Page 11 of The Celtic Resolution
“Clearly!” She jerks her wrist out of my grip and flounces away, grumpy. “Excuse me for trying to help.”
“I…” An argument is not what I want right now. “I welcome your help, Mary. I’m just not used to it. I’ve done things by myself for fourteen years.”
She looks back at me with wide, doe-like eyes. “Was it scary?”
“Prison?”
She nods as she settles back beside me and resumes cleaning.
“At first, yeah. I was only twenty. Young and stupid. I thought Dad would get me out because I was his son, but when he didn’t, things got rough. My name didn’t mean much without my father there to back me up.”
“Oh, no.” Mary’s hands pause. “Did they hurt you?”
“At first. But I learned to fight back and soon, I had enough respect that no one messed with me.” It helped that I befriended quite a few of the Chinese Triad on the inside. I was friendly enough with a couple of guards that I could manipulate them in my favor, and when the Triad learned of my skills, it was easy to cut them in for protection and a form of friendship.
“I hate that you were in there for so long,” she murmurs, finishing with my face. Her attention turns to my bruised body. “Are you going to tell me what happened?”
“No.” I smirk. “Just know that I won.”
“Did you?” The disbelief in her tone is comical, and I’m certain I would have lost if our fight hadn’t been interrupted. Thinking it over brings a pulse of guilt through my chest as I recall how hard I kicked that woman into the van. Not my proudest moment.
“I did,” I repeat. “But I’ll be okay. Thank you for coming here to help me.”
“I’m just happy to be here.” She beams up at me, and a further ache rises in my chest. She’s changed so much in fourteen years that it’s hard to believe she’s what my toothy, pigtailed eight-year-old sister grew into.
“I’m happy you’re here too.”
“And… I know you don’t want me to say it, but I think you should try with Dad. He’s been so swamped with helping Rocky all these years that I think he’s just… forgotten. I bet if you reminded him of how cool and useful you were, things would change.”
Of course. Eight-year-old Mary was blind to the arguments, the discussions of my worth, and my countless attempts to earn my father’s love. She views it with the same childlike hope she viewed everything back then.
“Yeah,” I say, slinging my arm around her shoulders and pulling her in for a hug. “Maybe.”
She stays for another hour and tells me everything about her life, from her new boyfriend to her studies and her desire to be a nurse. I tease her that she’d be terrible with how awful her bedside manner was to me, but she leaves with a smile and swears she’ll send for her security once she gets to the end of the street. I don’t stop pacing my room until she sends me a picture of her security picking her up. Only then do I relax.
What a night. My stake out of that warehouse being interrupted by a woman with so much talent and fury was an unexpected turn. Her blows were hard but careful, nothing that truly injured me, but the bruises are tender and I feel somewhat like a gutted fish as I lie in bed debating my next course of action.
Had my father welcomed me with warm, loving arms, then all of this would have been over last month, but it seems he hasn’t changed and is once again blind to my trying to help him.
In prison, my last name eventually faded so no one thought of me when the Triads I befriended started whispering the name Del Prete in the dark. Three times I heard them mention my father, and each time they either didn’t think I overheard or didn’t care. What stuck out about those brief discussions was that even though the Triad mainly spoke in code, I picked up one or two phrases.
They mostly spoke about the Black Market. That and my father don’t mix. My entire childhood was rigorous training on the morals my father lived by, how he did everything above board and made sure that even in a life of crime and the Mafia, we were honorable criminals. He wouldn’t be seen dead dealing with the black market. I want to talk to him about it, to warn him that someone is surely using his name for clout in the underworld, but given his desire to ignore me, I’ll have to solve this puzzle myself.
When I present it to him, solved, then he won’t be able to ignore me.
My mind wanders and I almost fall asleep when a call comes through from an unknown number. “Yo.”
“Who am I talking to?”
“Fuck knows, you called me,” I say, lifting up onto one elbow.
“Name.”
Rolling my eyes, I check the number. “You’re not in my contacts so you probably got the wrong number, bro.”
“This isn’t Bruno?”
I sit up further. “Yeah, it is. Should have led with that, Pal.”
