20 years ago
The office of Dr. Amanda Erikson. 

"You're sure there's nothing wrong with him?" My father paces up and down the cramped office, his hands clasped tightly behind his back.

The doctor clears her throat nervously. "We've run an extensive number of tests, Mr. Romano. Considering... everything," she cuts me a half grimace, half smile, "he seems to be in perfectly healthy condition."

Papa heaves a frustrated sigh, stopping his pacing to stare at me. "No, no, no," he mutters, going right back to it, "he's all wrong. All fucking wrong." I startle a little, my hand twitching in my lap. He only curses when he's very mad. "There must be something you can do."

"Like what exactly?" Dr. Erikson's voice wobbles in barely concealed nerves. Papa is frightening when he wants to be. "With all due respect, sir, he's eight years old. And he's been through a lo—"

"Tell me he's normal," my father snaps, bracing his hands on her desk and leaning intimidatingly into her space. He jerks his chin at me, and the doctor reluctantly but obediently meets my gaze. "Tell me that's normal."

I tilt my head, returning her scrutiny. She looks away abruptly. 

"There's something wrong with his eyes," he shudders. He keeps his distance, I notice, hovering a little closer but always keeping the coffee table between us. "And he doesn't speak much. He's practically mute. Sometimes I can't even tell if he's aware of the things around him." He snaps his fingers in my face. "See?"

I belatedly drag my gaze to him and he curses, retreating several steps. I disgust him now. My father, the man who practically runs Chicago, scared of his eight year old son.

Ever since I came back, it's been this way.

Dr. Erikson is quick to assure him that I'm fine, there's nothing wrong with me, and at most I'm suffering residual trauma. My father refuses to accept her words, continually stating it's not fucking trauma, trauma wouldn't turn him into this until the doctor sends him outside so she can conduct a solo checkup with me to conclude the appointment. 

After a moment's thought, she sits carefully on the couch next to me. Her smile is overly encouraging to mask her nervousness.

"Well, Massimo? How are you feeling? You can tell me anything, okay? If you don't want your father to know something, it will stay between the two of us."

I frown at the way she speaks, all slow and drawn out as if I'm mentally inept. 

One second she's wearing that pathetic smile, her pen poised expectantly over her notepad. The next, there's a dark line across her neck, just under her jaw, spreading from one side to the other. Blood bubbles heavily from it, gushing like a waterfall down the front of her dress.

She stares at me for a second, shock written in the whites of her eyes. Her hand grapples with her throat, but the blood spurts between her fingers and all over my clothes. She dies quickly as I watch. Eventually, her body slumps to the floor, drained of all life.

I'm holding a small blade. I recognize it. It's one of my father's that he keeps in his desk drawer at home. I just don't know how it got here. 

Papa chooses that moment to burst back in, clearly fresh out of patience. Seeing me and the mess, he freezes. His face pales and he utters a prayer in Italian. Burying his head in his hands, he takes a moment to collect himself. Then his strides are eating up the small space.

He grabs my shoulder roughly, dragging me to my feet. His hand fumbles at his waistline and emerges with a gun. Holding me in place, he taps it neurotically against his thigh. One, two, three, four, five. Considering what to do to me. 

I grab his wrist, slowly bringing the firearm to my forehead. Shuddering at the cold feel of it. "Uccidimi," I order hoarsely, frowning in earnestness. Kill me. 

He stares at me, processing the words I just uttered. Then he curses suddenly and rips the gun away. "You're fucking soulless." His eyes shine with regret for a brief moment before the emotion is replaced with that familiar cocktail of disgust, fear, and anger. "Clean yourself up and meet me outside. You have five minutes."

I don't know how many minutes pass, but it must be more than five. Next thing I know, my eyes are cracking open with difficulty, coming face to face with the carpet of Dr. Erikson's office. My body aches, my head pounds, and my face is sticky and wet. Two familiar expensive loafers step into my blurry line of vision, and two familiarly rough hands haul me to my feet. 

"Fuck, Massimo," my father mutters, doing his best to hold me upright as I blink myself back into consciousness. His face twists in discomfort as I grab onto the front of his suit to keep myself from crumpling to the floor again. "What did they do to you," he mutters, "my God, what did they fucking do to you."

He carries me out of the office. His shirt is soaked in Dr. Erikson's blood and my tears. 

The good doctor sits propped up in her chair, her bloodstained notepad and pen stacked neatly on her desk.

♛

14 years ago
The office of Dr. Adamo Mezzasalma, L.P.C.

