I impatiently exhale through my nose. “Since when have you been in the mafia?”
It’s so weird to say it, to talk about it like it’s a normal way to live.
“Since I was born. Then as the first-born, I took over when your grandfather died.”
The truth hits me like a freight train.
I think of the two portraits in the hallway upstairs. How my grandfather changed so much over the years, and now it all comes together - the things he must’ve seen to end up soulless so many years later.
I wonder if that’s what’s going to happen to my father.
“What do you mean, as the first-born?”
“The first-born is the successor as head of the family. There’s no initiation ritual for outsiders to join. Initiation is only for leaders who are born into it.”
“Who are the other leaders?”
“There are multiple fami
