It’s nearly nine by the time I get home.

Enzo will be pissed, but what else is frickin’ new?

My car rumbles and sputters to a stop outside the house I’m supposed to call home.

I’ll never be able to. None of my immediate family even lives here. This whole block is Mancini central, but they’re all second cousins and distant relatives I couldn’t give a shit about.

The only Mancini I do care about is now in jail for murdering Todd McCrae. Bile surges in my belly the way it always does when I think about it. Nick said he didn’t do it, but then all the evidence came out. It was impossible for him to deny it, so he shut the hell up and took the punishment.

So now I have to live in this stinking house with Uncle Enzo and his shithead son, Diego. I hate them both, but there’s not much I can do about it right now.

If it wasn’t for Selena, I probably would have split after Nick left, but Enzo’s girlfriend convinced me to at least stick around and finish high school.

“Don’t let the Mancini name ruin you, Vinnie. You could be different from all these guys. You are different. You stick with it, and one day your time will come. You’ll get away.” Her eyes glistened as she spoke, but she didn’t shed any tears.

She’s learned not to cry.

After trying to escape a couple of times, she’s accepted her place in this “family.”

The poor woman’s only ten years older than me and I’m still hoping to set her free when I leave.

I don’t know how we’ll do it.

But for now, I just have to stick it out and at least get my high school diploma.

Mom would want that.

I sniff, trying not to think about the fact that Mom hasn’t been around since I was eleven. She overdosed and we got shipped here to live with Uncle Enzo. My life has always been shit, but it’s been ten times worse since moving to Armitage, and a million times worse since Nick got sent away.

He used to cover for me all the time, do the jobs I never wanted to. But now I’m stuck running his errands too.

Patting my jacket pocket, I shoulder the door open and trudge up the front steps. Thank God Pedro likes me. He owns the store near the church and Enzo makes him pay a monthly protection fee. Every person on that block pays something and unfortunately, it’s my job to collect.

Rather than going in with a baseball bat and hitting the shit out of anything that moves—that’s Diego’s way—I’ve tried to build a rapport with these people. Most of them slip me the money without too much fuss. It’s in everybody’s best interest, I guess.

I just wish it didn’t make me feel so scummy.

I’m taking money off these good, hardworking people. Money this family hasn’t earned and we sure as shit don’t deserve.

Anger fires through me and I shove the front door open, dropping Pedro’s payment in Enzo’s lap without a word.

“Hey!” the gruff man calls me back.

Everything about him is dark and threatening—from his black eyes to his towering persona. He’s nearly fifty, but still just as scary as he’s always been. The guy is stronger than me, tougher than me, and I’ve learned not to mess with him.

“You’re late!”

“I got held up.” I shrug.

“Doing what?”

“Nothin’.”

Enzo’s dark eyebrows dip into a sharp V. He snaps his fingers and beckons me over to his chair.

Holding back my sigh, I spin and clomp across the wooden floor. My boot steps are loud and reluctant.

Snatching my hand, Enzo digs his thumb into my bruised knuckles.

I wince but don’t make a sound.

“Who’ve you been fighting?”

“Some jerks,” I mutter and dish out an easy lie. “They wanted to take your money.”

“Did you kill ’em?”

I scowl and Enzo just sniggers at me. He’s always hassling me about killing people, comparing me to my loser brother. The guy used to be my hero, until he turned out to be just like everybody else in this damn family.

“Tell Diego what they look like. We’ll track them down and teach them a lesson.”

My gut twists with unease. “I taught ’em a lesson.”

He scoffs, like my lessons are more like being whipped with a soggy tissue than bashed over the head with a baseball bat—Diego style.

“They won’t be trouble,” I softly argue.

Enzo shoots out of his chair, getting up in my face. He loves that he’s a few inches taller than me. He loves that he’s broader in the chest and can make me feel like a snot-nosed preschooler who is about to piss his pants.

It always takes so much to look him in the eye and not back down.

“I want those pieces of shit brought to their knees. Diego will get the boys together and deal with it. No one steals from a Mancini. You got that?”

“I got it,” I grit out, hating this whole Mancini, mafia bullshit. He acts like the freaking Godfather and I just have to play along with it. “That’s why I broke their noses.”

I hold up my fist so my red knuckles are hovering just in his line of sight.

Easing back, he checks my hand again and I round off the conversation with a little nugget of truth, “I told them if they ever showed their faces on Fort Street again, I’d kill them.”

His lips twitch before slowly rising into an impressed smile. “Finally learning something, huh?”

I clench my jaw and look away from him. “I’m going to bed. I’ve got school tomorrow.”

He snatches my face and forces me back before I can step away. “Don’t think me letting you finish school gets you off the hook. As soon as that final bell rings tomorrow, I want you cruising the street looking for these assholes. We don’t give empty threats in this family. Take Diego with you.”

Shit!

I force a nod and wrestle out of Enzo’s grasp.

Trudging to my room, I bypass the den where Selena’s watching TV. Diego seems to be out tonight, which is a huge relief. Creeping into my room, I shrug out of my jacket and throw it on the bed.

I still haven’t called the cops yet. I thought I’d get a read on Enzo first, see if anything about the fight had gotten back to him. He could have dropped me a couple of names that I could pass on to the police. But he obviously doesn’t know them, and as much as I’d love to serve up Mancini justice on this one, I won’t be responsible.

I need to call the cops tonight.

It’s times like this when I wish I owned a cell phone. I could just pull it from my pocket, hide in the closet and have a whispered conversation. But I hate phones. Phones link me to people, and I don’t like it when Enzo can reach me at the drop of a hat.

It’s been a constant battle between us, but every time he gives me a new phone, I lose it down the toilet, in a stream, or it “accidentally” gets smashed. I get a beating every time, but it’s still not enough to stop me.

He gave up at the end of last year, and it’s about the only fight I’ve ever won in this fucking house.

Slipping into the bathroom, I lock the door and flick on the shower. I get the spray pumping before turning on the radio. Finding my usual station, I turn up the volume, then climb onto the toilet seat and out the window.

I hit the ground and duck into the shadows, sneaking around the house and racing down to the payphone at the end of the street. It’s one of the only ones left in Armitage, and the town council better not take it away. I’ve used it on more than one occasion. Shoving a few coins into the box, I call the Armitage Police Department. I’ve learned not to bother with 9-1-1; it’s easier to call direct and leave an anonymous tip.

“Armitage Police Department, you’re speaking with Mike.”

Lowering my voice, I try to make it as gruff and scratchy as possible while I describe the two men who tried to hurt Chloe. The officer tries to get some personal details, but I deflect those questions, telling him it’s not worth the risk.

He’s not satisfied with this, and I’m running out of time.

With a sharp huff, I bark, “Just look for them before they’re found by a Mancini and taken care of with another kind of justice!”

And with that, I hang up and run back home.

My boots scuff on the cracked concrete as I creep around the side of the house. As soon as I reach the bathroom, I jump up and grab the window ledge, pulling myself back inside.

“Hurry the fuck up, man!” Diego’s home and pounding on the door.

I scramble out of my clothes and dive under the spray to wet my hair before turning off the shower. “I’m coming!” I holler, wrapping a towel around my waist.

Diego keeps pounding anyway. He’s going to freaking break down the door if I don’t hurry up.

Shit, I miss Nick.

It kills me that the guy who used to look out for me became just like them.

I don’t want to be like that.

I don’t want this toxic family to rub off on me too.