Angelo

My father taught me how to swim in the shallow end of the pool at the YMCA. I was maybe four or five years old, still in need of the orange armbands I wore around my tiny biceps. But one day, my dad decided it was time for me to learn for real. He said men didn’t need a life preserver to stay afloat, and that a man who was worthy would float to the top.

It was one of the few days my mother hadn’t accompanied us to the outdoor pool, leaving my brothers and me with the old man. Pete was around ten years old, Marco was eight, and I was a little runt who still latched onto his mother’s leg. Dad didn’t see any of us as children. We were always men put on this earth to serve him. Morelli men didn’t have weaknesses, only strengths. That was how my father was raised, and he passed down his father’s beliefs to his sons.

Pete jumped into the pool first, followed by Marco. They were splashing each other in the face with water, already fighting over something. Even back then, Pete was a dick. He put Marco into a chokehold and dunked him under the water, forcing him to kick and beg until Pete let him up. My dad smirked, never smiled. A look of pride scrolled across his wicked face as he watched my brothers.

I was waiting for my dad to put my swimmies on my arms when he leaned down and whispered, “It’s time for you to act like a big boy, Angelo.” He placed his palm on my back and inched me closer to the pool. “You’re my namesake, make me proud.”

Then, he pushed me into the shallow end without knowing how to swim on my own. I sunk almost to the bottom, my mouth open and full of water by the time I reached the surface. I was choking on the water, hardly able to breathe. My lungs were tight, and my body numb from overexertion. I screamed for Marco and Pete to help me.

Pete laughed, crossing his arms over his chest. Marco moved closer to me with his hand outstretched. But my dad ordered my brothers to leave me alone, told them I had to become a man. I was too short to touch the ground, my arms not long enough to make a proper stroke.

Gasping for air, I reached for the edge of the pool, feeling out in front of me for anything for support.

“Be a man,” my father said, standing over me at the edge of the pool.

My father had taught me so many life lessons I hated him for at the time. He was showing me how to become a Morelli. The old man was sick and demented, but he was teaching me invaluable life lessons. No one could show me how to be the man I’d become, not the way my father had.

With my fingers threaded through Sal’s dark curls, I shoved him onto the plank in the kill room with a gun to his head. Sonny strapped down his legs, and I worked on his arms and head, fastening Sal to the wooden board so he couldn’t move an inch.

Sal peeked up at me with fear in his eyes. “I didn’t hurt her. I promise. It wasn’t me.”

I ignored his comment and reached for the gallon of water on the table behind me. Sonny stood off to the side next to my brothers. Pete looked as though he wanted to join me. He wanted to be the one to make this man suffer. But we’d made a deal. Dom and his men were my kills. Their blood would be on my hands.

I tipped the bottle in my hand, dumping water in Sal’s mouth and down his nose. He fought me, his body thrashing and begging to rip free from his shackles.

“Tell me who took Gia,” I yelled, easing up for a second.

A beat passed where Sal coughed on the water, choking on it. “I don’t know. I would tell you if I did.”

I repeated the same process as before. This asshole would tell me what I wanted, or he would drown to death. It was his choice. All I cared about was information. The truth was Sal was a dead man no matter what. Dom and his crew were traitors. Our family had to tie up loose ends.

“Not good enough,” I spat back, this time tipping the bottle over so it was like a flood taking Sal under.

When I was younger, I’d seen this done on TV dozens of times in crime movies. Pete even showed me proper waterboarding techniques not long after I’d learned of the kill room. I knew this place so well I knew the scent of blood, bleach, and death anywhere. It was a familiar smell that no one should have known by heart. But the abandoned warehouse where we tortured our victims was becoming like my second home. The more time I spent around Pete and Marco, the more I learned every method of torture possible.

Pete loved the thrill of the kill, the high better than sex for him. Like me, Marco saw torture as a means to an end, though I would have been lying to myself if I didn’t admit I enjoyed a just kill like this one. Our guys set us up the night I went to Vitale’s. Not long after that night, Gia had disappeared along with Sonny. There were too many coincidences and not enough explanations to make sense of them.

Pete cupped his hand on my shoulder. “That’s enough for now.”

When Pete issued an order, I had to follow it. He wasn’t only my older brother, he was a caporegime, the captain who led our crew and reported back to my father. His orders were mine to follow. Pete was allowing me to hunt down every last person responsible for Gia’s kidnapping. But I had to know my place, respect the hierarchy of our organization.

I wanted to argue. Pete had made me a promise. Instead of fighting with him, I nodded and handed over the bottle. Sal choked on the water in his mouth and nose, struggling for air. He was a rat who deserved what was coming to him. Without Gia, I was becoming more like Pete every day. My heart had grown so cold I wasn’t sure I could feel anything other than hate and anger.

Pete moved his hand from my shoulder and stepped forward, hovering over Sal. “First, let’s start with where the fuck is Dom before I shove this bottle down your throat.”

“He’s working with Enzo,” Sal choked out.

Pete drizzled some of the water on Sal’s forehead and smiled as it ran down his nose and into his eyes. “Where the fuck is Enzo?”

Sal shut his eyes and sobbed. “At a safe house in North Jersey.”

“Where?” Pete growled.

“I can take you there,” he shot back.

“No, tell me where. You don’t leave this table until then. Dead or alive, I don’t care.”

Pete was bluffing. There was no way he would kill Sal without tracking down a lead to Enzo. The man was responsible for turning several members of our crew, as well as others in the organization. And for all we knew, he took Gia, or at the very least had a hand in her disappearance.