Death Before Dishonor Page 6

  “Shut the hell up,” Yuri gasped trying to catch his breath. “I got hung up.”

  “Clearly.”

  “And you have no idea how fast I had to run.”

  Terry continued to chew, unconvinced. “What happened?”

  “I was having milk and cookies with Levarity’s youngest daughter.” Yuri's eyes found the top of their sockets while he totaled the time that he’d spent trapped beneath the table. “Did you know that it takes an eleven-year-old nine minutes to eat a fucking cookie?”

  Chapter Three: The Ties That Bind

  Ciccone Residence. Tokyo, Japan. Twenty-three years ago.

  “Daddy, why do I look different?” Terry asked, derailing their one-on-one basketball game. The question had been lurking in Terry’s mind for weeks, but he finally decided that right now was as good a time as any.

  Pat, who had readied himself to receive his son’s check of the ball from their makeshift three-point line, didn’t react at first. He merely pursed his lips and nodded as if nothing had happened. It was the type of hollow nod and expression that campaigning politicians gave inquiring constituents when the politician didn’t want to make a polarizing answer.

  “I’m sorry, what?”

  “Why do I look different?” Terry stood there, holding the ball as if he were holding the weight of the world between his delicate hands.

  Pat scrutinized his son, peering deeply into him with puzzled, squinted eyes. “Like…different…than what?” he asked. Was Terry asking Pat what he thought Terry was asking, or was he referring to something completely different? Had Pat’s seven-year-old just asked him a deep, meaningful question that had no easy answer, or was Pat overthinking this? Was Terry asking why he looked different when he was shooting the ball as compared to the way Pat shot the ball or was he stirring up something else?

  “Why do I look different than you and mommy?”

  Oh boy.

  “Well,” Pat started as he searched his mental Rolodex for canned answers, “that’s actually a good question, slick.” Pat laughed awkwardly, wiping sweat from his brow. “Why do you look different? I mean, there’s a lot of reasons.”

  “There are?”

  “Sure!”

  “Like what?”

  “Well, you’re really an alien, and you’ve come to earth in human form to devour—brains!” Pat playfully waved his hands and fingers.

  Terry laughed. “No, I’m not! You’re making that up!”

  “You’re right—I am.” Pat looked across the yard to where Francesca was entertaining Yuri and his friend in the sandbox. She locked eyes with him. Then Pat took a knee, cuffed a hand to Terry’s ear, and threw a thumb in Francesca’s direction. “Want to know what really happened?” he whispered.

  Terry nodded enthusiastically and whispered back, “Yeah.”

  “You see Mommy over there? Well, she used to be a real putz and dropped you head first into a can of brown paint when you were a baby, so you had a dark brown head and a different color body. We didn’t want you to feel like a freak, so we painted the rest of you the same color. What do you think?”

  Terry giggled, “No, you didn’t.”

  “Yes, we did.”

  “No, you didn’t.”

  “What kind of secrets are you telling my son about me, Patrizio?” Francesca said.

  Pat rapped Terry’s chest with his knuckles and then tossed his thumb at Francesca again. “Tell her ‘only the good kind,’ sport.”

  “Only the good kind, sport!” Terry shouted to his mother.

  “No, no—you’re sport, not her,” Pat said, waving his hands vigorously. Terry giggled more. “You’re supposed to call her Mommy. Say, ‘only the good kind, Mommy.’”

  “Only the good kind, Mommy!”

  “Smile.”

  Terry did.

  “Not at me, at her.”

  Terry did that too. Pat did as well.

  ***

  Pat came into the kitchen from the living room, where he’d left the boys. Terry was coloring while a movie played, and Yuri slept soundly on the couch.

  “Babe,” he said, “Yuri’s out. He’s taking up the entire couch. Whatever you did to him wore him out.”

  “Why don’t you put him in his bed?” she asked as she placed a sandwich that she had made Pat at his favorite place at the table.

