Page 4 of Dangerous Silence
We were quiet on the way back to Shep’s workroom behind the Adler House, where my family lived. Though it was filled with tools for torture and dismantling, it was considered the lead enforcer’s office. One day, when Shep retired, I knew it would be my office. In the woods, we set the body in a hole Shep had dug the day before. It seemed strange; she had betrayed our family, and still, Shep knew how much she had meant to my brothers and me. It was almost as if he wanted to give her a proper burial.
She looked small in that hole, all bunched up. We shoveled enough to put a few inches of dirt over her, then added some pig bones from Shep’s shop. Then we shoveled some more.
“Remember, Axe,” Shep said, breaking the silence. “It doesn’t matter if you care about someone. If they’re not family, they’re no one.” He paused, leaning on his shovel stuck in the ground. Sometimes, I wondered if Shep meant blood relatives, or if he included himself with family. I was closer to him than I was to my own father; my father wasn’t around much. Still, I took Shep’s words seriously. Caring about someone, beyond your family, could be dangerous. Like it was with Fran. I continued on. Another shovel, then another. I wanted to get this over with. He grabbed his shovel again, resuming his part of the burial.
“The only time you spare a person’s life is if they’ve saved yours,” he said, adding more dirt to the hole. “Otherwise, it doesn’t matter.”
By the time we were finished, the fresh patch of dirt was flat, but noticeable. Shep grabbed some ivy vines from the sides of the trees and covered it. It wasn’t visible anymore.
“You never know when you’ll end up like this,” he said, gestured at the plot. “Always make sure your loose ends are tied up. You don’t want to leave someone in the middle of your life and end up like this.”
He said it like his stomach hurt, and I wondered if he knew Fran, if that’s why he made me kill her. What had she done, exactly? What secrets had she spilled? How many more people would die, because of what she had done?
He cleared his throat. “It’s easier to make sure you never have someone to leave behind,” he said. Dirt was smeared on his cheek. He wiped it away. “Trust me, Axe,” he said. “It’s easier this way.”
***
Age 15
The wail pierced through the room, damn near capable of shattering a window. I covered my ears until it stopped. My father held the red ball of flesh with glee in his eyes. The tiny little thing looked like she had goo stuck all over her body, crusted over on her hands and feet, peeling away in the crevices. I was jealous of my brothers for getting out of this. While Shep had stayed hidden in the house with this flesh ball’s mother for the last few weeks, he thought that we—my father and I—were worthy of her presence. Worthy. Of ababy’spresence.
This was coming from a man who told me to always have my bag packed, to never have anything I would miss if I left it behind. Because life didn’t wait for you to choose a time to die.
Here he was, with a fucking baby.
Shep beamed at her, a damn smile I had never thought was possible from a mafia enforcer. His cheeks were flushed, his chest pushed out. Flaunting himself. A daughter did that to him? I had a feeling he’d missherif she was gone.
“She’s beautiful, Shep,” Gerard said, bouncing the baby in his arms. He made googly noises at the little pink ball. Her eyes wandered off, looking at the animals twirling in the mobile next to her crib. “You must be proud.”
“You’re damn right,” Shep said. The baby’s head was tucked into the crook of Gerard’s arm, and gently, with more caution than I thought was possible coming from a mob boss, Gerard turned to me. “You want to hold her, Axe?”
I shook my head.
The two of them talked, marveling over a baby that couldn’t even look straight yet. Crossed-eyed and grunting. Wow. How amazing. I pulled out my knife, flicking my thumb over the edge of the blade, wondering whether it was time to sharpen it yet. What was the point of bringing me here? I had no interest in a baby, even if it was Shep’s child.
“Not in here, Axe,” Gerard said. I held my thumb on the knife’s edge. Did he think I was going to murder it? I knew it was a precious baby. I wasn’t going to go anywhere near it with a knife. Gerard tilted his head. Shep glanced over at me, looking away from his baby for the first time since he had let us into the house.
I put the knife away.
Gerard gave the baby back to Shep, then came to my side, holding my shoulder, pulling me deeper into that nauseatingly pink room.
“Shep’s retiring, son,” he said. He turned toward Shep, and Shep gave that deep nod that I knew well.
“Why?” I asked. I grit my teeth. I knew exactly why, but I wanted to hear him say it. To admit the truth out loud.
“He thinks you’re ready,” Gerard said. That was bullshit. I tilted my head, narrowing my eyes at Shep. “He’s ready to—”
“I don’t want this life for her,” Shep said. He moved his arms, rocking the baby, never letting his eyes off of her. I don’t know what pissed me off more: the fact that he was a contradicting bastard, caring about something that could easily be taken away from him when he taught me to do the opposite, or the fact that he was giving up on a job that he had trained me in, as if he was too good for enforcing now. “But I need your help, Axe, for one more thing.”
What could he possibly want? He came towards me, holding her. These days, I was a foot and a half taller than him, towering over him like a bridge.
“If Demi doesn’t marry a good person by the time I die,” he said slowly, batting his lashes at her until she cooed in amusement.Demi. He beamed. I held back a gag. “I want you to protect her. Marry her.”
“Marry her?” I repeated, looking at Gerard.
Gerard nodded. “We already discussed this.”
“Why can’t Derek marry her?” I asked. “Or Wil? They’re—”