My leather Oxfords stumble to a halt as I let myself into the familiar office. There's a man sitting behind the desk, an older gentleman with a black and white speckled beard that stands out against his tanned face. 

"Where is Dr. Johnson?"

The stranger smiles. "Dr. Johnson is no longer employed here. I'll be your new therapist—if that's alright."

I look at the door. Dr Johnson's plaque is gone. In its place is one that reads 'Dr. Adamo Mezzasalma.'

Dr. Johnson made it longer than I expected. She's not the first therapist who has quit because of me. Most take one look at my file, convince themselves they can handle me, and give up a few weeks in. 

At my father's orders, I've been seeing therapists and doctors my whole life. They don't tend to like me much. The dislike—or should I say discomfort—always takes root in that first session when they're forced to sit alone in a room with me. It takes between ten to fifteen minutes for them to become uneasy, for them to form their conclusions about me. They mentally wash their hands of me, tell themselves I'm another therapist's problem. They do their due diligence, of course. Give it a few weeks.

But it's always only a matter of time before they give up.

I don't remember much before age seven. And some of the years since then have been blurry, some large periods of time missing forever from my memory. Sometimes I can recall whispers of the time before that, before everything went wrong. When I felt like I was normal. But perhaps I was just young enough that people didn't care I was different.

It didn't take long for me to realize there was something about me that put people off. Basic human things like silence, words, and eye contact—it was all different somehow, wrong, when I did it. 

That feeling of being other has only increased with my age. Lately it's been a subtle, lurking awareness around other people. Like there's an ocean separating me from everyone else. Like they can see right through my pretense. I'm not fooling them into thinking I'm normal. 

That's a terrifying thought.

It makes every single inch of me itch, like there are ants crawling beneath my skin. It makes me paranoid, waiting for someone to notice just how wrong I am. For them to send me away, somewhere worse this time. It's that feeling of knowing you don't belong here but having nowhere else to go. The imposter with no real home.

I fully expect Adamo Mezzasalma to treat me the same as everyone else.

"Please, sit," he gestures, straightening his black-rimmed glasses. "And I apologize for the sudden change. I know you were used to Dr. Johnson and that disrupting routines can be challenging for you. I've been trying to call all week to inform you but nobody in your house picked up."

I slowly perch myself on the edge of the couch cushion, but Dr. Mezzasalma doesn't seem to mind my mistrust. "Now, before I get into who I am, what I do, and why I do it, why don't you tell me why you think you're even in therapy at all? I understand you started when you were quite young."

"You have all my notes." My voice is scratchy from lack of use. "And I'm sure my father informed you of everything. Is there anything else you need to know?"

Papa said therapy would help with whatever made me different. That's why I stuck with it. Mamma liked it too—even though we both knew she just liked it when I left the house. But that had been getting increasingly difficult to do lately. She was getting sick again, and I had to stay home to protect my brothers. But having me in the house for such long, interrupted stretches made her worse. Which meant my brothers suffered more.

I couldn't let my brothers suffer anymore.

Dr. Mezzasalma regards me with gentle eyes and an open expression. "Massimo, your father is dead."

I frown. My head gives one painful, confused pound, and I have to shutter my eyes against fluorescent lights that are suddenly too bright. One, two, three, four, fi— 

"—okay? Massimo. Are you alright?"

Dr. Mezzasalma's steady voice bears down on me in a sudden rush of noise as the rest of the world comes back into focus. I blink. An ache registers in my hands; I look down to see my fists clenched tightly in my lap.

"I'm okay. I just get headaches sometimes."

The urges are not so strong now. I can anticipate them, see them for what they are and know what will trigger them. But they manifest themselves in intense headaches that can half blind me for hours at a time. 

The memories don't help. They come rushing back now—everything that happened in the months following that bloody day when I was eight. The things I saw. The things my father had me do, so I'd be prepared for the day he was gone. And then he was gone. That blood splatter on the wall, the gun they took away. Their casual mutterings of things like "suicide" and "two shots" and "straight into his brain."

Not long after the day I ended Dr. Erikson's life, my father took his life in his favorite room of our family home, that ornately decorated library where he spent most of his time. I saw the blood. I saw his lifeless body wheeled out beneath the sheet, his hand with the family signet ring peeking out into the open. But sometimes I forget that he's dead. I get confused, I remember past conversations and think they're happening now.

I've been told it's the grief. That it can mess with memory and reality. But it's been six years, and I don't think I ever needed to grieve my father. Not when I still feel like he's with me every day. 

