Sempre: Redemption (26 page)

Business? Personal? Carmine wasn’t sure. What he did know, though, was he had no interest being there either way.

A car pulled up behind him, parking in the grassy lot beside Carmine’s Mercedes. He turned, watching his uncle climb out and head toward him. Corrado wore a white V-neck shirt, khakis, and a pair of tan loafers. Carmine’s brow furrowed as he stared at the man’s shoes.

“Something wrong?” Corrado asked, approaching him on the dock.

“No.” He shook his head. “I’ve never really seen you so casual before.”

“It’s Sunday,” he replied, shrugging as if that were a good explanation. “Celia is spending the afternoon with her mother so I thought I’d join Sal today.”

“Oh.” Carmine looked away from him, his gaze turning back to the yacht. “What are we doing here, anyway?”

Corrado didn’t answer. Instead, he walked away, stepping onto the yacht and plopping down in a vinyl chair. Carmine remained still for a moment before joining him, taking a shaky step onto the polished wooden deck. He held tightly onto the railing to stabilize himself, the yacht swaying lightly. He was about to take a seat beside his uncle when Sal surfaced from inside, dressed even more casually than Corrado. Hairy legs hung out from the bottom of a pair of plaid shorts, a white undershirt clinging tightly to his oversize stomach. For once, Carmine felt like he almost fit in wearing his jeans and t-shirt.

“Principe!”
Sal said excitedly, his eyes drifting from Carmine to Corrado. “Ah, Corrado! I’m glad you could join us, too! We’re just waiting for one more.”

Carmine eyed him anxiously. “Who?”

Sal nodded toward shore as a black sedan pulled up. Coldness rushed through Carmine as if there were ice in his veins as the man stepped out. The scar on the side of his face gleamed in the sunlight like a bright, sinister warning sign pointing to danger ahead.

Carmine’s headache kicked in full-force, the pounding blinding as he clenched his teeth together to stop from saying anything. Instead of reacting, he forced himself to sit down in the vacant chair beside his uncle.

Carlo stepped onto the yacht, walking with determination, an aura of conceit enshrouding him. It was evident in his stride, and his smile, and his stance—the man believed he was invincible.

“I hope I’m not late,” Carlo said.

Carmine glanced at his watch: 1:13 
P.M.
They were all late, technically speaking.

“No, no, of course not,” Sal said, smiling gleefully as he slapped Carlo on the back. “It’s just good to see you.”

They set sail a minute later, navigating out toward an unoccupied area where nothing surrounded them but the calm, dark waters of Lake Michigan. Carmine remained tense, every muscle in his body rigid, as the men grabbed fishing rods and cast them in the water. They lounged and shared laughs, steadily sipping alcohol.

“So, we have a bit of a situation,” Salvatore said eventually, his nonchalance shifting to seriousness. “We have another traitor that needs dealt with. He can’t see it coming, and he’s going to trust few at this point. You understand the gravity of the situation?”

“Of course,” Corrado responded at once. “The rats have to go.”

Salvatore turned to Carmine, his eyebrows raised inquisitively. Carmine nodded, unsure of why he was asking him, but he wasn’t going to question it. His job was simply to agree. “Yes, sir.”

“Good,” Sal said, pulling out a cigar and clipping off the end of it, “because I need Vincent taken out as soon as possible.”

Carmine’s blood ran cold, his heart stopping for a fraction of a second.
Vincent?
It couldn’t be so. He couldn’t mean his father.

“It’s unfortunate, but we have sources saying he’s been feeding information to the Feds,” Sal continued as he lit his cigar, savoring the first puff. “His father, Antonio—God rest his soul—was one of the greatest Boss’s in the history of the organization. Vincent turning is a notion I wouldn’t suggest if I weren’t one-hundred percent sure.”

Salvatore paused, glancing at Corrado, and Carmine held his breath. He waited for his uncle to defend him, for him to talk Salvatore out of it, to make him see logic that Vincent DeMarco would
never
jeopardize his family.

But the moment Corrado opened his mouth, Carmine’s hope disintegrated. “I’ll handle it.”

“He’ll expect you,” Salvatore warned. “He knows you’re the best.”

