Vicious Minds: Part 3 (Children of Vice 6)

Were we really that old now?

9

“What makes you go to war?”

~Leo Tolstoy

ETHAN

“How is she?” I asked the moment I got off the elevator with Gigi in my arms.

“Stable now,” Vinnie said, still dressed in his suit from the ball. “They said so long as she gets through the rest of the day without any other hiccups, she’ll recover.”

“Of course, she will—she has no choice.” She promised me. I thought the last part while walking into her room.

There Dino and Italo sat, waiting. Italo at the door. Dino at her bedside. She was all wrapped up in bandages, with wires sticking out of her left and right. The only sound coming from the machines that seemed to be keeping her alive.

Vinnie didn’t come inside; instead, he stood guard at the door.

Walking to the couch, I set Gigi down gently, placing the pillow under her head. She muttered before rolling onto her side. When she searched for another pillow to hug, I moved to get the bag I brought. Dino already seemed to know and pulled out the stuffed dolphin, handing it to me. I stared at his hand, noticing the birthmark on his forefinger. It was the same as Calliope’s, as was the scar that was there. He handed me a blanket as well.

“She’s my only niece,” he said.

It was the first time any of them admitted it. That was how you kept a fucking secret. Taking the blanket, I put it over Gigi before rising to stand and face Dino.

“Not all uncles are so loyal,” I replied.

“Not all uncles started from where we started,” he shot back, and Italo nodded from behind him.

“Is this the beginning of story time now?” I asked, walking to Calliope’s bedside, taking off my coat and sitting down, watching her fight this battle on her own. “What is it that brought you sorry children together?”

“I’m not good at stories.” Dino shot back. “Italo? Share with the boss.”

He snickered. “How does Calli like to do it again?”

“Once upon a time,” Vinnie's voice came in from the other side of the door.

Calliope was right. Out of the three of them, he had the best hearing. That was why he was supposed to be our eyes and ears among the city’s elite.

“Oh right, she loves clichés…once upon a time, a very skillful, talented—”

“Oh God, here we go,” Dino muttered, shaking his head as he moved to the other end of the room.

I said nothing. I had nowhere else to be, so however long they needed to get this story out, I would hear it. Just because I knew the end, didn’t mean I didn’t want to know the beginning.

“A kind young painter was admitted into the Academy of Fine Arts of Palermo. He had all the makings to become a great artist,” Italo said as if he hadn’t heard Dino. “Then, one day, while minding my own business, a video was sent to me. I didn’t know by who or what it was. So, I just deleted it, thinking it was spam. But the next day, I got the video again, and so I clicked it…only to see the battered, freckled face of an older woman I didn’t know. I watched as she was beaten over and over again before being dragged out of a room filled with other women I didn’t know. The message that came after said, ‘That was the last image I could find of your mother.’ Strange because that was not my mother. My mother didn’t have a freckled face like me,” he said.

“You were adopted by another one,” I said, understanding.

“By an aunt.” He smiled, though it was not the smile of a man in his right mind. “Of course, I didn’t know she was my aunt. Everyone said she had a sister who hung out with the wrong type of people long ago, just like my father’s younger brother, Giuseppe. One day, I was dropped off at their place. They only had two daughters, a son—it was nice. They raised me as if I was their child. They didn’t know the story. My adoptive mother didn’t know my birth mother was kidnapped and trafficked all across Europe like a limited-edition toy. She became older and sick, so they killed her. Do you know who kidnapped her?”

“Fiorello.”

“Wrong but good guess,” Dino added.

“Siena Orsini had my mother kidnapped,” Italo said, and at that, I looked at him. Noticing my surprise, he nodded. “Yeah, they couldn’t build or fund i Libitinarii overnight. Not even with all the money they had earned in their past. You need capital to build something like that, and the fastest way to build capital is drugs.”

“But another family ran that so they would have noticed,” I replied, putting that piece of the puzzle in place. “The next best thing to do is traffic women.”