"Your father died when you were eight," Dr. Mezzasalma informs me calmly. "Do you remember now?"

I nod. 

"So it's just you, your mother, and your brothers at home, correct?"

Again, I nod. He doesn't press me further. As the session continues, I take note of the way he regards me head on. He doesn't have that overenthusiastic air of optimism that every single one of my therapists has after their first peek at my file. And he doesn't ask me how I'm feeling about things.

"I'd like for you to do a quick exercise so I can see how affected your memory is by your trauma. Let's start simple. Can you think back and tell me what you've done this week?"

Cold dread makes a home in my stomach. "Dr. Mezzasalma, I don't think—"

"Please, call me Adamo." He leans back in his chair, and I notice his tie is askew. "Massimo, I knew your father. Well, I knew of him. We weren't quite friends—because I was very familiar with the kind of man he was."

I tilt my head at the grim smile on his face. All my therapists have known of Antonio Romano as one of the most powerful men in the western United States. The savvy businessman who had a particularly deviant taste for women and alcohol, who owned casinos and clubs that were rumored to be involved in a dark business.

But it seems that Adamo Mezzasalma knew my father for who he really was: Capo of the Romano crime family. Which means he knows that title is also mine.

It also means he knows what used to happen in my father's casinos. And judging from the look on his face, he doesn't like it.

"Humor me. What did you do this week?"

I cleaned up a big mess I made. I made dinner every night for my brothers but I'm not as good as Mamma at cooking. So many people kept coming to the house and I had to lie to make them think she was sleeping upstairs. Thankfully it was believable since that's all she's done since Papa died.

"I had to babysit," I settle on a half-truth. "My youngest brother, Nico, is two. He cries a lot."

"How old are your other brothers?"

"Santo is twelve. Tommaso is eight."

"And how are they doing?"

Not good. Santo's tears have already transitioned into cold, hard anger. He's the only other one who understands what I did. But I think he's secretly relieved too. Tommaso is just confused. He keeps asking where Mamma is.

"They're fine."

"And... your mother, what about her? How has she been handling your father's death?"

She's not. 

"Massimo?"

I killed my mother. I had to.

"She's okay. She's been quieter and sadder since my father died."

The session goes on like that, with Adamo asking me simple questions about my week and my family. He doesn't ask much about my father. He never pushes me to elaborate on any of my answers, and he doesn't take notes. He doesn't waste time or look at me like I baffle him. I'm almost disappointed that after today, I won't be coming back to therapy.

It's weird talking to someone who treats me like I'm mostly normal.

As we're wrapping up, I make haste to leave. My brothers are home alone and with both our parents dead, I can't leave them on their own in that house for too long. But Adamo stops me as I reach for the doorknob.

"Did your mother drive you here today? May I speak with her?"

"She's at home. I had one of our drivers take me."

"I see. Tell your mother to answer her cell phone, okay?"

I nod, and Adamo gets a knowing smile on his face. There's a quietly sad quality to it. "You won't be coming back, will you?"

I shake my head, impressed at his astuteness.

"Why not?"

Because it's just me and my brothers now, and I have to protect them. I have to get us out of that cursed home before anyone finds her body, before it starts smelling, before people come after us. 

"I don't need therapy anymore." Again, I settle on a half-truth. I reluctantly respect him enough that I feel obligated to that, at least. 

"I see. Well, I'm sorry I won't be seeing you again." Adamo roots around in his pockets, holding a small piece of paper out to me. "This is my card. It has my personal cell number on there. Call me if you ever need anything, Massimo. Anything at all."

I take the paper, pocketing it carefully. I don't know how exactly, but I feel that I can trust Adamo Mezzasalma. It's a slight but telling twinge in my gut—and my gut is the one thing I've learned to trust over the years.

I hesitate for a second in the doorway. "Please fix your tie. It's crooked." The door shuts on his hearty chuckle. 

♛

11 years ago
The South Side Diner; South Side of Chicago.

Sheets of rain and gusts of wind shake the windows of the quiet diner. Even though it's warm in here, the cold won't leave me alone. It seeps through my skin and my very bones seem to rattle in protest to it. 

The grizzled old man who owns the place has a beady-eyed stare that I currently feel boring into the side of my face. The South Side Diner is closed this late; he was getting ready to leave for the night before we came. The longer his phone rings, the harder I press it to my ear. 

Please answer. Please. 

