Surprise Twins for the Mafia Heir

24. Vinny

CHAPTER 24

Vinny

T hree weeks ago

When I land in New York I have no idea what is waiting for me. I expect my dad to find me quickly but, instead, Manhattan has something different in mind. After returning to Chinatown to hide out, I am interrupted by the last person I thought would find me. He walks into the restaurant I am at with his hands in his pockets. Something is different about him too when he sits in front of me. Nick.

His hair is buzzed and I notice the Montoya family crest necklace around his neck.

I grit my teeth. “So, you really are a rat.”

Nick doesn’t have an expression. “I did what needed to be done.”

After everything, I don’t think he can still be trusted. “Then why help me to get to Mexico? So, you could just give my dad my location?” I’m shaking with anger when another person I recognize comes through the door. Joseph Toretto.

“Well, looks like we found Mister Runaway,” he chirps. Nick gestures at the restaurant owner and he rushes to lock the door and pull down the blinds. It is finally happening.

“Listen, Vinny. We want to do things the easy way. You’re here and we want to complete our job,” Joseph continues. Nick stares at me with cold eyes. I’ve never hated him more.

“You almost got my wife and kids killed,” I say.

Nick’s eyes actually flash with emotion. “Kids?”

“Two boys. Haven't you heard since you’ve been tracking me?” I ask. Nick grips the edge of the table.

Joseph shakes his head as he pulls a cigarette out of his pocket. “Too bad those kids won’t have parents.”

Nick drops his head under the table. “You should’ve just done what I told you.”

“Right, and what exactly was that?” I snap. I hear a gun being cocked and Nick reveals a 9-millimeter.

Joseph laughs. “Not yet. Jesus!”

Nick sighs. “Actually, this is exactly the right time.” Before I can duck, Nick fires the gun in the air. Once Joseph jumps up, Nick shoots him.

I wait until the sound quietens down before I crane my neck to get a look at the scene.

“What the hell was that for?” I yell.

Nick jumps over Joseph’s body. “Hurry up, we don’t have much time.”

The restaurant owner comes running from the back. “My guys are here to clean up!”

Nick places a briefcase on the counter. “Thanks, Joe.”

We run out of the back door and into a waiting car. Jodie is in the driver’s seat. “That was quick.”

I don’t utter a word. My head is spinning.

“Here’s the deal, Vinny. Things are back to normal and we’ve got the upper hand,” Jodie says. “We knew you’d be around and thankfully Nick got to you first.”

Nick turns to look at me. “We’re almost there, Vin.”

Eventually, we end up in upstate New York where the trees are huge. A small boathouse becomes our sanctuary. Once I follow Nick and Jodie inside, I realize that this has all been a part of their plan.

“Once Dr. Carmy got killed, we had to get smarter. That meant I had to get in and do the inside work,” Nick explains.

I stand close to the door, still not trusting him. “What do you want, Nick? You could’ve lived in Germany. You could’ve been far from this mess. This isn’t your fight.”

He steps closer. “This is my fight. I have lots of reasons to make sure you, Rosa, and the babies are okay.”

Nick twitches as soon as he says Rosa’s name. “Speaking of whom, Rosa is in trouble.”

That’s enough to make me sit down. “What do you mean? She’s supposed to be heading to El Salvador.”

“He’s already over in the next village. He’s going to take her, Vinny,” Nick says slowly. I can’t contain my rage and punch a hole into the wall. Everything I have done has been to get ahead of my father, but he always finds a way to come out on top.

“If he hurts Rosa—” I start to say.

“He won’t. Not with the babies,” Nick tries to encourage me. But I’m not buying it. All I can see is red and I want to end my father with my bare hands. I finally have a family and he can’t stand to just let me go.

“Vinny, I need you to be smart about this. He’s bringing her here…to New York. I don’t know how, but I’m gonna find a way to get them back,” Nick promises. This is the last we speak of it. I have to let my mind forget about what is going to happen. Instead, I drown myself in beer and survive off sleeping meds and pizza. I can’t let myself be present.

I finally get some relief when Nick wakes me up one morning at the crack of dawn. I don’t know how long I’ve been sleeping, or how many days have passed. But when I open my eyes and see Nick, I notice he has a wild look in his eyes. He sits beside me on the bed, twiddling his thumbs.

