Mob Rules.

"My dad's in the mob." The words are punctuated with the brief whoosh of wind as the golf club comes swinging through the air, connecting with the neon pink ball and sending it flying off into the distance to disappear into an explosion of shattering glass.

"You fucking wish." Another matching whoosh, only this time the shattering glass is replaced with a hollow ping. "I think you've lost too many brain cells."

"Swear on my mother's honor! He's in the fucking mob man! You know, cement shoes, horse's heads-"

"Yeah yeah, sleeping with the fishes, all that shit. Maybe in your dreams Gerard." The golf club comes flashing down again and connects with the side of Gerard's foot, making him swear in Italian and retaliate, smacking Frank's ankle.

There's no way in hell Gerard's father could be in the mob. Frank's met his dad, he's clean shaven, well mannered and a fucking fantastic cook. Don't mobsters have tattoos? He says this last thought aloud and is met with a smack across the face although, thankfully, it is from Gerard's palm and not the golf club.

"That's the Russian mob, jackass. Italians have... have the... fuck, I am so high right now," he giggles, sitting down on the roof and staring up at the sky through his long black hair, golf club resting across his lap. There's a dent in the handle from where he smashed it off a lamp post, but it doesn't matter. It's stolen, the neon pink balls were stolen; hell, even their fucking weed was stolen. Their night of debauchery had started two hours previous and already they had ended up on some abandoned suburb project, shooting golf balls at the skeletons of houses.

"If your dad's in the mob, then why the fuck are we doing this?" Frank asks, reaching in his pocket for another joint and coming up empty handed.

"I dunno, do you have a better idea?" Gerard stands back up, sets the last pink ball on the tee and swings, sending the ball through the window of an abandoned warehouse. Despite the lack of people that live in the surrounding buildings, it's only a matter of time before the cops arrive and him and Frank gleefully run away. But until that moment, they sit on the roof of some condemned house, drinking stolen beer and high on stolen weed. Gerard tosses his golf club, a cheap piece of aluminum, off the roof into the foot high grass and lies back, feeling the rough shingles on his back. Frank does the same, newly lit cigarette in his mouth. The moon is out and Frank sees the blinking red light as an airplane flies over miles and miles above.

"Well, why aren't we hustling people or something?" he says. "Why aren't we doing target practice on some prick? More for that matter, if your father is in the mob, why do you live in a piece of shit house?"

"Fuck you Frank." Gerard smacks him again, sending the cigarette flying from his mouth and over the edge of the roof. "I just know he's in it, okay?" Frank doesn't question him any further; he simply lights another cigarette, tonguing the filter as he questions whether or not Gerard's frail grip on sanity has finally snapped.

Not even a minute later, the sirens start wailing a few streets away and without speaking, Frank and Gerard descend from the roof to the ground, jumping onto the awning of the porch and then to the cracked sidewalk, both them giggling like the stoned maniacs they are. Both of them are red-faced and panting as they go by abandoned houses, windows boarded up and porches sagging. Escape is in their grasp until Frank trips over a raised section of pavement and goes flying, scraping his stomach off the ground as he lands.

"Holy shit Frank, are you okay?" Gerard asks, panting and laughing at the same time. Despite their efforts, the sirens are getting closer, the wailing only a few blocks away.

"I'll be fine," he manages to squeeze out. His chest is painfully tight, all the air knocked out of it. Gerard grabs his arm and pulls, trying to get him to run, but Frank can barely even walk, clutching his stomach with one hand. By now, the cops are at the end of the street, their blue and red lights visible. If they didn't move fast, they were completely fucked and Gerard was truly not in the mood to get picked up by the police, nor was he looking forward to the tongue lashing he'd get afterwards.

"Quick, in here," he says, dragging Frank by the arm towards the nearest building. It looked like it had been some kind of office building at one point in time and although there were two cars parked at the front, there was no lights on inside. There was an ajar door at the side with a padlock hanging off of it and Gerard literally threw Frank inside, yanking the door shut behind him. They were plunged into absolute darkness, the silence only broken by the faint sirens and their laboured breathing, seeming louder than a freight train.

"Holy fuck," Gerard pants, running a hand through his hair. "That was scary." His high is completely ruined by the severity of the situation and he just wants to go home and sleep. "I never want to do that-"

"Shush!" Frank whispers, hitting Gerard in the dark. "Do you not hear that?"

"Hear what?"

"Shut up! Just listen." Gerard doesn't have much of a choice in the matter; Frank has clamped his hand over his mouth so that he's forced to listen. At first, all he hears is the faint wailing of sirens outside but when that disappears, quiet conversation appears from somewhere to their right. It is impossible to pick out individual words at first but the voices, of which there are at least three, get louder and louder until Gerard and Frank can hear exactly what is being said.

Suddenly, the alternative of being captured by the police sounds comforting.

"I swear to God, I'll have the money by tomorrow!" These words are punctuated by sobs, wet gargling sobs that make Frank and Gerard picture snot running down the man's face. They aren't even aware that they're doing it but both of them are crawling towards the voices, their curiosity overcoming their sheer terror. The air rings with a smack, the sound obviously of flesh against flesh.

"We don't need the money tomorrow, we need your money today." At this voice, Gerard stiffens up and reaches out for Frank in the dark, desperately clutching at his shirt. Frank is already doing the same and he presses his lips to Gerard's ear, his forehead damp with sweat.

