Mafia's Mute Lover Is A Liar

My sister sold me for the price of a dead man's debt, and I said yes because I love her more than I love myself. I should have said no. I should have walked out of her blood-soaked apartment and never looked back. I should have called the police. I should have let her deal with the consequences of her choices. She was the one who took the contract with Don Alessio Romano. She was the one who fell in love with his enemy. She was the one who killed a man in her living room and left his body on the floor for me to find. But I said yes. Because Michael's school fees were due. Because my mother's eviction notice came yesterday. Because I am twenty-five years old and I have been taking care of everyone my entire life and I do not know how to stop. Because desperate people do desperate things. And I am desperate. The Jenkins Historical Society closed at nine. I know because I watched the clock. I always watch the clock. Time is the only thing that moves without sound. The second hand sweeps. The minute hand drags. The hour hand marks the slow decay of another day I will never get back. I was cataloging Civil War letters when my phone vibrated against the wooden desk. Bzz. Bzz. Bzz. I picked it up. The screen glowed in the dim light. Unknown Number: Come to my apartment. Now. Don't tell anyone. It's life or death. -L L. Lydia. My sister. I stared at the screen until the letters blurred and swam back into focus. Lydia never texted first. Lydia called once a month on Sundays between two and four, always for exactly eleven minutes. She talked about her work and her clients and her apartment with the river view. She asked how I was but never waited for the answer. She did not send messages that said life or death. I typed back: What happened? Three dots appeared. Disappeared. Appeared again. Unknown Number: I can't explain over text. Just come. Please. Please. Lydia never said please. Lydia demanded, expected, assumed. She did not ask. Something was very wrong. I locked up the library. I walked to the bus stop. The streets were empty. The streetlights flickered. I watched the shadows move and told myself I was imagining things. I was not imagining things. The elevator in Lydia's building was broken. I climbed six flights of stairs. My lungs burned. My throat ached. I had spoken more that day than I had in weeks—a patron asked me a question, I typed the answer, she looked at me like I was a broken machine. The memory made my throat tighten. You don't talk? I am deaf. I can read your lips if you look at me. She had looked away. Walked to the other side of the room. Did not ask me any more questions. This is my life. People look at me like I am broken. Like I am less than. Like I am a problem to be solved or avoided. I have stopped caring. Mostly. The door to Lydia's apartment was unlocked. I pushed it open. The smell hit me first. Copper. Blood. I moved through the apartment. My heart pounded in my throat, my temples, my fingertips. I could not hear anything—I never hear anything—but I felt the silence change. It thickened. Pressed against my skin. Overturned furniture. Broken glass. A lamp shattered on the floor. A chair on its side. And then a body. A man. Lying on the floor. His throat was cut. His eyes were open. His blood had pooled beneath him and spread across the hardwood like dark water. I stood there. I did not scream. I have not screamed since I was three years old, waking up in a hospital bed with tubes in my arms and a silence in my ears that would never go away. Screaming does nothing. No one hears me. I turned when i felt the footsteps. Lydia was standing in the doorway of her bedroom. Her hands were bloody. Her face was pale. Her eyes were the same green as mine, but wild. Desperate. "You came." I read her lips, it was hard becasue of the lighting but it was not that difficult. I pulled out my phone. I typed: There is a dead man on your floor. She read the screen. She did not look at the body. "I know." "Did you kill him?" "Yes." I stared at her. My sister. The golden child. The one who left home at eighteen and never looked back. The one who became a high-end interpreter for the underworld. The one who called me once a month for exactly eleven minutes and never asked if I was happy. She had killed a man. And she was standing in front of me with blood on her hands and no expression on her face. "You need to leave," I typed. "Call the police. Call a lawyer. Call someone who can help you." "I can't." "Why not?" She grabbed my shoulders. Her fingers dug into my skin. "Because I need you to listen to me. Really listen. I don't have much time." I nodded. I always listen. It is all I can do. "I took a contract," she said. "With Don Alessio Romano. He needed an interpreter for peace talks between five families. It was supposed to be easy. Two weeks. Translate. Get paid. Leave." I typed: What happened? "I fell in love with someone else. Daniil Volkov. He's Alessio's enemy. If Alessio finds out, he will kill me. He will kill Daniil. He will kill everyone I love." I typed: Then don't let him find out. "I can't do the job. I can't look at Alessio every day and pretend I'm not sleeping with the man who wants to destroy him. I can't." She was crying now. Tears cutting tracks through the blood on her face. "So don't," I typed. "Leave. Disappear. Go somewhere he can't find you." "I can't. He'll come looking for me. He'll find me. He'll kill me." "Then what do you want me to do?" She looked at me. Her green eyes met mine. "I want you to take my place."