Sequel: Two Lives As One
Status: Check out Two Lives As One! Picks up at Christmas time after the events in this story :)

One Life To Live

Civilized Beings

Dad leaned onto the massive cherry wood table, extending his arms to their optimal length, and laced his hands together. His critical eyes focused with hawk-like precision on Paul and me. “Giorgio and his gang of misfits want to meet us at the warehouse tonight for a ‘diplomatic’ conversation.”

Paul snorted, his eyes quirked up in disbelief, “Diplomatic, my ass.”

“Paul, your mouth.” Ma clipped, narrowing her eyes.

Dad nodded at Paul, wagging his pointer finger at him, “That’s exactly what I thought. However, I want you, Paul and Lance,” he glanced over at me, “to meet up with Giorgio and Angelo with me and have that ‘diplomatic’ talk. No guns, ya here me?”

“What the - , Dad you can’t be-”Paul shot Dad an incredulous look, his eyes wide. Even Ma was giving Dad the look like he was off his rocker, and was about to protest.

“Now wait a minute,” Dad held his palms up warding off any other complaint that would pipe out of our mouths. “Meg and Vinn will be with us, just behind the scenes. If they want to fight,” Dad shrugged, nonchalant, “let ‘em. We’ll be ready.”

Ma pursed her lips trying to see flaws in his supposedly “well-concocted” plan, and crossed her arms. “You sure this is a good idea, Xavier?”

“Elodie, please,” he gave her an exasperated glance, “if I keep sending Paul and Lance to do my dirty work I’m going to start to look weak.”

“That’s because you are weak, old man.” Vinn interrupted, grinning like a fool. Always the jokester, apparently.

Dad raised his eyebrows, and then began to rub his chin as he sized up the little creep. You could tell I still haven’t forgiven him yet. I don’t think I will be able to find it within me any time soon, to be honest. “Why don’t you try me, you little bastard?” Dad grinned, expecting a challenge.

“Oh, stop it.” Ma interceded, cutting a fierce, annoyed glance at Dad, “you can be such a child, Xavier.” There were a chorus of ‘ooh’s’ in the background – mainly consisting of Vinn, Paul, and even Meg to an extent. You could say I wasn’t really in a comical mood these past few weeks. Dad’s smile widened in amusement, and his lower lip jutted out at Ma in a puppy dog face. “C’mon baby-”

But, being Ma, she gave a hand to his face, and walked in the other direction toward the sink to start the dishes, shielding her body from us.

“Doesn’t look like you’re gettin’ any tonight, Pops.” Paul razzed as he smirked at Dad.

Ma, who whipped her head around, her face flushed with horror at the crude comment, shot a warning glance right at Paul. It was clear enough to say: You wouldn’t dare. Mom always got worked up when we suggested the inappropriate things she and dad were doing all alone by themselves all the time since we had our own apartments. Yeah, we could be immature.

Dad chuckled to himself, but responded in disagreement, “Ah, she’ll cool down, Paul – I’m not going to worry.”He chewed unconsciously on his toothpick he plucked out of his jacket pocket.

This time, being brave, Ma gave him the middle finger with her back turned, while she sprayed water into the sink. Dad laughed. “Mmm…maybe not.”

I shook my head.

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Back at the apartment, Paul was pulling on his black long-sleeved sweatshirt, and said, “So, you saw her yesterday, huh?”

I gave Paul a brief description before we had left for Dad’s about seeing Mel at the drugstore yesterday. It was the only interesting thing that had happened all week – seeing my ex. Ugh, ex-girlfriend. I hated describing Mel that way. It sounded like it was all kinds of wrong the way it rolled off my tongue.

“Yeah,” was my intellectual response. It felt like Paul was my psychotherapist at times like these. I’ll most likely be getting a bill from him soon. Paul was away in Queens for the whole day yesterday visiting some buddies of his that came back from college. I had to do all the shitty work by myself which was perfect. Dumbass errands for Dad which were meaningless. He just wanted me to keep myself busy because of what happened at our family dinner last time. Classy.

“To give her back her purse you’ve been keeping for how long?” He lifted his gaze to mine, raising his eyebrows expectantly.

I sighed, cracking my back, “Yeah.” The only word in my vocabulary these days, apparently. I had a feeling Paul would need to keep dragging the story out of me. So what if I kept my – cringing – ex-girlfriend’s iPod to listen to all her songs? Like I gave a shit if that sounded like I was a pussy or not. It was interesting to find out what music she liked. As I figured, she had downloaded all the Maroon 5 albums, and has mostly alternative, country [to my surprise], and classic rock n’ roll on it. With a little splash of hip hop – she probably played that while she was working out like everyone did.

“What’d she say?” He asked, looking for my feedback. Although, maybe I wouldn’t need to pay him for all this – he looked entertained enough.

I kicked off my shorts to pull on a pair of faded jeans. “Well, it was obvious she didn’t want to see me.” A blind man could see that. “She wanted to split out of there.”
He nodded like he expected that. “Man, I still can’t wrap my head around it. I thought you two were-” He paused, shaking his head.

