Page 24 of Black Sheep

Right, Bolton the Peacemaker was a figment of my imagination. “Sorry, I thought the answer was obvious,” I respond lazily knowing it will needle him.

“Fuck you, asshole,” comes the predictable answer.

I place the phone on speaker and set it down on the center island in my dressing room before I continue perusing my wardrobe. “Okay. You called to insult me. Consider me thoroughly insulted. If that’s all…”

“You better not be thinking of hanging up on me.”

“Insults and threats. Why don’t we continue this conversation when you have some new material to offer?”

“Are you out of your mind leaving that little present for Pa?”

“It wasn’t well received, I take it?”

“Do the Ferris wheels on Coney Island go round and round?”

“Sorry, you lost me.” I inject as much disinterest in my voice as possible.

Pathetically, he rises to the bait. “You’re trying to get yourself killed, is that it? FYI, the last guy who tried something like that lost both kneecaps.”

“He must be more popular than I thought if people are breaking in on a regular basis.”

“Dammit, Axel, you know how lucky you were to get away with pulling a stunt like that without getting seriously hurt?”

Fury spikes like the purest coke through my blood. “Do you know how lucky you all are that I showed restraint? That I’ve shown restraint for eight fucking years? Do you have any idea what I could’ve done to any of you last night? Be thankful you don’t have a fucking clue, brother.”

“You really think you’re special shit, don’t you, just because you were in the army?”

I stop myself from giving him a single example that will make his blood curdle. “I don’t just think it, brother. Ask yourself this—if I wasn’t ‘special shit’, as you so eloquently put it, would the old man be so fucking off his head for me? Fuck, don’t answer that. Just tell me if there’s a particular reason for your call. I have ninety-nine things I could be doing other than talking to you.”

He swears a blue streak, exasperation in every expelled breath. My lips twitch with the unfamiliar urge to smirk as I button up my shirt.

“What’s wrong with you? All the old man wants is to have a sit down with you,” he finally says.

“There’s absolutely nothing wrong with me. And we know what he wants. What he’s always fucking wanted when it comes to me. He wants me to fall in line. He wants me to kiss the ring. And a sit down? Really? You’ve watched The Godfather one too many times.”

“You don’t think your own father deserves the respect of a face-to-face conversation?”

My whole body turns to ice, and my heartbeat slows to a dull, barely registering thud. “Respect? You dare speak to me about respect?”

Bolton hesitates. When he speaks again, his tone is less heated. “You don’t know the damage you’re causing by playing this game. Ever since you were a snotty kid, you thought you were above everybody else.”

My jaw locks for a moment before I pry it open to speak. “No. What I thought was that I didn’t deserve to be treated like an animal. Or used as a fucking punching bag when the old man had a less than stellar day. You think it was a brand of affection? That, every time he broke a bone or gave one of us a black eye, it was because he loved us? It was abuse, pure and simple. And you would know it if you pulled your head out of his ass long enough to think for yourself.”

“There you go again, treating me like I’m stupid. You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about—”

“I know he’s running scared because his fucking empire is crumbling. I know he wants to meet to warn me off the Armenians and the Albanians. I have no intention of doing either. His time is over. No more requests for a sit down or anything else. We haven’t had a single thing to talk about in ten years. Whatever shit he’s got himself into—and trust me, I know enough—it’s on him.”

“Jesus, what the hell did he do to you that was so bad you bear a grudge all these years later?”

The finger poised over the red end button freezes, shock ramping through me. The thought that Bolton would ask me that…

I wait for the rush of blood clouding my vision to clear before I snap, “Do you have fucking amnesia, Bolton? Or are you just high as usual?”

“Fuck you, I don’t do that shit anymore.”

Maybe not, but I can’t help but wonder what damage the heroin he snorted for years did to his brain. A hell of a lot if he can’t remember events that should be seared with the hottest branding iron on all our souls. Events I haven’t been able to get through a single day without reliving, even though there was a time when I did those white lines right alongside Bolton. Just so I could forget.

I drag myself back from my darkest memories to Bolton’s continued censure, “I’m not like you. I don’t hang on to things like a woman hangs on to her goddamn purse. Have you tried letting things go?”

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