“I’m heading over there and I thought you should know,” he tells me as he forces a smile. I can’t place it, but something is odd about him. I rise up in the bed, trying to wake myself up as much as I possibly can. When I look him in the eyes, I see something that I haven’t seen before. It’s a strange mixture of sadness and excitement. It’s like a kid finally getting the present they want at Christmas.

“Why do I feel like there’s something you’re not telling me?”

Nick sucks in his breath and looks up at the ceiling. “Remember when I used to tell you about the family I had before I went into foster care? How I used to talk about the days when I was scared and had to leave behind a life and a person I really cared about?”

I remember exactly what he’s talking about. But the conversations were fuzzy in the back of my head. I barely remember anything about that time, but Nick always spoke about a person he used to be very close with before he went into foster care. He never said who the person was. I figured that was just a Nick thing.

He was always aloof about his life before I met him, and because I knew he had a lot of trauma in that area, I didn’t feel comfortable asking him.

“Well, I had a sister,” he whispers. “A little sister who was barely six months old when I got taken away.”

“Really? I had no idea,” I mutter.

Nick’s eyes are red. “Do you have any idea what it’s like watching your little sister grow up with the person who caused you pain? The person who hurt you and promised to do the same to her?” He gets choked up and stands up.

“I had no choice but to work hard and get her back. But I knew even back then it would take hard work. It wouldn’t be a walk in the park,” he continues.

I clear my throat. “Nick, where are you going with this?”

He has a wild glint in his eyes. “Rosa, Vinny.” He draws in a bated breath. “She’s… my sister.”

I choke back a laugh. “You don’t have to be funny.”

“Why would I joke about that?”

I sit up abruptly, my heart banging in my chest. “What are you saying, Nick?” There’s no way he waited all this time to fess up to something that huge. Rosa is Nick’s little sister? That means this wasn’t just some plan to take down my dad. This was something in the works for years.

“I don’t expect you to understand my methods, man. I don’t expect you to forgive me for lying. But please know that when I say I will do everything to protect Rosa, I mean it.” He moves towards the door without another word, and I have no choice but to believe it.

That’s the last I see of him for a couple of days before he finally comes back. Surprisingly, he’s with Rosa. When I first get eyes on her, she looks like a completely different person. Her hair is cut short, right above her collarbone. Her eyes are hollow like she’s seen a ghost. I also notice that she’s a lot thinner than when I last saw her.

Immediately, I notice the absence of our baby boys, and I start to get the worst feeling deep down in my gut. I move in closer, not sure if I should go in for a hug right away. But when she finally sees me standing in the hall, Rosa runs towards me and throws her arms around my neck. We both begin to cry and sink to the ground. We remain there long enough for me to forget about the time.

Time seems to slip away as we try to grieve the last couple of months; the stress of not knowing where our kids are, and also not knowing what the outcome with my dad will be. However, I know that there’s a huge conversation that needs to be had between Nick and Rosa. We all settle down in the living room with hot cups of coffee. Rosa has a blanket draped over her and Nick can’t seem to stop twiddling his thumbs. I wait for him to make the first move, but he keeps his eyes set on the floor.

I take a deep breath as I say, “Nick have you told her?” Nick looks at me as if I just asked him the most embarrassing question in the world. Rosa looks between us, confused.

“Told me what?” she says, her brows pinched together. Nick leans forward, setting his coffee mug on the floor.

“It’s a very difficult thing to admit. I honestly never thought I would get here,” he says as he finally looks up at Rosa. Rosa, still confused, doesn’t say a word.

Nick continues, “There are so many things about your life that I’m sure you’re pretty confused about, Rosa. I wish people would have been a lot more transparent with you.”

Rosa looks back at me, her confusion turning into anger. “What is this? Another surprise about to be thrown at me?”

I wince. “Unfortunately.”

Rosa pushes her hair off her forehead. “Look I don’t know where my baby boys are and my life is a shambles. Actually, correction. My life has been a shambles since I was born. Whatever you have to throw at me, just get it over with.”

Nick clears his throat and finally says the thing that he’s been keeping inside for all these years: “Rosa, I'm your brother.”

