Family Bonds

Family bonds should be the tightest in the world, but some are as fragile as glass.

I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t want to believe it. But the proof was right there in front of me.

“I am sorry Suzie,” Freddie apologized.

“No, you’re not,” I responded, pushing the tablet away from me.

I sat back in my chair and tried to hold in my tears as I looked into the family room and saw my two kids playing video games.

I looked at Freddie, one of my father’s associates. Freddie had wanted to be with me since we were both sixteen. My father wouldn’t allow it because Freddie’s father worked for him, and it was one of the rules of the family. Never get involved with someone within the family.

“All personal feelings aside, I am sorry,” Freddie gathered his things and stood up.

“Just go,” I sighed and looked at him. “Do what you have to.”

Freddie was both sorry for me and sorry for what he had to do. No doubt his next stop was going to be the bar, then the restaurant, and soon my father and mother would know my husband had cheated on me and gotten another woman pregnant.

Both of my parents would want action taken immediately, so none of the other family members would see ours as being weak and unable to take care of business.

After all, we were one of the biggest crime families in the city. If someone could pull off such a betrayal within our society, then how could we rule?

I faked a smile and went into the living room, where I played with the kids.

“Hey!” Ray smiled as he greeted me in the kitchen.

He approached me to hug me, but I kept him at arm’s length.

“What’s going on?” Ray asked as I grabbed his arm and pulled him out of the kids’ earshot.

“We know, everyone knows,” I told him once I got into the laundry room and turned on the dryer.

“About what?” Ray’s demeanor changed immediately.

“Ray, stop, we know,” I stared at him.

“Fuck!” Ray shouted, slamming his fist into the dryer.

“Freddie brought the pictures of the two of you,” I told him. “He was stopping by the bar, then the restaurant after he left here.”

“Suzie, you have to do it,” Ray pleaded. “Don’t let them take me to your mom, please. I am begging!”

My mom was the family death dealer. Some said she enjoyed her work very much. I had always known my mother to be silent, but loving, until I was old enough to know about the family business, then I found out she was cruel, unforgiving, and without mercy.

She once kept a man alive for over a year whilst cutting small pieces out of him every week; he felt all of it, and finally, his body gave out. My mother had brought him back from the dead countless times, only to repeat the process.

If she got hold of Ray, he would wish he had gone through that hell. My mother had warned him on our wedding day that if he did anything wrong, there would be no death for him, just a full life of pain and suffering.

“I didn’t mean it to happen, it was supposed to be a one-night thing, and…” Ray was crying, tears streamed down his face.

“I don’t care,” I shrugged. “I told you if you did anything to keep it silent and far away.”

We didn’t get married because of love; it was a marriage set up by our families to strengthen the unity between the two strongest households. The kids were ours, but there was no love between us.

I had slept with other men, but I had taken my ability to have kids away after the last one was born, and my parents were happy.

I knew my parents didn’t love each other, and I was sure that one of my three sisters came from another man, but there was no proof.

“If I meant anything to you,” Ray took out his gun and put it in my hand. He held the gun to his stomach. “It will be painful and slow, but I would rather…”

I put the gun on top of the washing machine. “You dug your own grave,” I shook my head. “I will give you a head start, that’s the only mercy I will give you. My advice is to use it and take the Corvette, it’s the fastest car we have.”

I opened the door and walked out. Ray waved to the kids as he went out to the garage. I had taken the guns out of the garage because I knew he would have killed himself if he had the chance. If he were smart, he would drive that Corvette full speed into a wall; it would be quicker.

I heard the Corvette start and peel out of the driveway.

I made the call to my father.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I woke up the next morning and saw my mother sitting in the chair across the room.

“Morning,” I sat up. “I expected you last night.”

“Get up,” Sylvia said with that cold, distant voice I had known since I was seventeen.

“Good morning to you, too,” I responded, flinging the covers off me as I followed her downstairs.

“The house is a mess,” Sylvia poured a cup of coffee, set it on the table, and pushed it over to me.

“Love you too,” I picked up the cup and drank. “I take it by your visit that you found him?”

“Yes, we did,” Sylvia smoothed out her skirt and moved a stray hair from her face as she sat down. “He was trying to get out of the city.”

‘Idiot,’ I thought. ‘Should have driven into a wall.’

“Well then, what are you doing here?” I asked as I looked at my mother. “Shouldn’t you go play with your new toy?”

“He took that enjoyment from me,” Sylvia muttered with a snide voice. “He took a cyanide pill the moment he was caught; he was dead before I got to see him.”

“Too bad,” I shrugged. “What’s that got to do with me?”

“I did get the chance to investigate further, it seems that you gave him that pill,” Sylvia stared right through me.

“I have many of them,” I shrugged. “I fix things for the family. I have a target on my back. If I am captured I want a way out for me and my kids.”

“And your husband?”

“He knew of my plan.”

Sylvia sighed.

“His body will be taken to the bar; you will take care of it.” Sylvia stood up.

“Me?” I asked.

“It was you he cheated on and you gave him the peaceful way to go, so you will deal with your mistakes!”

“Of course only you would think that because he cheated on me that it was my fault,” I responded.

“It was, and it is, your father never cheated on me,” Sylvia belittled me as she looked down at me. “You have always had a way of shrinking from your responsibilities.”

Now she was talking about my sisters. Each of them was a powerful person. The oldest recently took over the whole of Chicago’s underworld. The other was married to a high-profile politician, and the other died protecting our mother from a bullet.

I only fixed things; if a picture or headline about our many endeavors made it online or into the news, I scrubbed it clean, and that made me a target because I was the public face of the crime family.

