Sempre (Sempre 1)

“Cut the medical bullshit. It’s a scapegoat.”

“Scapegoat,” Vincent repeated. “You’re right. I’ve come to grips with it for the most part, which is why I felt it was safe to bring her here. But yes, I do still have moments where I slip back into that mind-set and wish she didn’t exist.”

Carmine could hear the disgust in his voice. “Was it Frankie who had her killed?”

Vincent nodded. “A few years ago, Sal told me Frankie panicked about your mother asking questions, said it was because the Antonellis’ son fathered the girl. He didn’t want his family’s dirty little secret to come out. It’s kill or be killed in our world, son.”

Carmine could feel the vodka burning through his veins. He ran his hand through his hair, cringing at the pain. His father frowned. “You must’ve been pounding on something hard.”

“Just had a small mishap with a mirror.”

“You should go to the hospital for an X-ray.”

Carmine held up his bottle of vodka. “I have all the medicine I need right here.”

He took another swig of it as his father muttered. “I pity your liver, heading straight for cirrhosis at seventeen. It’ll kill you if you keep it up.”

“We all gotta die at some point, Dad,” he said. “May as well go out for something I love.”

He brought the bottle to his lips for a drink, and as the liquid flowed, it struck him what he’d said. That was exactly what his mom had done.

31

The sound of the bell rang through the brightly lit room. There was a collective shuffling as the students gathered their things. Carmine closed his science book awkwardly with his left hand, his right wrist in a bandage, sprained from the incident with the mirror in his bathroom.

“Don’t forget to study, folks!” the biology teacher, Mr. Landon, called out. “Quiz tomorrow!”

Carmine grabbed his backpack before strolling to the teacher’s desk. Mr. Landon erased the board and turned, caught off guard to see him. “Is there something I can help you with?”

“I wondered if you could explain mtDNA.”

Mr. Landon pursed his lips. “We covered that at the beginning of the semester.”

“I know, but I’m a bit confused.”

Truthfully, he hadn’t paid a damn bit of attention. Carmine always relied on luck and common sense to pass his classes, and most of the time he had just enough of both to get by.

“Well, unlike nuclear DNA, mtDNA isn’t unique to us. We share it with our mothers.”

“So my mtDNA would be the same as my mom’s?”

“Yes, just as it’s the same as her mother, and her mother’s mother, and so on.”

“But can men be traced through it? I mean, say mine was tested. Who would it match?”

“People related to your mother. Whatever your mtDNA, it came directly from the maternal side.”

Carmine was stunned. He’d naturally assumed the test had something to do with Haven’s father and his connections to the mob, never considering it could deal with Haven’s mom.

“Is that all you needed?” Mr. Landon asked.

“Yeah.” He hesitated. “Actually, no. Do you know anything about GPS?”

“What specifically do you want to know?”

“Is there a way to disable a signal?”

“Well, there are ways to block them,” he said. “GPS chips need a line of sight to the satellite tracking them, so any big obstruction will keep the signal from getting out. Also, reflective materials like water or metal can cause the signal to bounce back.”