Santo squeezes out his sodden shirt, and the old man glares at the new splash of rainwater dirtying his clean floors. It's just adding to the splotches of mud that we tracked in despite my best efforts to have my brothers clean off outside. They were too cold and bone-weary to listen.

I get his frustration at four dirty, bedraggled boys stumbling through the doors of his business and begging to use his phone. We're lucky he complied. If I were in his position, I'm sure I wouldn't have even let us through the door, but I think he just didn't want us to die right outside his diner.

That would be a mess to deal with. Judging from the state of his floors before we trudged in, he likes cleanliness.

He swings that dirty glare to the rest of my brothers. I find myself stepping in front of them, even though there's nothing he could really do.

Tommaso and Nico slide behind me, eyes cast down, subdued and shivering so hard their teeth chatter. Their silence sends new worry barreling through my chest. Those two will bicker through an apocalypse. What we've endured feels worse than that somehow, and they look like two ghosts. Malnourishment has stolen the meat from their bones and the light from their eyes. Their dark, stringy hair hangs pathetically in their faces.

I've drained them. The remnants of my family stand around me soaked, shivering, and half dead. Shame and failure burn a hole through my chest. 

But Santo glares right back at the old man, undeterred. His lip curls in disgust. "What the fuck are you looking at?"

Annoyed, I grab his shoulder. He swings that temperamental glower to me, the fire in his eyes not dying down at my warning glare. Wordlessly, I push him behind me with the others, unable to deal with his displays of emotion right now.

He's only fifteen but acts like he's invincible.

"You have one more minute, kid," the old man grunts. 

My hope is decreasing with each empty ring in my ear, and I force myself to breathe through the tight band around my lungs. I can only hope against hope that nobody followed us here. I'll have to wait to indulge myself in the bitter taste of my failure until my brothers are safe. Until I know nobody is coming after us.

Please. Please just leave me alone. 

My responsibility—my duty—is a slowly tightening noose that was placed around my neck the day I was born. As the oldest son, I'm both my brothers' protector and expected to rise to the title of Capo. Two inescapable birthrights. And it's all culminating now, today, as everything I've built is threatening to come crashing down.

If it does, it will bury us in the rubble.

I got us out of that home, and we ended up in an even more desolate position, fending for ourselves. Then I got us off the streets, made sure my brothers were safe. I've been protecting my family and building my empire this whole time, against all odds.

Power isn't handed to you, you must take it. Sometimes you bleed for it, or make other people bleed. So be it. Power is a wild beast that is only tamed by the strongest. I have paved my path to the throne in the way I saw fit, the only way I could. And now, at age seventeen, everything I've been preparing for is right there, just out of my reach.

And it's about to crush us. 

It's been too long. It's unlikely he still has the same number. Think of another solution. 

The call drops. I don't have another solution. My last resort was this stupid phone number that I pointlessly memorized after walking out his door three years ago. 

I nimbly redial before the old man can get any ideas about taking his phone back. One more time. I'll try once more while I figure out what's next. 

It's useless. I've exhausted all my options. 

Everything we survived and everything I've given up—for nothing. Sickness tugs at my stomach and dizziness eclipses my vision.

No. Think.

The phone is still ringing.

One, two, three... 

"Hello?"

For a few dizzying seconds, my tongue feels like lead in my mouth. Everything halts. Then relief crashes over me in a suffocating wave, heavy enough to nearly send my tired bones clattering to the floor. 

"... Hello? Who is this?" I hear another muffled voice in the background, feminine. Adamo's voice gets quieter as he talks to her. "I don't know who it is, honey. Maybe—"

"Adamo Mezzasalma?"

I hear a sharp intake of breath. "Who are you?"

I take a fortifying breath, pressing a trembling fist to my temple. Lightning flashes outside, illuminating the empty streets. My heart skips; I'm convinced the next time the storm strips the streets of the blanket of night, I'll see the monsters I'm running from lined up in the dark. Descending on me and my little family.

"It's Massimo Romano. We met three years ago. You were my therapist for a day. I don't know if you remember me."

Please. Please. Please. 

The last time I saw him, I was a troubled boy. But I'm different now, almost unrecognizable. I've learned how to sharpen my mind to get what I want instead of letting it trap me. Patience and sheer control is sharper than any weapon.

"Massimo," he breathes. "Yes. Yes, I remember you."

I brace myself against the wall, feeling suddenly like my legs can't hold me up anymore. Behind me, one of my brothers sniffles. 

And then I utter four words I've never uttered before. "I need your help."