Corrado started to respond, but another voice silenced him. “What about the boy?” Carlo asked. “Why not him?”

“Me?” Carmine asked incredulously. “I can’t—”

“Can’t?” Sal countered, his eyes darkening. “Are you refusing?”

“With all due respect, sir, Vincent has a lot of experience,” Corrado said. “Carmine’s still an amateur.”

“True, but he wouldn’t fire on his son, especially one who looks strikingly close to his wife. It would be like Maura dying all over again. No, Carlo’s right. Carmine’s perfect.”

Carmine stared at them with shock, not knowing how to react. The fact that Salvatore would use his mother’s memory to his advantage in his violent twisted game made him sick. There was no way he had just been ordered to murder his own father. It was unfathomable. “I’m supposed to kill my father?”

“A traitor, Carmine,” Sal said sharply. “Your order is to eliminate the threat. It’s about time you’ve proven your loyalty, anyway. You should’ve been made to do it long ago, but I didn’t press the issue because of who you are. In fact, I’ve tolerated a lot I shouldn’t have because of your last name, but I won’t tolerate it any longer. Your grandfather would be rolling over in his grave right now.”

“He would,” Corrado chimed in. “Antonio would’ve never stood for this.”

“So do what’s expected of you,” Salvatore continued. “Earn some respect back for your bloodline.”

“But—”

Salvatore shot Carmine a look of murderous rage, silencing him abruptly. The atmosphere shifted once more to nonchalance as Sal puffed on his cigar with ease, turning his focus back to his fishing rod.

Two hours later the yacht docked again, and Carmine was the first one off the boat. He started down the dock in a stupor and heard Corrado follow, but he didn’t turn around. Seething, he headed straight for his car when Corrado grabbed him.

“Get off of me,” he spat, shrugging away from his uncle.

“Relax,” Corrado said. “You did good.”

Carmine laughed bitterly. “You expect me to
relax
? Maybe you can kill your own fucking family with no remorse, but I can’t! How the hell could you agree with him? I thought you knew my father better than that!”

“I clearly know Vincent better than you do,” he said. “You’re ignorant if you believe he didn’t know this would happen.”

“You’re saying he
planned
for this? What fucked-up world do you live in?”

“The same one you live in,” Corrado said calmly, reaching into his pocket for his phone. “But it’s a moot point, because you won’t be killing anyone, Carmine.”

“That’s news to me, considering I was just
ordered
to. What am I supposed to do?”

“You’re supposed to go home.”

Corrado turned away and got into his car, leaving without another word. Carmine headed home, pulling into the driveway a few minutes later. The house was warm, the air-conditioning still broken. Carmine grabbed the bottle of Grey Goose from the freezer before strolling to the living room, flopping down on the couch and kicking off his shoes.

Time passed as he sat there staring at the floor, his frantic mind trying to sort through his options while he attempted to drown it all out with liquor. It surged through his body, but it didn’t extinguish the ache in his heart.

Best-case scenario, Carmine thought, his father got away and he never saw him again. Worst-case scenario, he ended up dead, possibly at Carmine’s hands. Violence, mayhem, murder, bloodshed, fucking annihilation—he wondered if there was any way to avoid it anymore.

Later he still sat hunched over, gripping his hair with the empty bottle of vodka at his feet. He was still lucid, hadn’t even come close to drinking enough to black out. He got up when the sun set, the house cooling off a tad bit and growing darker. The cool wooden floor felt good against his feet as he strolled toward the kitchen, his head throbbing as he scoured the cabinets for more alcohol. He grew aggravated when he found none, slamming a cabinet drawer angrily as he grabbed his phone. Scrolling through his numbers, he stopped at Remy.

“Yeah?” Remy said, answering on the first ring. “What’s up?”

“I need Molly.”

Remy’s laugh lit up the line. “I’ll be right over, man.”

Molly became Carmine’s nightly companion.

While she finally made him feel alive again, filling that void deep inside of his chest, she proved to be both a blessing and a curse. She gave him something to focus on, something to look forward to, but at the same time she lured him deeper into a vast pit of darkness. Because when Carmine was high, he couldn’t possibly be higher, but when he came down, when the drug wore off, leaving him to face life once more, he found himself much deeper than he had ever been before.

