pats me on the shoulder. “I’m gonna get some sodas and junk food.”
“Thank you,” I say as she walks out of the waiting room, toward the vending machines.
Gia is seated near the windows. Her earbuds are in her ears as she sits with her knees pulled to her chest, lightly crying.
I touch her knee. When she notices it’s me, she jumps up and hugs me tight. I can feel the worry seeping out of her skinny body.
“How are you holding up?” I ask. She looks so young, and weary. I motion for her to sit back down.
Her eyes are red and her cheeks splotchy, making her look like a child. Her lip trembles as she tries to speak. I rub her back and console her.
The man in the seat next to her gets up and lets me have the chair. I let my sister cry on my shoulder.
“You shouldn’t cry all your tears when there might not be reason to,” I say even though I want to cry myself. “Dad is strong. He’ll make it through.”
“He shouldn’t have to.” She wipes her nose with her forearm. “What kind of horrible person would try to kill him? I’m so scared, Amelia. First, the shooting at the club, and then he hid away, obviously frightened for his life. And now, he’s here. Why is this happening?”
Gia and I have both lived a life where we knew our family was different than others, yet we never knew the severity of our father’s reach into the criminal world. He’s an underboss of a crime ring. Laundering, theft, drugs, and guns. They’re all part of the deviance he kept us from. For what? So we can go to good schools and have nice things. Maybe it was for his personal status. As I look at my uncles conversing, I have a feeling my father works the way he does because it’s all he knows.
The family business is beyond what I ever imagined. It’s put us all in jeopardy.
My sister deserves to know the truth, just like I did. And yet, while I know I should tell her … I can’t.
Gia is a bright-eyed girl who loves her family. She enjoys putting on shows and telling the tallest tales. Where I was kept in a bubble from my family’s secrets, she’s been kept in a vault, hidden away from any negative energy. I don’t want to spoil things for her. Not today at least.
“I don’t know why someone would do this. But I promise I will do everything I can to stop it,” I vow.
She looks up at me with an incredulous stare. “How in the world are you going to make this stop?”
I bite my lip and look away. “I don’t know. I just don’t like seeing you this sad and scared.”
“Do you think it could happen to us? Me, you, Mom, or Uncle Frankie and his family?”
“No,” I lie.
She squeezes me tight, tucking her head on my shoulder. I rest my head on top of hers. Images of something like this happening to my sweet little sister run through my brain. The thought makes me nauseous.
I clench my lips shut and try to remember a better time, one when we were the Sorrentinos, living our normal life. Days on the family yacht with my parents sitting on the deck while Gia and I rode our Jet Skis in figure eights in the water nearby. We weren’t allowed far out until we were thirteen, and even then, it was with Dad’s watchful eye. He’d hop on with Gia on one while I followed. He showed me how to pump my own gas and how to anchor so we could swim in the ocean.
Christmas was a big celebration. Dad was never the one to play Santa Claus, but he always sang from his karaoke machine in the living room, serenading the family with classic ballads by Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra. He’d often have Gia and me join him and never complained when we were off-key.
On vacations, we were taken to cities rich with history. He prides himself on how well traveled and respectable we grew as women. His approval is the kind of thing you bask in. It makes you want to be better because the light he shines on you is so bright that you never want to leave.
He never missed a school play or honor roll ceremony. When I was valedictorian of my graduating class, he took out a four-page spread in the