Vendetta (Blood for Blood #1)(68)

“What’s omertà?” My tongue stumbled over the word.

Nic smiled at my botched attempt. “It’s a code of silence. Our people don’t speak to the law, but we speak to each other, and that’s how we get things done. How we solve certain … problems.”

“You mean people,” I pointed out.

“People,” he confirmed.

“So your family is like a special branch of the Mafia?” I ventured.

He considered it for a moment before conceding with a soft smile. “I suppose it has become that way. We are the part that takes care of the people who shouldn’t be dealing on the streets, or trafficking, or killing innocent bystanders …” His voice grew hard. “We take care of the scum.”

He studied me intently as I started knitting the pieces together in my head so I could see the picture he was creating. His family hurt and killed people whose aim in life was to hurt and kill innocents. That was his job, but it was more than that, too: It was his legacy. But how could he justify it to himself, and how could I justify his understanding of it? The idea that I was sitting beside an assassin made me dizzy, and yet when I looked at Nic, I didn’t feel afraid, I felt … confusion. “And you get paid to do this?”

“Yes, we do.”

“By other families in the Mafia?”

“Yes.”

“Handsomely, I’m guessing.”

“That’s not important.” He was right, the answer wasn’t important. The mansion spoke for itself.

“Wait.” There was something not quite right about his explanation. “Don’t members of the Mafia break the law, too? I know they’re not exactly law-abiding. I’ve heard about horse heads and secret murders and money laundering and brutal family feuds …” I trailed off, hoping Nic wouldn’t notice I had just listed a bunch of things I had seen in movies over the years. After all, those stories must have come from somewhere.

He inhaled through clenched teeth. “Yes, the families are not exactly angelic.”

“Well, how do you have their protection if you have to go after at least some of them, too?”

Nic regarded me like I had suddenly sprouted horns. “Sophie,” he said, his tone affronted. “We never go after members of our own culture, whatever they have done.”

All of a sudden I was back on my own planet, watching him from afar and resisting the urge to shake him until all the stupidity fell out. “Is that a joke?”

“No.”

I pulled my legs underneath me and fell back on my haunches so that I was hovering over him on the couch. “So you just go after the ordinary, run-of-the-mill criminals? Not the ones on your side?”

“We can’t,” he said, looking up at me through thick, dark lashes.

“Why not?”

“Because we’d all have died out by now.” He said it so matter-of-factly it surprised me less than it should have.

“But don’t mob families fight with one another all the time?” Another movie-based assertion, but I had a feeling I was right about that.

“Yes, but not with us. We are untouchable.”

“Because most of the time you’re doing their bidding, right? You provide them with a service and in return they keep you living in the lap of luxury,” I shot back. “That is so messed up.”

Nic shifted so that he was sitting up straighter, putting us at the same height again. “We are eliminating the worst kinds of people in society. Can’t you see that?”

I shook my head. How could he be so na?ve? “You only kill their competition, Nic. The Mafia can still do whatever they want.”

“It’s still a service to society.”

“It’s a selective one.”

“Better than none at all.”

“Doesn’t it bother you? Don’t you think about the hypocrisy of it all? Murderers paying you to murder other murderers?” My mind was starting to spin again.

“I try not to think about it.”

“You should.”

“What?” he asked, his voice wounded. “Consider that my whole family are going to hell for trying to make Chicago a better place for people like you to live in? Consider that no matter how much freedom and protection we have, our hands are still tied by others in our culture?”

“Yes!” I urged. “Think about that!”

“Sophie, there’s nothing I can do about it!” His voice escalated with anger. “This is my life. It’s everything I’ve ever known. It’s what I know is right. It’s all I know.”

I settled my hands in my lap and fell back from him, recognizing the losing battle I was fighting. “It shouldn’t be all or nothing.”

“I know,” he conceded, exasperated. “But what can I do?”

“You could walk away.”

“The only way to leave this way of life is in a coffin,” he said with chilling finality.

Silence descended. Part of me understood. I wanted to cry for him and the future he was bound up in, but I didn’t. I was too numb, too afraid to consider the possibility that maybe Nic didn’t want to walk away from his way of life, that he enjoyed the feeling of punishing people, of watching them quiver and beg before him. I studied my cuticles while he studied me.