Depression took over, suicidal thoughts bombarding his mind. Reckless and unstable, he couldn’t think straight or function normally.

He grew desperate for the sensation, seeking her out more often to delay the unavoidable come down. It got to the point where he was constantly high, everything falling to the wayside in his quest to
feel
.

His downward spiral was abrupt, a twelve-story fall straight to the ground.

The Novak Gala, held twice a year in an upscale gallery just north of Chelsea, always drew the most elite art patrons. Hundreds gathered to celebrate local artists, from the professionals to the blossoming post-graduate students at the surrounding schools. Pieces were auctioned off for charity, supporting art programs in the underfunded public schools, and the media always took notice of the up-and-coming talent. It was a highly anticipated event in the community, but possibly even more so for the students at SVU.

For at every event, some lucky undergraduate students were given the opportunity of a lifetime: the chance to show their work. Students were given a topic and had to submit a single piece of art to be judged by the administration. The competition was stiff—out of the three thousand submissions, only the top twenty were chosen. The odds of being picked were less than one percent, but it didn’t stop the students from giving it everything they had.

November faded fast, weeks passing, and with it came the deadline for submission to the judging panel. The theme for the winter gala was “coldness” and Haven stayed busy, creating scene after scene of dramatic landscapes—ice, blizzards, and freezing rain—before finally settling upon a painting of a field with falling snow. Simple, but beautiful, the white mingling with the fading green. She spent Thanksgiving holed up in her small apartment, surrounded by warmth from the oversize metal radiator, perfecting her painting, as she ate dinner straight out of the carton from the local Chinese delivery place. She hardly noticed it was a holiday, too engrossed in her work, too determined not to dwell on those things.

When the school reopened the Monday after Thanksgiving, Haven turned her project in to her Painting I professor, Miss Michaels. She studied it for a moment before nodding. “I’ll be sure to submit it this afternoon.”

“Thank you,” Haven said, smiling proudly as she took one last look at her painting. She could see no flaws, everything precise, numerous art techniques she had learned portrayed. She couldn’t imagine what more they would want.

“You’re welcome, dear.”

Haven hurried home after class that morning, bundled up in a thick tan coat, to find Kelsey rushing out of the brownstone. Haven’s brow furrowed. She purposely had no morning classes so she wouldn’t have to be up at that hour.

“I’m heading to the studios,” Kelsey said, answering Haven’s question before she could ask it. “I totally forgot submissions were due. I haven’t even started mine!”

Haven stared at her with shock, blinking a few times. “Uh, good luck.”

Kelsey gave a halfhearted wave before taking off, running down the street.

Two weeks later, as class was dismissing, Miss Michaels handed out envelopes to each of the students. The room filled with the rumbling of murmurs and the sound of crumpling paper as her classmates discarded their letters in the trashcan on their way out the door.

Rejections, from what Haven could tell. It made her nerves flare.

Haven opened her envelope carefully, smoothing out the crease in the paper as she read the letter the whole way through.

We appreciate your effort . . .

The competition was stiff . . .

So much talent . . .

We regret to inform you . . .

Better luck next time . . .

Haven slowly absorbed the typed words, disappointment setting in when her eyes scanned the last sentence.

Your submission ranked number 348.

Nowhere near the top twenty.

“You okay, dear?”

Haven glanced at her professor as she refolded the letter, sliding it carefully back into the envelope. “I don’t understand what was wrong with my painting.”

“Nothing, technically speaking,” Miss Michaels said. “It just wasn’t what they were looking for.”

“Why?”

“You see, you took the assignment literally, and while there’s nothing wrong with that, it made it lack the one thing they truly wanted.”

“What’s that?”

“Soul,” she replied. “You could look at your painting and think coldness, but you couldn’t feel it. And that’s what’s important. Your paintings should make people feel something, even if they have no idea why.”

T
ime is a peculiar thing. A moment can feel like an eternity, while sometimes months can pass and seem like no time at all. It’s unreliable, and fickle, but it’s the most constant thing there is.
Time
. No matter what you do, you can’t stop it. The clock will continue to tick away, minutes passing into hours, hours into days, until suddenly you are standing there and it’s already a year later.