"Is that your dad?" he asks, swallowing heavily. Gerard doesn't bother shaking his head; they both know what the distinctive, mouth-full-of-gravel voice that just threatened someone is Gerard's father.

"You said last week that you'd have the money today." Neither of them recognize this voice but it is smooth, without an accent. The words come out perfectly, with no regional quirks to spoil them. Just in front of them, a light flares and, against their own free will, Gerard and Frank press one eye each up against the crack in the wall that the light is coming through. Their fingers are entwined and, when Gerard's brain processes the image in front of him, he digs his nails into the back of Frank's hand, feeling the sweat evaporate from his skin.

Gerard's father is standing directly in front of them, his back to the wall. He's wearing a suit that Gerard has never seen and, with his hands clasped behind his back, he's wearing latex gloves that already have spots of red on them. Between his legs, they see the source of the sobbing and Frank's nails dig into Gerard's hand, leaving them with matching sets of crescent moons.

In the middle of the room, there is a man tied to a chair with industrial strength rope. His hands are bound behind his back, as the two teenagers have seen in any mob movie, but he is not blindfolded, leaving his tears on display. Long strings of snot drip from his nose and onto his trembling lips. His cheek is bright red from the slap they heard and the corner of his mouth is split, covered in fresh blood. Neither of them recognize the man and for that, they're thankful.

"Now, do you have a reason why you don't have the money today?" The owner of the third voice is out of their line of sight, on the left. The man tied to the chair tries to blubber words through his lips but ends up just shaking his head, his sobbing growing even louder. Gerard's father sighs and steps forward, snapping his gloves as he does so.

"Henry, I'm so sorry that this has to happen to you. You know that I respect you as a man and as a fellow father. But as a business partner..." Sighing again, he walks around the chair and lays his hands on the man's shoulders, squeezing slightly. There are some quiet shuffling noises on their left and suddenly, Frank and Gerard both began to feel sick as the man they now know as Henry grows deathly white.

"Now, hold still." Henry began to struggle against his bonds but Gerard's father merely tightens his grip, wrapping his arms around Henry's neck. The unknown voice steps into the picture but neither Frank or Gerard pay any attention to him; both of them are staring at the axe he is holding in his right hand, the blade shining with grease. He swings it up into his left hand as easily as if it was a twig, holding the handle firmly.

"They're just trying to intimidate him," Gerard whispers, his fingernails still digging into the back of Frank's hand. "That's all it is, Dad wouldn't kill anyone-"

Henry's scream as the axe swings into his stomach blocks out that of Frank and Gerard as their fingernails puncture skin, leaving blood dripping down their wrists to match the blood dripping from Henry's ripped open abdomen. Frank throws up, vomit dripping onto his shirt as he burrows his face into Gerard's neck. Gerard continues to stare as the axe falls again and again, spraying blood and viscera across the room. Much of it hits his father in the face but the man doesn't even flinch as his suit is stained. Frank starts to cry but Gerard just sits there, still holding his best friend's hand, not aware that he's crying as well.

He doesn't throw up until a piece of what might have been Henry's intestines flies through the crack in the wall and splatters his eye. Only then does he puke, wrenching his head away from the wall. Time passes and him and Frank continue to get sick, vomiting until their stomachs have nothing but watery bile left to give up. When they are finally done, they shakily press their eyes back to the crack in the wall, only to be met with darkness. When they stumble out into the night air, they take shaky breaths, all memories of their neon pink golf balls abolished.

When they hear the sirens coming down the street, they start running again.

***

In the months that follow, they don't speak about it. Frank stops coming to Gerard's house; he won't even pick him up there. They don't have to mention it to know why; Gerard is reminded of it every day. He spends most of his nights with Frank or one of his other friends, couch-surfing to get away from his fantastic cook, un-tattooed, murderer of a father.

He can't run away forever.

He's making a brief stop through at home, grabbing some new clothes before heading back to Frank's house. Frank is waiting for him at the end of the block; he won't come any closer. Gerard planned on just going in and then leaving but then he hears that voice. He stops, duffel bag in hand, outside of his father's office, feeling bile rise into his throat.

"When was his last payment?"

"A month ago. He's overdue, Mr. Way." Before Gerard can move, his father has opened the door, grin plastered to his face.

"Hey, Gerard. Are you staying home tonight?" Gerard manages to shake his head, his eyes glued to the man seated in one of his father's leather easy chairs. The man has cold hazel eyes, their gaze directed right at Gerard. His hair, jet black, is slicked off of his forehead, bringing full attention to his sharp cheekbones. A long scar runs down the side of his neck, disappearing beneath the collar of his shirt.

He looks an awful lot like Frank.

"Oh, well that's too bad, I've missed you. Gerard, this is Patrick Iero, my business partner." Gerard only barely manages to croak out a greeting before turning around and bolting down the hallway, mouth slammed shut to prevent any vomit from falling through his lips. When he reaches Frank's car, he instantly slams a cigarette between his lips, feeling sweat form on his forehead.

"Something wrong?"

"Do you have an uncle named Patrick?" When Frank nods, Gerard swallows heavily, taking a massive drag off of his cigarette.

"He's Mom's brother, but I've never met him. They had a fight before I was born. Why?"

"You've met him."

They never speak of it again.