Carmine

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When I arrive at Orchard Children’s Institute, I park my car a street away and walk back. The white building is three stories high and appears to be in good shape with well-trimmed hedges along the path leading up to revolving doors. This place must be expensive.

I enter a pristine white reception area with a high desk, and a brunette moves from behind her computer when she sees me.

Quickly, I brush my hands through my unruly hair and button my suit jacket.

“Hi. Can I help you?”

I check her nametag. “You can, Kayley.” I lean one elbow on the desk, looking down the hallway where staff members are milling about, accompanied by several loud residents. “What room does Conley reside in?”

Her eyes widen for a split-second before she masks it. “Are you a family member?”

I arc my brow. “No.”

“Then I’m sorry, sir. I can’t give you that information.”

I straighten since her stunned reaction confirms that a Conley lives here. I’m considering my next move when, without warning, something hits my hip.

“Sorry, mister,” a cheerful yet oddly intonated voice speaks, and a skinny young boy wearing a Bears cap comes bounding down the hall, observing me with no distrust or judgment, just a genuine smile.

“That’s okay. I’m still intact,” I assure him, nabbing his ball from the floor as he stops and holds up his arm for me to throw it to him. Then I notice his facial features and recognize he has Down syndrome.

I stretch my arm. “Ready?”

“Yeah,” he cheers, so I pitch it to him, right into his glove, and he catches it, excitedly jumping up and down.

“Thanks, mister!”

Before I turn around, I wink at him and exit.

Once inside my BMW, I snatch my phone from the console to call Henry, pressing the device to my ear.

“Carmine?”

“Henry, I need some information fast. Are you at a computer?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s regarding Eva Conley. I think she has siblings or family at Orchard Children’s Institute in the South Loop. Can you get the resident list from Orchard and see if a Conley lives there?”

“Yeah, give me a minute.” I hear him typing away. “There’s no Conley in their records.”

“That’s weird. I just went there and it seemed as if the receptionist recognized the name Conley when I mentioned it.”

“She could have relatives with another last name? Or she might have a friend who lives there.”

“Could be...I have to go. Thanks, man.”

“No problem.” He cuts the call.

I have no choice but to have a soldier stake out the place to let me know if, or when, she visits. Only, within the Syndicate, we have strict rules, and in order to protect the high ranks and remain under the radar of law enforcement, I’m not allowed to communicate directly with a soldier. So I call Capo John and order him to have a soldier observe Orchard Children’s Institute, giving an accurate description of Eva’s exotic looks as well.

Unsettled about this useless weekend and the growing problem with Roman, I finally drive home to the Astoria Tower in the South Loop. After parking inside the garage beneath the skyscraper, I grab my piece of luggage from the trunk and take the elevator up to my parents’ floor, where it opens into a wide hall and I go left, knocking on their apartment door.

My father yanks it open, his silver hair in disarray, and I hear my mother groaning. I hurry inside after him into the living room and see her curled up on the Chesterfield. In her position, she appears even thinner than usual as a sheen of sweat covers her forehead.

I let my bag drop to the floor as she looks up, muttering, “Carmine, where have you been?”

“It was a busy weekend.” I sit next to her hip on the couch and swipe her greying brown hair back. “Did you take your medicine?”

“I have them here,” my father calls out from the open kitchen across the room as he shakes a few pills into his hand from her prescription bottle.

“Can I also have some more water, Max?” my mother requests.

“Yes, sweetheart,” he replies, turning on the faucet before dipping down to get a glass.

“Did you have a seizure?’ I ask, and she nods, grimacing, so I rub my palm up and down her arm in a soothing manner.

My mom has suffered from lupus since Adriano was born. It’s a chronic autoimmune disease that mostly affects women of childbearing age, and because treatment in the U.S. was more successful at bringing the symptoms under control, my parents moved here from Italy in the mid-eighties. Lupus isn’t hereditary, though, so Adriano, Mary, and I were born healthy.

Unluckily, it’s a lifelong disease and there’s no cure. Although my mother has a serious form, it often goes into remission and remains quiet for months. But because her seizures sometimes cause her kidneys to fail, she’s never been able to work.

Due to my mom’s illness and our lack of money, my siblings and I were home a lot as kids and we became a tight family. My parents barely scraped by for years until my brother turned eighteen and became a successful businessman while still in college. Of course, he was also initiated into the mafia at that time and started paying for all of our expenses. Then, when I graduated, Adriano introduced me into his Syndicate, and now we both take care of our family of five and will support them until we die. However, our parents believe we make our money solely as the owners of Club 7 and don’t know about our mafia connection. Adriano and I prefer it this way and refuse to have them worry about us.

To this day, we’re still as close as we were when all of us lived at home. All of us even reside here in the highly secured Astoria Tower, where it’s easier to safeguard the family. Adriano and Cam are in the penthouse, Mary and Henry are on the thirty-ninth floor, and I live on the thirtieth.

My father walks to the couch and hands my mom her pills and the glass of water. “Take them all, Sophia,” he orders and she downs everything before lying back.

When she moans in pain because her organs are being attacked, I hate feeling helpless, yet I’m slightly appeased when I notice her face relaxing as her medication kicks in.

“Rest,” I say softly. “I’ll come by later and we’ll have dinner together.” My mother nods as I press a kiss to her forehead, and when I stand up, my father takes my place.

“Dad, I’ll bring dinner with me later,” I offer.

“Grazie, figlio mio.” Thank you, my son.

I squeeze his shoulder and smile at the loving way my father studies my mother before I get my bag and head out again to the elevator.

After riding up to the thirtieth floor, I enter my spacious duplex apartment with floor-to-ceiling windows. My shoes click off the black hardwood floor as I go into the living room and set my luggage on the custom-made white U-shaped sofa that’s facing the built-in fireplace and the flat screen TV, which hangs on the wall that separates the kitchen from the living area. Then I fling my keys onto the black glass table and plop down onto the sofa, too lazy to trudge down the staircase to the first level where my master bedroom is located.

As I gaze at Lake Michigan, I’m glad to be back in my own home, yet vivid memories of Eva, legs spread wide and thrusting her hips up as she touched herself, replay in my mind. I should’ve just fucked her out of my mind. The entire weekend was about Eva, and I keep wondering about her motives, kicking myself for letting her slip from my grasp. But not for long.

***

On Tuesday morning, I’m driving out of the parking garage of the Astoria Tower at eight a.m. when I receive a text from Capo John that the soldier has spotted Eva walking into Orchard Children’s Institute. Hitting the gas, I hightail it to the institute, which is only fifteen minutes from my apartment. Again, I park a block away and run back to the building, trailing through the door behind a couple in their mid-forties, who the receptionist greets kindly as she talks to two guys who seem familiar. I shadow the couple closely until the others can’t see me. Then I go down the hallway and check any rooms that have the door open, stopping when I note a flash of the blackest hair in the fourth one as Eva rummages through a drawer with her back to me.

Slipping inside, I close the door with a bang, causing her to whirl around, and her red-rimmed eyes widen so that the whites are entirely visible.

“No!” she shrieks, and it’s my turn to be wholly taken aback because she looks completely petrified.

This isn’t the same Eva I encountered over the weekend.