Chapter ElevenJACKIEHotels in the city were not often the cheapest form of accommodation, and unfortunately, the city was no well known for having motels.The hotel room that Jackie secured that night of her arrival was not what she would have called five star rated, but it was, fortunately for her, reasonably priced and relatively clean. The sink had burn marks like someone had put out a bunch of cigars in there, and the windows were dark with film. But it was otherwise habitable. After having lived in cramped dorm room for so long a time, Jackie could say she could acclimatize to nearly any living conditions, given time.She settled into the New York pace and began to try to get her bearing, her wits about her. It was a fortnight at the hotel before she called the number on the paper, four long nights of hoping and wishing her father would just call and end this jest that have soon began to transform into a nightmare. Like with the time she arrived at her house, with the interco

Chapter Thirteen DANTEDante's granny, Grandma Ursula, attended the funeral. Grandma Ursula had eyes like curdled chalk water, the watery white of albumen, and hands soft as a mattress. She gathered Dante's face in those mattress-supple hands of hers. 'Oh, Dante, my boy.' She rasped. 'Your father—terrible is what it is. Just terrible.'Dante could only nod and wonder how she was able to worry over him when he had merely lost his father. She had lost a son. It did not get any worse than that. Grandma was nearly a hundred, if Dante tried to do the maths. But he did not. Grandma Ursula had been there since he was waddling in diapers; she had also been there when his father was waddling in diapers too, since the beginning of time. There was no telling where she began or ended. She was one of the things in his life that had remained steady, perpetually present. Even when his mother died, she had been there for him and his father, a steady and unmoving boat on a running stream, holding the

ANDREThe sodding funeral lasted so long Andre was nearly konking out on duty. He was in charge of the security for the night. Perhaps for all other nights. Most of the soldiers in the mafia revered him now. They could often be found offering him a smoke, which was a thing he always accepted readily. They hailed him on the streets unabashedly, loudly. He had survived a hit, had seen a full scale insurrection and had lived to tell the tale. That counted for something in the city. To the elite though, it was a different matter. They now regarded him with distrust. With eyes that said they would rather he had not lived to tell the tale. Andre did not begrudge them their wishes, the sodding money hoarders. They were right to be afraid. As much as it was often believed that it was the Bosses who made the pivotal decisions, it could also be said that in every Mafia, the force of those below made the difference. Without foot soldiers, there was no organization. Their opinions mattered, mo

DANTENatasha looked surprised to see him when he arrived at her doorstep.'Señor,' She said, her full brows lifted slightly in startled contemplation. 'I did not think that you would come.' 'I did not think I would either.' Dante replied. She had left him an invitation to her house to talk about the future of the mafia. Dante had planned not to attend; he had at first not given a flying toss about the group. But after Natasha pressed the cross into his palm, things had taken a mild turn. After a night of emptying the liquor reserves at his father's house, draining bottle after bottle of sparkling and red wine, Dante had come to the realization that he would at least like to know how the group intended to proceed in finding Big Jack. That, he knew, he would learn if he were a recognized part of the mafia, or at least, a person who invested his interest in it. Even now, the cross was pressed to his chest, the steel cool on his skin as metal is often wont to be. It had been fashioned

JACKIENeil had gotten Jackie a place to stay in the city. It was in the upstairs apartment of a tall, ancient building made up of a patchwork of red bricks. There was a store on the first floor and a barbeque across the street. The pavement which bordered the stretch of road was pockmarked by hydrants. Every two steps and you met another one. Jackie could imagine them in late springtime or the summer, pumping a spray of water into the air like a fire hose, children dancing underneath, getting their summer clothes drenched. Now, mercifully, they were not functional. Jackie could not imagine being hit in the face by a torrent of ice cold water.Since her father's disappearance, there had been no news whatsoever. Neil would have told her if there was any, she liked to believe. And if something had happened to him, the news would have told it. Or so she hoped. Being in the dark was a thing of many frustrations. For someone who had become accustomed to texts and lectures and the ordinarin