She stares at Nick blankly, blinking several times until she bursts out into laughter. I also try to hold back my laughter, as if it's the most hilarious thing I have ever heard Nick say.

Rosa collects herself. “Okay, that’s fine. You want to make a joke out of whatever it is you need to say,” Rosa chuckles. Nick shifts uncomfortably.

“It’s not a joke. I’m telling the truth, and I’ve been debating the best way to get this out,” Nick admits. “At the end of the day, everything that has led up to this has come from me. Suffering at the hands of our parents and Vinny’s parents. We deserve to put them both to rest,” he says with his hands clasped together.

“Your parents, my parents, Rosa, are going to be a lot harder to take down. But that was why all of this had to happen.”

Rosa frowns, and stands up. “What do you mean all of this had to happen? Because if you don’t remember, I was kidnapped and Vinny nearly killed me.”

I hang my head in shame as I remember the person I used to be when I had first kidnapped her. I also glare at Nick as the reality starts to sink in.

“Don’t tell me that you knew all of this would happen? That we’d nearly die and—”

Nick leans back, crossing his legs over. “I knew that I was gonna do whatever I needed to do to keep her safe. So, her dying was not in the plan. But yes, I knew that Rosa would be kidnapped.”

Rosa starts to pace back and forth until she knocks her coffee to the floor. “Are you serious right now? So, I was basically your sacrificial lamb while you tried to take out your master plan on our parents and Vinny’s family? Do you realize that you could’ve made this so much easier by just telling the truth? Or maybe, I don’t know, taking me out of the country since you have so much money from Germany?”

I always knew Nick was calculated and he had no problem waiting in the shadows as long as he needed to. He is expressionless as Rosa continues to pile in on him.

“I suffered all of my life trying to figure out what the bigger picture was. I always knew there was a way out, but to know that you’ve just been lurking around watching me go through hell and back just to fulfill some stupid master plan? You’re just as bad as Vinny’s father!”

Nick is relentless though. He shrugs. “I’m not asking you to be thankful for what I did or even like me. But we’re all here, right? Things went exactly according to my plan, and we’re alive and well.”

Rosa’s nostrils flare. “My kids are missing, you asshole,” she reminds him. “They’re in the hands of some maniac and who knows what he’s capable of when he wants to get his way? You saw how willing he was to kill me in front of them.”

Nick grunts, a sign he’s getting frustrated. His fuse has always been short. “There is no way he would’ve killed you. He needed you alive.” Rosa picks up the coffee mug and dabs the spill with the blanket.

“Is this what life is like for you two? Always plotting and scheming until you find the next move?” Rosa stops cleaning the spot and glances up. “Let me tell you something, I have no intention of living my life looking over my shoulder. I have no intention of trying to plan my next master plan. I want to live a normal life. I want to walk down the street and get a cup of coffee, then go shopping at a flea market. I don’t care about being super rich or having a jet waiting for me with my name on it.” Rosa points the finger at me as tears fill her eyes.

“You of all people should know this about me, Vinny. I have my babies and we’re supposed to live comfortably. Either you find a way out of this, or we’re done for good.”

“Rosa, come on. Don’t be ridiculous. We have a plan—" I start to say, but I stop mid-sentence because I can see Rosa isn’t listening. She doesn’t care. When a mother loses her children, even for a second, nothing can console her. I would know because when my sister died, my mother lost her mind. She was never the same again.

I sit back, looking over at Nick, who is staring at the coffee stain on the carpet. Rosa leaves the room taking the blanket with her. Once I’m sure she’s out of earshot, I continue.

“We have a responsibility to her. We need to do right by her.”

He nods slowly. “And to you, I suppose — since I’ve been lying to you all this time. I don’t know how you even wanna be in the same room with me. I’m a terrible person.”

I’m the last person who should point the finger at who’s the worst person in the room. I’ve done horrible things in my life. I’ve hurt people. I’ve been a liar, and a cheater. When I look at Nick, he’s just another version of myself.

“The only reason I choose to be good now is because I have Rosa and my boys. If I don’t have them, I’m nothing. And I think it’s the same for you. That’s why it’s up to us to finish this and make sure that she doesn’t have to suffer anymore.”

Nick doesn’t say another word but I know he agrees.