  Pat shook his head. “And chance waking him? No, thank you. It’ll be endless civil war. I’m not dealing with that beast all night.” He sat in front of his plate and scooped up the sandwich. “On another note: Terry’s got one hell of a fade away. He might really have a future in basketball; might even get himself into college with it. I wonder if they have any good youth leagues around here. Doubt it, though. The Japanese aren’t basketball fanatics like Americans.”

  “Maybe the base has club teams?”

  “Worth looking into, I suppose.”

  “Otherwise, you’re just going to have to go outside and shoot hoops with him until we get back to the states.”

  “Yeah—because I’m a champion basketball player,” Pat replied as he bit into his food, and then he set it down to chew thoughtfully.

  Francesca rounded the table, waved a hand that prompted Pat to put some distance between him and the table, and then she sat in his lap. Pat welcomed her with a warm smile and nuzzled her arm when she sat down.

  “Ya know—I hate it when you call Yuri that,” Francesca said, tracing the veins on his arm with her nails.

  “Call Yuri what? What I do?”

  “You called him a beast.”

  “Babe, I call him a lot of things. Beast is the mildest of them. Well, except for devil-spawn.”

  Francesca’s mouth fell open, and she swatted Pat’s chest with the back of her hand.

  Pat laughed. “I don’t mean anything by it.”

  “You don’t call Terry any of those names.”

  “That’s because Terry’s different. He’s not a rampaging lunatic like Yuri.”

  “He’s not a rampaging lunatic, Pat. He’s two. Two-year-olds act that way.”

  “I’ve seen a lot of two-year-olds, and none of them act like that. Terry definitely didn’t. Yuri gets that whole rampaging lunatic thing from you.”

  Francesca swatted him again. “You can make your own sandwich next time.”

  He laughed, enveloped her with his arms, and pressed his cheek into her arm. “Baby, you know I love you.”

  “Let go of me.”

  Pat squeezed her. “Not until you tell me you love me.”

  “Let go of me.”

  And tighter still. “Tell me you love me.”

  “Okay, I love you.”

  “That’s my girl. Can you make me another sandwich?”

  Her lips became a thin line. “You’ve barely touched this one.”

  “That’s because you’ve been in my way the whole time, but when you get up, I won’t even taste it.”

  “You’re lucky I love you,” Francesca said, standing and making her way back to the pantry.

  Pat swatted Francesca’s buttocks. “I am that!”

  She gave him a dirty look.

  “Pat, I don’t want Yuri and Terry feeling different.”

  “Funny you say that,” Pat said, picking up his sandwich and taking a huge mouthful out of it. “Terry actually asked me today why he looked different.”

  “He asked you that?”

  “Mm-hmm” was all he could manage with his mouth full. Only about a third of the sandwich was left.

  “Oh God.” Her voice poured concern, and her eyes softened in a way no one could expect her normally icy-blue eyes to soften. “What did he say?”

  Pat swallowed hard. “He asked me why he looks different than me and you.”

  “When did he do that?”

  “While we were playing basketball.”

  “What’d you say?”

  “I joked a little and changed the subject.”

  “Why on earth would you do that?”

  “I
didn’t want to jump the gun and answer a question that he wasn’t asking.”

  “Pat, he was asking you a question that he deserves an answer to.”

  “But what if he wasn’t? What if he was asking a more superficial question that required a superficial answer? I didn’t want to hurl difficult-to-understand answers at him and open a can of worms that didn’t need to be opened yet.”

  “He has a right to know, Pat.”

  “I never said that he didn’t. I just don’t think now is the time. I don’t think he’s ready.”

  “I think he is.”

  “Fine. I don’t think I’m ready. I don’t think I’m ready to tell my son that the world isn’t impartial and that his identity will never be his own, that he will always be judged by somebody else’s rules.”

  “Pat, if we don’t talk to him about it, he’ll come to his own twisted conclusions. You said to me once that you believed that prejudice was created when a kid asks a difficult question that isn’t answered by an adult and instead the kid uses child logic to come up with their own answer.”

  “I did say that. But I don’t think seven-year-olds have enough awareness to draw us into this conversation. I think he was asking an insubstantial question that we instinctively approach with an adult’s logic.”

