Why do I get the feeling that is still just the opening act?
NINE
“You're either at the table or on the menu.”
~ Al Capone
WYATT – AGE FIFTEEN
“He shit himself,” I said, looking in disgust at the man standing in the snow, in nothing but his now-stained briefs.
“The weak ones do that a lot,” Ethan said, taking a step beside me, the snow breaking under his black leather shoes. He reached into his jack
et and pulled out a pair of black leather gloves, tossing them to me. “You forget these?”
“I didn’t forget them. I brought my own.” I showed him the dark brown leather gloves I already had on. His green eyes glanced down at them. He nodded but didn’t say anything, putting the black gloves back into his pocket.
“Have you met my sons, Dentico?” Our father asked as he walked up behind, dressed in a black coat and scarf over his double-breasted suit, on his head one of those flat black caps. When I saw him, I thought we were going for dinner. But apparently not. “The one that looks like me…that’s the oldest. Ethan, introduce yourself.”
“Hello,” Ethan said coldly, his eyes never looking away from the still shit-stained man standing in the snow in front of us.
“This is the second one,” my father said as he rested his arm on my shoulder. “Wyatt, introduce yourself.”
“Why would a dead man need to know my name?” I questioned, uninterested in any of this. I expected him to snap at me for not following his orders, especially since we were in public.
“As you can see, you and I have something in common,” my father sighed, still speaking to the man who I could only guess was Dentico. “Raising teenagers is a pain in the ass. They barely listen. They’re almost always clueless. They take advantage of the biological link between you, stopping you from snapping their little necks when they’re driving you crazy. I sometimes wonder why the hell I was so excited when my wife had them. They are like little leeches sucking the life out of you.”
“We’re right here,” I said just in case he forgot. I shrugged him off my shoulder. Ethan, the prince of snow and ice, said nothing because either he didn’t care what our father thought or he knew my father was only talking about me. Either way, fuck him.
“And there’s that lip,” my father said, stepping in front of us both, the snow crunching under his shoes as he walked. “When they’re talking back like that I think to myself, ‘What the hell is wrong with this generation? Where is the respect?’ It makes me think of how I treated my father. And I laughed because I was a little shit to him, too. Can you believe my luck, Dentico? I got one that looks like me and one that acts like me.”
My father snickered, taking out a cigarette and putting it between his lips. I looked to Ethan, hoping he could speed this up. To my surprise, the mask on his face broke a little, and he seemed just as annoyed as me. I wasn’t sure, but I was willing to bet he was saying something un-prince-like in his head. Noticing me looking at him, Ethan’s eyebrow rose as he looked to me, as if to ask ‘what?’
Shaking my head, I looked back to our father, but now he was looking at us both. I froze for a second, and Ethan stood up straighter.
“Why do we keep these disrespectful brats? Because they are our past and future. I look at my sons, Dentico, and I’m so curious as to who they will become. Did they learn enough? Did I teach them enough? Will they remember this when they’re dealing with their own brats? I have so many questions…but I guess that’s a good thing. It means I know my kids are going to live that long.” He took the second-longest drag of his cigarette. “You aren’t that lucky, however, Dentico.”
He nodded to someone behind us, and we turned around to see a family in a car. There was a woman and three teens inside, their hands zip-tied, mouths gagged. The teens were about the same age as Ethan and me. Tears were in their eyes as they stared at us. Two of the guards suddenly came to Ethan and I, two Colt M4 Commandos in their hands. They handed one to Ethan and then the other to me.
“You see your family’s future ends here, Dentico. Mine, my family’s, my sons, it keeps going. No matter what.” I could hear my father step closer to us as he spoke. “On my mark.”
Automatically, Ethan and I lifted the assault rifles up and aimed at the car—we had been waiting with our hands on the triggers. We heard the man screaming, sobbing through his gag.
Our father flicked his cigarette forward, and both Ethan and I knew that was his mark. I pulled hard on the trigger, letting the bullets fly, moving closer until my magazine was empty. Lifting the barrel back up when I was done, I tried not to smirk.
“Really?” I heard Ethan’s voice behind me.
I turned to him, giving up trying and just full-on smirked. “What? It’s not like I spelt my name.”
“FU is pretty close,” Ethan responded to the bullet holes in the side of the car.
“He gets points for creativity,” my father said as he took his own gun, turned back, and shot Dentico between the eyes. He fell over instantly, his eyes positioned so that it looked like he was looking at his car. Putting the gun away, my father added, “You lose points for being sloppy.”
“What?”
He grabbed the sleeve of my coat, forcing me to look at my hand. The gloves I’d been wearing had somehow gotten snagged on some part of the rifle by my thumb. It ripped a seam on one of the gloves and even nicked me, drawing blood. Though it was a small rip, I didn’t know. I glanced over to Ethan’s gloves. They were still fine.
“Those gloves belonged to your grandfather Orlando, didn’t they?” he asked me, releasing my jacket.