hand at me. “And your stidda, Axe? You lost that too?” he nodded in approval, “You done a real good job of hiding yourself from me. Almost had me thinking my intel was wrong. But when I saw Austin and Lev again, I knew for sure it was you.”

Grinding my teeth at him mentioning my brothers, I spat, “What the fuck are you doing here, Rem?”

Remo dropped his shit eating grin. “I’m here to pay my family’s debt, ragazzo. You know that… you must have been expecting it. You know the street code: blood for blood.”

“You’re on the run, Rem, fucking wanted for all kinds of charges, yet you come all the way here for me? The feds will have tracked you crossing state lines. You’ll be going down for life.”

Remo spread his hands wide. “Already on borrowed time, Axe. Gonna be going down for the rest of my life… what’s one more felony when there’s no chance of release anyway?”

Remo’s eyes narrowed as he closed in on me. “But you, you got my cousin killed. Your fucking best friend! How could you, ragazzo? Gio fucking loved you.”

“I was protecting my family,” I said tightly. Remo even nodded his head like he understood.

“I get it. And now I’m avenging mine.”

We stared at each other in the rain for what felt like hours, when, suddenly Remo rushed me, his fist connecting with my face, before he tackled me back against my car. Managing to push him away, I hit him back, Remo facing me with blood running down his face. He smiled and my blood ran cold. The bastard was insane.

Rushing forward, dragging us into the middle of the road, I went to strike the fucker’s face again, when the sound of a gun going off broke through the night.

For a second I stood still, just staring at Remo stood before me… then as my eyes traveled down I saw a gun held out in his hand, his gun with its barrel pressed against my stomach. A sudden sharp pain sliced through my stomach stealing my breath, and blood was beginning to soak through my shirt. Remo stepped back, and lifting my hand to my stomach, I pulled it back and saw bright red blood coating my palm. My legs buckled beneath me and I smacked onto the asphalt.

The sound of sirens wailed distantly in the background as Remo stood above me and spat on my face. My lungs felt like they were in a vacuum as I tried to get up… but I couldn’t move my legs.

“Blood for blood, Axe,” Remo said again and disappeared from my sight.

Laying the back of my head flat to the pavement, I stared up at the gray skies, slews of rain drumming on my body. Pictures of Austin and Levi ran through my head and I felt my eyes prick with tears.

I’d never see them again... never got to tell them one last time how much I fucking loved them both…

Time seemed to slow and my thoughts drifted back to when we were kids. To a promise I’d made my mamma… I was reliving it like it was yesterday…

*****

“Dormi, Dormi, O Bel Bambin…”

Levi laid in my arms, wrapped in his faded blue blanket, his wide gray eyes staring up at me as I rocked back and forth on the bedroom floor. Quietly, I sang his favorite lullaby, a Christmas song, the one that always calmed him down, the one that helped him drift off and forget this horrible world for a while.

“Perche piangi, o mio tresor?

Dolce amor, dolce amor,

Fa la nanna, o caro figlio,

Tanto bel, tanto bel,

Fa la nanna, o caro figlio.”

As I trailed off the last line, I heard soft breathing and I sighed. Leaning down, I pressed a kiss to my baby brother’s soft forehead.

He was finally asleep.

Taking a huge inhale of breath, I leaned back against my bedroom wall and held Levi tightly in my arms. As I glanced down at his sleeping face, I closed my eyes and prayed to God that all this fear would end soon. That Papa would stop coming home drunk, that he’d stop hitting Mamma… and that he’d stop trying to ‘shut up’ Levi because he couldn’t stand his crying.

Every night I would bring Levi into our cramped room. Every night I would bathe him, feed him, change him and rock him to sleep by singing that lullaby… all so my mamma could stop papa from hurting him when he came slamming through the door, looking for a reason to fight.

I prayed to God every night that one day Papa would just stop coming home. That he’d leave us alone so we could all live in peace.

Just as I’d let myself relax some, the sounds of footsteps came running along the narrow hallway, and a second later, Austin ran through the door. His face was flushed red and his dark brown eyes were wide. Every part of me froze and I heard the front door slam closed.

“He’s back,” Austin said, fighting back his fear. He was only eight, I was eleven, and Levi, barely a few months old. “And he’s real drunk tonight. I watched him swaying down the park road. He was screaming at everyone he saw.”