Chapter 4 - THE EMPTY SHELL
I didn’t even take my apron off. I ran out the back door, grabbed a cab, and rushed to my mother’s small apartment in Queens.
My mind was racing. If my father was a hero, why did my mother lie to me all these years? Why did I spend my twenties breaking my back to send her money for her “medical bills”?
I burst through her front door. “Mom!”
She was sitting at the kitchen table, perfectly healthy, sipping tea. She looked startled. “Lucy? What are you doing here on a Friday?”
“Who pays your rent, Mom?” I demanded, slamming the door behind me.
She blinked, playing innocent. “What kind of question is that? You help me, sweetheart, and my disability—”
“Stop lying!” I threw the envelope Vincent had given me onto the table. It burst open, revealing bank statements. “Vincent Caruso gave me these. You’ve been receiving ten thousand dollars a month from a shell company for twenty years. The Carusos have been funding you.”
My mother’s face went pale.
“You let me drop out of nursing school,” I choked out, the betrayal burning my throat. “I worked double shifts to send you my tip money because I thought you were starving. And you were taking mafia money the whole time?”
“Lucy, you don't understand,” she whispered, standing up. “It was the only way to keep you safe. Your father made a deal with them.”
“Is he alive?” I demanded.
She looked away.
“Mom. Is he alive?”
May you like
Before she could answer, the glass of the kitchen window shattered inward. A heavy brick landed on the linoleum. Wrapped around the brick was a man’s gold watch—the same watch my father wore the day he left.
And attached to it was a note: Tell Caruso he has 24 hours.