  “I would buy that if this wasn’t Terry we were talking about. He’s not your average seven-year-old. I just need him to know that he’s a part of this family and that color and DNA doesn’t change that.”

  “I—I don’t want to do this, Francesca. I really don’t think I’m ready to shatter his view of the world.”

  “Honey, I know this is difficult, but we have to do this. If we do it now while it’s still fresh in Terry’s head, we can address it early—not waiting until it becomes a serious issue.” She pressed her hands into her chest. “Do it for me.”

  “I’ll stand behind you on this, but I think we’re making a mistake.”

  ***

  Pat, in his discomfort, convinced Francesca to wait until the next day to discuss Terry’s past—it felt wrong. He supposed it was a function of him having no concept of what emotional tumult an adopted child goes through as they try to decide who they are in life. How does an adoptee decide the boundaries of family: along rearing-lines or bloodlines? Obviously, Terry was too young to make that distinction today, but the time would come when he’d have to. The thought of burdening this once-motherless and fatherless child felt abjectly immoral. Terry was a boy without his own history. He’d always have to substitute Pat and Francesca’s for his own; but at least Terry had something. Pat felt like this conversation was going to take even that from him.

  Francesca called Terry to her room, where Pat and she sat under the covers and leaned against the headboard. Terry strode in coolly and stood to her side of the bed. “Yes, Mommy?” he said appreciatively, his big, dark eyes glittering with trust. Pat couldn’t hold his son’s stare.

  “Come up on the bed, baby,” she said to him. “Mommy wants to hold you.”

  Terry did as he was told and climbed up to settle between his parents.

  “Terry, Mommy and Daddy want to talk to you about something important. If you have questions, I want you to ask them, okay?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Well,” Francesca started but realized that she didn’t know what to say. She swore she’d had this entire conversation suitcased last night, but now that it was time to put all the cards on the table, she had stage fright. After all, how was she supposed to start the conversation? Terry just stared deep into her eyes. She exhaled audibly when she noticed that she had been holding her breath.

  Pat peeked at his wife when he heard her stall and not recover. Francesca chewed her lip as she tried to on-the-spot-engineer a kick-off statement. Terry watched her intently, surely noticing her embarrassment but not knowing from what.

  Pat wasn’t going to let his wife flounder, so he spoke up in spite of his reservations: “Son.” Terry’s head swung to look at him; so did Francesca’s. “Do you know where Yuri came from?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Where?”

  “Mommy’s tummy.”

  “That’s right. He’s Mommy’s son, right?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “He’s Daddy’s son too, right?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “What else is Yuri?”

  “My brother.”

  “That’s right—Yuri is your brother,” Pat affirmed mildly. “But Terry, you didn’t come from Mommy’s tummy like Yuri did.”

  Terry’s eyebrows crinkled.

  Pat didn’t let it faze him and continued, “You came from another woman’s tummy.”

  “Another woman? So, I’m not Mommy’s son?”

  “No,” Francesca forced out even though it felt as though she had been punched in the gut and left breathless, “you’re definitely Mommy’s son, Terry. Mommy was just never pregnant with you like I was with Yuri.”

  “So, I have another mommy?”

  “No—”

  Pat interrupted with a hand in the air, “Yes, son, you have another mommy, but Mommy and Daddy are your family. Yuri is your brother. The people that you live with and grow up with are your family, and you must always accept them. One day, when you’re an adult, you may decide you want to find your other mommy—that’s okay. But remember that we are your family.”

  “Does Mommy love me like Yuri?”

  Francesca gasped and fought back the tears that instantly filled her eyes. She couldn’t make words come out. Pat did it for her, saying, “Of course, she does, Terry. Even though you didn’t come from Mommy’s tummy, you are her first son and always will be. You’re Yuri’s big brother, and we expect you always to take care of him like a big brother should. And remember: no one will ever love you like Mommy.”

  “Does my other mommy love me?”

  “I’m sure she does,” Francesca managed shakily, “wherever she is.”

