Cutting a call isn’t a big deal, but I feel a sense of accomplishment.

Marco’s gone for now. Massimo’s in the back seat panting like a man giving birth.

Dario admitted he was scared, and he wasn’t as in control as he seemed. It was all an act. Maybe that’s the trick to the whole thing.

With all the calm competence I can find in myself to fake, I put both hands on the wheel and face front before putting the car in drive and hitting the gas. The engine roars like a lion.

I turn to ask Massimo if he knows which way to go, even though he won’t, but he’s mumbling as though he’s got one foot in the next life.

This is terrible. It couldn’t possibly get worse.

I get to the light in front of the red brick church.

DON’T CRY, COME BY!

I know where I am.

I put on the blinker and turn left.

Tommy’s Pizzeria comes up quicker than I expect. I whip into the parking lot. The door is shut and the sign inside is flipped to CLOSED, but the kitchen lights are on. I pull in and stop with a jerk, put the car in park, and turn to Massimo, who’s a little too still in the shadows.

“Told you.”

No answer. I can hear him breathing though. He’s alive.

“Massimo?” I stretch to touch his cheek. It’s cold.

A man exits the restaurant with a flat box, holding the door open for a woman. They walk side by side. The woman looks our way. I’ve got a man with a gunshot wound in the back seat of the car and anyone can see it.

I start the engine and back out, slinging my arm over the seat the way Dario did. There’s an alley behind the restaurant. No one will be there.

“Say something,” I say to my brother as I drive backward with a snap and jerk. Facing forward, I put the red line on the letter D. “Tell me about the time I snitched on you for wearing Daddy’s shoes. And he made you wear them to school, and you had basketball practice. That’s when you started calling me Goody.”

His tongue taps the roof of his mouth as air leaves it, making a tuh tuh tuh sound.

He’s not dead. I didn’t kill him. Not yet.

“That’s right.” I say it as if he laughed with recognition as I slowly go around the building to the back. “Timo watched you to make sure you didn’t take them off. Stood like a statue by the door every time you fell.”

He fell a lot that day. I stood on the other side of the gym door—behind Timo—peeking through the window, thinking I’d feel some sort of satisfaction at bringing him down a peg. My little brother was always more prized than me. He was rarely punished for things Grandma would beat me for. The first time he tripped because of shoes built for a man with a deformed foot, I wrung a drop of pleasure from the worn rag of revenge. On the second fall, when his team mocked him and Timo did nothing, only guilt dripped out. No matter how hard I twisted myself, I couldn’t feel good about hurting him.