Sempre (Forever) by JM Darhower Page B

with her head cocked to the side.
    “Have you seen this?” Carmine asked. She just looked at him like it was a dumb question. “You’ve spent some time with my brother, so I don’t know if you watched it him.”
    “I haven't watched anything with him,” she said. “This is the first time I’ve ever been invited to watch television.”
    His brow furrowed. “You don’t watch TV?”
    “No, I wasn’t allowed, but I used to listen to the news.”
    “How the hell did you pass the time? Reading?”
    “I wasn’t allowed to do that, either. They didn’t think it was appropriate for me to learn how to read.”
    He gaped at her. “Teachers constantly shove books down my throat, and you had people telling you reading was inappropriate? That makes no sense.”
    She smiled sadly. “They didn't want me to get any ideas.”
    “Ideas? How much harm could a book do?”
    “A lot,” she said. “They thought I'd get it in my head that the outside world was somewhere I belonged.”
    “The outside world? You make it sound like you were living in a different universe there.”
    She shrugged, her attention still fixed on the TV. “Sometimes it feels like it.”
     
    *  *  *  *
     
    The 45-foot white Riviera yacht floated on Lake Michigan, just east of the vacant Navy Pier. The glow from the moon reflecting off of the calm waters gave Vincent enough light to see. Nothing but blackness was visible below the surface, but he’d been around long enough to know what was down there. Algae. Mussels. Fish. Shipwrecks. Sunken cars. Bodies .
    Yes, he was aware of four people who lay at the bottom of the lake… or what was left of them, anyway. They’d been tossed in right where he stood, from the back of the hull of The Federica . The words were etched in black on the stern, named after the Don’s long-dead sister. The half-million dollar yacht was Sal’s, although as far as the government knew it belonged to Galaxy Corp, a company out of Chicago that manufactured GPS chips. It was a cover for his more shady business practices, most of his real estate and extravagant possessions written off as company property. That way, if the IRS came knocking, he wouldn’t have to explain how he could afford such nice things. He was simply borrowing them.
    Tax evasion—Vincent almost admired how Salvatore made manipulation an art.
    A throat cleared behind Vincent. He remained still, staring out at the water as Sal approached. “Motion sickness?”
    Vincent wished that was his problem. “No, just enjoying the view.”
    “It’s quite nice out here, isn’t it? Peaceful.”
    He nodded. Peace wasn’t something he got to experience often, and now that he’d been interrupted, he’d lost it once again.
    Sal clapped him on the shoulder. “Come inside. Our guest is waiting. I’d like to get this over with and get back to land.”
    Vincent begrudgingly followed Sal, seeing the two men sitting on the black leather couch as soon as he stepped into the yacht. One he was well acquainted with—his brother-in-law Corrado.
    Corrado was a man of few words, his silence often speaking volumes. Mezza parola , they called it. Half-word . He could hold an entire conversation with nothing more than a nod of his head.
    A few years older than Vincent, Corrado’s thick, dark hair showed no sign of gray. It had a slight curl to it that gave him a boyish look. He was sturdy, lightly tanned and statuesque. Women tended to find him attractive, but he’d never shown any interest in any of them except for Celia. Corrado’s mind was always on business, and nothing ever slipped past him.
    Despite the fact that they were family, the sight of him put Vincent on edge. Corrado’s presence meant something was terribly wrong, but the boy beside him hadn’t been around long enough to learn that. He thought he’d been invited tonight to be inducted, but that couldn’t be further from the truth.
    The boy was jittery, and the doctor in Vincent surmised that he was on