I had spent most of the night preparing to explain my husband’s disappearance.

“You’re the one that set me up with him,” I turned to look at her. “Comes from a good family, those was your words.”

“He did,” Sylvia sighed and shook her head. “I had set you up nicely and you screwed it up.”

Sylvia had an answer for everything. There was no point in carrying this conversation any further.

“Good, we are done with idle chit chat,” Sylvia put on her black gloves. “When you are done with the news and the media head to the restaurant.”

“Yes, mother!” I pushed myself away from the table.

Sylvia put a hand on my shoulder and pushed me back into my seat. “It’s only because you are blood related that I don’t make you my new toy, remember that!”

“And Genelle and Lucy would come after you if anything happened to me,” I grinned.

My older sisters loved me and had told Mom they would come after her with everything they had if anything happened to me.

“Your sisters,” Sylvia took a deep breath. “Will do as I say and believe what I make them.”

“If you say so,” I shrugged.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I was so good at lying that it was hard for me to know when I told the truth. I lied to the cameras and the people asking me about my husband’s affair.

I told them what they wanted to hear. I found out about the affair and kicked him out. The last time I heard Ray was in the family Corvette and was heading out of the city.

Of course, people asked if my family had taken care of him or if I did it myself. They were always people who believed the rumors that we were masters of the organized crime family.

“That went well,” I told myself as I got into my limo.

It was a short drive from downtown to the bar.

It was closed for the day, but as I entered, I heard my father’s men talking inside. My Uncle Tommy was among them; no doubt my mother had sent her younger brother to make sure I did things right.

“What the fuck did you just say?” Gary, the bartender, asked.

“Coitus,” Larry replied.

I had walked into one of the usual back-and-forth nonsenses I hated about working with these guys. They were all brawn and no brains.

“What the fuck does that mean?” Uncle Tommy asked.

“Sex,” I interrupted, “It means sex.”

I walked past them and sat at the bar.

“Basically,” Larry nodded with a grin.

“Finally decided to show, huh?” my Uncle looked at me.

“Where is he?” I asked.

“He is coming,” Gary stated as he cleaned the bar.

“What do you think Suz?” Larry smiled. “Martha got me one of those words of the day calendars.”

“And you still don’t know the time of day,” I shook my head.

“Tell your mom to get you something better next year,” Tommy stated.

“The man of the hour is here,” Gary clapped as a few others brought in a large rolled-up Mat.

“What did you ever see in this guy?” Freddie asked.

“I didn’t see anything,” I answered as they unrolled the mat, and I saw Ray’s body. “It was a marriage my parents set up.”

“Is he still going on about the words of the day?” Freddie asked, looking at Larry.

“Yeah, his mom should have gotten him a gun,” Gary laughed.

“Still couldn’t shot it,” I laughed.

“Enough talk,” Tommy said, grabbing the bone saw. “Get to it.”

Everyone looked at me as I took the saw away from him.

“I can do it for you,” Freddie offered.

“No, Sylvia wants her to do it,” Gary told him.

Everyone feared my father, but they only feared him because of my mother. My father would beat a person to death with his bare hands, but my mother would make you beg her to kill you.

“It’s okay,” I nodded as I turned it on.

I stared at Ray’s blank face; they had frozen him to make the process easier, but I knew if I didn’t hurry, he would thaw, and that would be messy.

My father always said the first one is the hardest, especially if it was someone I knew, but after I got the limbs taken care of, it was like cutting up a piece of meat.

“There!” I said as I wiped the frozen bits of Ray off my face and arms. “You can tell your sister I did it by myself!” I closed the lid of the large cooler and gave the saw to Freddie.

“Not finished yet,” Gary stated as he looked at the cooler. “You got to get rid of it now.”

“Oh, right,” I smiled. “Let’s go Ray,” I picked up the cooler.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~~

The night was horribly cold, and it made the ground harder to shovel, but eventually I dug a hole deep enough.

“You picked a good spot,” Larry stated. “Just off the highway, so if he is found it could be from anywhere.”

“Mom always told me to pick a good spot,” I pulled myself out of the hole and then opened the cooler.

“Any last words?” Freddie asked. “To send him off?”

“Fuck you Ray, you did this to yourself,” I laughed as I emptied the contents of the cooler into the hole and then threw the cooler in with them.

Charlie, one of the other guys, gave me the large bottle of acid. I poured it in, and the smell and smoke instantly hit my nostrils.

“Fuck that stinks!” I coughed and covered my nose and mouth.

The others were not fazed by it; they had done this many times, so it didn’t bother them.

“Now, it’s done,” Tommy said, clapping.

“Fuck off,” I laughed as we headed back to the car.

Charlie and the others started to cover the hole up.

“You know I wouldn’t let my sis do anything to you,” Tommy said as we got in the back of the car.

“I know, but at least I know the truth now,” I sat back.

“What’s that?” Tommy asked.

“I know father cheated on mother and I am not her daughter,” I turned to look at him.

“You keep that to yourself,” Tommy whispered. “Any of these guys know you’re really not Sylvia’s daughter and it will be a feeding frenzy.”

“But I am my fathers?” I asked.

Tommy stayed silent.

“Shit!” I exclaimed.

“Keep quiet about it,” Tommy warned me. “She finds out and you will be in that hole.”

I sat back.

The realization had hit me. I wasn’t part of the family. Sylvia thought I was some fuck up my father had with another woman. If she knew I wasn’t blood related to him, then she would kill me instantly, no long pain, no torture, a quick bullet to the head. She wouldn’t waste her time on me.

Now the question was, who was I?

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