I snorted. “Yeah, thanks man.” As if I wasn’t thinking that for the fiftieth time. I slipped on a white t-shirt and a black zip-up over it. It was a chilly night outside – to my extreme happiness.

Paul sighed, “Sorry.” It was quiet then, for the time being. We prepped ourselves for staking out at the warehouse tonight. I wasn’t too worried about it, but all I had to say was that Dad better watch himself. Giorgio was a slinky snake and he was always up to crazy shit. I half expected the ‘diplomatic talk’ to last about ten minutes and then the fighting would begin.

I really wanted to bring along my handgun and hide it in my jacket because lately I didn’t trust Vinn one bit. Meg…that was a different story. It was all duty with her. If Dad wouldn’t have let her be a mobster like us guys were, she would’ve enrolled in the army. Ma didn’t want her to get caught up in this life, but she was quickly silenced by Meg. She wanted it – probably more than I ever did and will, for that matter.

Dad had me learning the ways of organized crime when I was a sophomore in high school. He took me along with him when he’d go to the bars and meet and discuss topics with other leaders. Ma didn’t think that was a good idea either, but Dad felt it was necessary since he was going to be all but inactive in the upcoming years. Being ‘inactive’ is when you stop going out and fighting other Mobs and take the backseat to all that. He was getting up there in age – forty-five years old – and he knew as well as us that he should pass it down to us, the healthy youngins.

So, as Paul locked up the apartment door behind him, we were off to make a deal with the devil.

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We arrived at the warehouse around 10 o’clock – a little early to our standards – but like Giorgio had said…we were only here to negotiate.

Yeah, right.

Too early in the night could be extremely hazardous because of all the police zooming around looking for drunks, prostitutes, and drug lords. We tried to keep our business secluded indoors, but that wasn’t always the case. This time, we were expecting five men from Giorgio’s clan including that rat Angelo that Paul loves to hate. I knew Paul was expecting a fight tonight – it showed at the meeting at Pa’s – I was just worried that he’d be the one to initiate it. Then, Giorgio would have grounds to gain on us, instead of the other way around like we wanted it.

Dad was waiting there; leaning against the side of the dark, looming warehouse trying to look inconspicuous while he searched for us. He nodded in affirmation when he saw us, and propelled himself forward. He was a fairly tall, bulky guy, but I was always looking down at him. He was about six feet tall max to my six-foot-four length. Paul was slightly shorter than me, topping out at six-two. Meg was tall for a woman – five-foot-eleven. Ma was really the only odd one out – only getting to only five-foot-five.

We clustered all around Dad as he gave us instructions as to what was going to go down tonight. “Now, Paul, if Angelo suggests anything – anything at all – about fighting, you wait until he starts it.”

“You know he won’t,” I offered, “he’s a bluffer. A coward.”

Dad shrugged. “That may be. But we don’t want to get in over our heads and make the first move. It’s to our advantage to let them strike first, got me?”

Paul sighed, and fixed his gloomy glare at Dad. He was too impatient all the time to be the one to think rationally and wait things out. Complete opposite of me. I could wait all day, and contemplate angles while strategizing. He’d bust into a room and take on a band of six guys because he felt like kicking ass one day. “Fine, whatever you say, Pops.”

“Got me, Lance?” Dad paused to look up at me.

I nodded, confused why he’d be asking me. “Yeah.”

“Okay,” Dad declared, “then we’re on the same page. Meg and Vinn will be waiting on the outside – waiting to hear any rustling or gun shots, ‘kay?”

We nodded, Paul sighing in boredom as Dad kept explaining the basics. Like I said – impatient. “Let me do the talkin’.” Dad insisted.

Just as he said that, there was a shuffling of feet in the distance and a crowd of six men in dark coats approached us. Paul’s body went taut, and tension swept through the space between us as we checked and feeled ‘em out. One stuck out from all the rest – he was a stout man, a few inches shorter than Dad. He stepped forward, and gave us an edgy, condescending smile. He extended his hand to Dad, and Dad returned it – shaking it firmly so Giorgio knew we meant business. Giorgio had a dark mustache, and hair just as jet black – his shady opal eyes pegged me first, I stood to Dad’s left. I sent him a sturdy eye, and nodded my head in greeting. His smile twisted, and his eyes assessed me with interest.

“Shall we go inside?” Giorgio spoke up, turning his gaze back on Dad.

“Of course,” Dad responded immediately, waiting for Giorgio to go in first. An old trick – you are more exposed if your back is to someone. Giorgio most likely knew the risk as well, but, because he was a smug, proud man he descended into the warehouse, his buddies filing in behind him. I caught a glimpse of Angelo, who raised his eyebrows at me, smirking. That fucker. My lips grew into a straight line, my face one of stone.

We all filtered in – one by one.
♠ ♠ ♠
Okay, so here's the deal, guys.
I was grounded for being on the computer for two weeks, & I was just up north on vaca, so I deeply apologize for my lack of updating.
HOWEVER, I have been continuing writing my chapters, & I have the 3 chapters after this one already written down....on PAPER.
So, it will take me a while to type it, but I promise to have it up to date sometime in the next one to two days.
Thank you for being so patient.
Lauren.