Bound to My Mafia Stepuncle novel · Chapter 19 of 32

Chapter 19: Don't Send Me Away

Nobody in the gym said anything.

The SEPTA driver lowered her lamp.

Angelo took the photo out of my hand, very carefully, by the edges, and looked from it to the jacket and back.

"The local retires a dead steward's number," he said. "They hang it on the wall at the hall. Nobody wears it again."

"Then who wore it tonight?"

"Somebody who got it off that wall." His voice was flat. "Paulie's people have run the office at that hall since the year your father died."

The big heavyweight sat down on the folding chair, and it creaked.

"He's telling her he can do it twice," the heavyweight said quietly.

Nobody argued.

The fighters left at two.

They went slowly, in twos and threes, and every one of them stopped to squeeze my shoulder or Angelo's good arm on the way out.

The cook left the rice pudding.

The welterweight left the jacket folded on the bench.

Upstairs, I took off my bloody sweater and put on Angelo's CORSO BOXING hoodie.

He sat on the edge of the bed with his phone in his good hand.

He was shirtless, in gray sweatpants.

The gauze on his arm was already spotting through.

There was a dark bruise across his chest where the belt had caught him.

I had one just like it across my left shoulder.

"Lie down," I said. "You lost blood."

"In a minute."

He was typing something.

He didn't look up.

Then he turned the phone around and held it out to me.

A boarding pass.

Philadelphia to Boston.

Seven fifteen in the morning.

Riley Malloy, seat 14C.

I looked at it for a long time.

"My aunt's in Boston," I said slowly.

"Your dad's sister. Dorchester. I found her number in your phone while you were stitching me." He finally looked at me. "She cried, Riley. She said she's been waiting eight years for one of you to call."

"You went through my phone."

"Yes."

"You booked me a seat on a plane without asking me."

"Yes."

"Are you out of your mind?"

"A man shot at you tonight." He stood up. "He wore your father's number to do it. He had the gun out before we stopped sliding. Next time he doesn't hit my arm. Next time he hits you."

"Then I'll be careful."

"Careful doesn't matter. Your father was careful."

The radiator knocked.

I put my hands on my hips.

"It's my vote."

"I know."

"It's my father."

"I know whose father it is!" It came out of him loud, louder than I'd ever heard him, and he turned away to the window. "I know it every day. I wake up knowing it."

The red neon buzzed below us.

"I put a tarp over one Malloy," he said to the glass. "I'm not doing it twice. I'm not cleaning up after you. I can't, Riley. I won't live through it."

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