  “Why didn’t I come from Mommy’s tummy like Yuri?”

  Pat continued to speak for his wife while she composed herself more: “For a long time, Mommy and Daddy wanted to have a baby, but we couldn’t because Mommy and Daddy had difficulty getting pregnant.”

  “Why?”

  “Because that wasn’t God’s plan,” Francesca declared humbly. Pat met her icy eyes with his own, and he instantly knew the whole team was back in play.

  “Another woman was pregnant with you but couldn’t take care of you when you were a baby, so she gave you to us to take care of—to be our son.” Francesca made an effort to make the statement as positive and lighthearted as possible; she didn’t want Terry to feel abandoned.

  “Why couldn’t she take care of me?”

  “Mommy and Daddy don’t know.” Pat rubbed the back of his own hand idly. “And I don’t think it really matters. I guess it wasn’t God’s plan.”

  “So...what is God’s plan?”

  Both parents chuckled.

  “That’s between you and Him, son. But you have faith that God will take care of you,” Pat said with a smile.

  “I’m glad this was God’s plan.”

  Francesca gasped again and snatched Terry into her arms; tears spilled from her eyes and were soaked up by his coarse hair.

  “Mommy, I can’t breathe,” Terry squeaked.

  She released him and stroked the side of his face. “I’ll smother you with my love, and you’ll like it,” Francesca sniffled in her Jersey accent.

  “Why are you crying?”

  Francesca expelled something between a laugh and a sob. “It’s because I love you so much, and I’m so thankful for you. I just want you to be happy.” More tears rolled down her face.

  “I’m happy, Mommy.”

  And yet more tears. Francesca was a pistol to most, but with her children, she was docile, loving, and unconditional.

  “Mommy!” came the savage roar of a toddler from somewhere in the house.

  “The beast is awake and ready t
o crush souls,” Pat said blandly.

  “Patrizio Ciccone!” Francesca demanded, launching daggers from her eyes.

  Pat rested his arm on Terry’s shoulder and shot a smirk at Francesca. “What?”

  “You know what,” she said sourly, wiping tears from her face.

  Pat chuckled. “Terry, go get your brother and bring him here. We’re gonna watch a movie as a family. Then we’ll get up and make breakfast.”

  Chapter Four: Death from a Distance

  Loyalty is the blood that runs in the veins of Shinobi. Never shall Shinobi commit any vile act against a clansman, elder, or ancestor, nor shall Shinobi allow such treason to go unpunished or be dishonored.

  The Second Mandate, translated from Ninpo.

  Rio de Janeiro, Brasil. Today.

  High noon in Rio de Janeiro was a mesmerizing flood of tourist activity and native commercial business, but it was blisteringly hot and miserable for Terry and Yuri. Far above the masses, they were huddled on a rampart of a commercial tower, stalking their target—a Brazilian pirate that operated in the Somali Basin.

  The contract required them to kill the target by any means necessary, but there was a catch. The intelligence provided by the employer regarding the target was sparse, and they had to do a tremendous amount of research to find her. The employer provided the brothers with a name, a profession, a geographic location, and three pictures. From the information, the brothers uncovered her background: The target’s name was Fatima Terceira, a plain-looking fifty-year-old former Merchant Marine who was currently in the employ of a pirate collective that operated off of the east coast of Africa. She was an experienced ship handler that had been persuaded into maritime crime by a significant pay increase. In an incursion with a naval combatant, while she and her crew were in control of a hijacked vessel, she had dumped millions of dollars of stolen goods into the ocean as she’d made her getaway. As punishment for her actions, Terry and Yuri’s employer wanted her eliminated. The brothers obliged.

  They tracked Fatima to a residence in Rio de Janeiro, where she maintained a charming penthouse overlooking a beach in Leblon. There she stayed with her daughter and aunt during brief periods ashore: a prime location to set an ambush for when she returned from sea. There was no telling how long she would be ashore or how long her next at-sea period would be, so the brothers had to be ready to move against her as soon as the opportunity presented itself.