Unholy Vows: Chapter 1

When you were single, twenty-six, and living in a party town like Atlantic City, there was a buffet of options for an evening’s entertainment. You could go out on a date, eat something nice, maybe even get lucky. Or you could get lucky another way, high-rolling in one of the opulent casinos that lined the boardwalk. Maybe you’d prefer a quiet night, spending time with friends at home.

There was something for everyone, and yet, I was pretty sure nobody’s idea of a good time was sneaking into a dilapidated warehouse on the Jersey Shore in the dead of night. Well, no one I knew, anyway.

Yet, here I was, and embarrassingly enough, it wasn’t even the first time I’d spied on my little sister with my trusty tracker app and followed her somewhere I shouldn’t. Next time, though, I’d prefer a frat party I was too old for than a warehouse that smelled like rotten fish and old sweat.

Man, this was bad. But not bad enough to turn back.

My baby sister, at nineteen years old, was in this hazardous shack somewhere, and I wasn’t leaving without her, even if I had to drag her out by the ear.

I ignored the gnawing worry in my gut that the trouble Lucy was getting into was only escalating. It started with fights at school. Then there was the shoplifting. Then the underage drinking. And most recently, dating losers on a one-way ticket to nowhere.

Now, I had no idea what she was getting into. She didn’t talk to me, even though we were the only family we had left. Growing up in Mercy House, a group home run by nuns, had turned me into a shame-ridden rule follower, but it had the opposite effect on Lucy.

Still, a firm talking-to was clearly in order. Hanging out at an abandoned property that looked like the set of a horror movie wasn’t a great idea. What was next? I shuddered to think.

My sneaker pressed on a shard of broken glass and made a loud, crunching sound. I froze. I was still in the large room I’d first snuck into. Old crates and other shipping equipment were stacked haphazardly along one wall, leaving plenty of shadowy nooks and crannies for eyes to watch me unseen.

Broken windows lined one side of the long room, and an upper catwalk ringed the entire floor. Metal creaked, and the wind whistled through the gaping window frames.

Get Lucy and get out of here, a voice inside me urged. Nothing good happens in places like this. Well, that was pretty damn obvious, but I couldn’t see a single sign of my wayward sister, despite that blinking dot on the tracker app assuring me she was here somewhere.

It was tough to brush aside my highly attuned survival instincts and creep further into the warehouse. I had spent my life trying to stay out of trouble, but growing up in Mercy House hadn’t made that easy. I was thirteen when we’d ended up there, and all the social worker said as she’d patted me on the hand was how lucky I was not to be separated from my sister. Sure, our Da had just passed, mowed down in a random drive-by shooting while waiting in line to buy takeout. Sure, we had to sleep in a dorm with ten other girls, one of whom liked to set her pillow on fire, and another who hid and tortured small animals. A dorm where the nuns grilled us about our shameful thoughts and performed random middle-of-the-night bed checks for “impurity.”

Okay, Sue Granger from Social Work. We were the luckiest girls in all of New Jersey.

“Lucy?” I hissed, breaking the oppressive silence in the dark room. She had to be here somewhere.

I pushed on, heading toward the next room over. I had to hand it to my baby sister. If they gave awards to people with the most talent for getting themselves in a pickle, Lucy would win, hands down. Technically, she wasn’t a baby anymore. I knew that. But at nineteen, she was at that weird age where she was old enough to get herself in serious trouble, and yet young enough to ignore the possible consequences. I didn’t think I’d ever be able to cut the cord between us.

For the last thirteen years, I’d been the only mother she’d had.

“Look after her, Charlie. You’re the only one who can.”

My Da’s ghostly voice drifted through my mind. That night, he’d given me the most important responsibility of my life, one that still sat heavily on my shoulders.

Some nights were harder than others to honor his dying wish.

A shuffle sounded to my left. “Charlie?” a voice I knew better than my own whispered.

“Lucy,” I muttered and dropped to a crouch. My hands landed on broken shards of glass in the dark, but I didn’t flinch. When it came to protecting Lucy, nothing would ever be too painful or inconvenient to stop me.

My sister was sitting on the floor with her back against the wall, a wild look in her huge eyes. She was scared. Considering she hadn’t been scared of anything at all lately — treating her ‘bad girl’ status like a badge of honor — her sudden fear was worrying. She had to be in a tight spot if she was dropping her tough-girl act.

I maneuvered myself into the tiny space beside her. “What are you doing here?”

“Did you follow me?” she asked without anger.

I elbowed her gently. “Of course I did. That’s what big sisters do, right?”

“How?”

“Phone tracker app.” There was no point in lying to her; she’d figure it out eventually.

She nodded. Something was wrong. She was too subdued. I made out the sound of distant conversation. We weren’t alone here.

“What’s going on? Tell me,” I urged and wrapped my hand around hers. Her skin was cold.

“Miguel. You know Miguel, right?” she started nervously.

She knew I didn’t approve of her new boyfriend. He had trouble written all over him. I’d been hoping that it was just a passing thing, and the intrigue of dating someone so volatile and dangerous would fade. It seemed that hadn’t happened yet.

I nodded. “I know him.”

“Well, he had the idea that we could make some money on the side, you know, doing odd jobs and stuff.”

“And an odd job brought you here? This doesn’t look like the kind of place people order take out to.”

Lucy’s eyes slid from mine. She was lying. I could always tell. But now wasn’t the time to pester her for the truth.

“We just had to come in here and get something, something he could show his new boss, and then we’d get a full-time gig.”

“I’m not following,” I confessed. There was too much she was trying to hide, and her story was quickly falling apart. “Where is ‘here’, for starters?”

We were whispering so quietly, the murmur of the men talking in the other part of the room was easy to make out. I kept one ear on that noise, a guarantee that we hadn’t been discovered.

Lucy swallowed, her face pale. “A De Sanctis drop point.”

I took a moment to process this information. “De Sanctis. As in the criminal enterprise, Italian royalty of Atlantic City…that De Sanctis?” I managed in a controlled tone, even though I was sweating bullets.

Lucy nodded.

“And by drop point you mean…” I trailed off, unwilling to finish the obvious sentence. It would make it too real.

“This is one of the places where they drop their products and have dealers pick them up for distribution.”

Well, at least she knew exactly what she was getting herself into. There was a cold comfort in the fact that she hadn’t been misled in the slightest.

“Products, dealers, De Sanctis,” I muttered, shocked. Maybe it made me naïve, but I’d clearly underestimated the level of criminal activity my sister had become comfortable with. “Who are you right now?” I huffed angrily.

I was angry at her for dragging her life to new lows every day.

I was angry at myself for not watching closely enough and allowing her to fall.

I was mad at my Da for going and leaving us when we’d needed him.

I was even mad at Social Worker Sue and her brittle positivity. Yeah, Sue, we’re really lucky. Totally unscathed by our terrible childhoods.

I didn’t need to point out the danger we were in. Lucy knew; her tearstained cheeks gave that away. She was in over her head, and I was the only one who could get her out of this mess.

Lucy had gone big when she’d broken into this warehouse and tried to steal from a vicious mob syndicate. She’d skipped right over the low-hanging fruit of gangs and the smaller cartels that sprang up and disappeared frequently. She’d gone right to the top of the food chain. The apex predator of the state.

New Jersey was riddled with crime. During my clinical rotations in big Atlantic City hospitals, I’d seen firsthand the damage that the criminal syndicates wreaked as they sank their claws into the city. If it wasn’t gunshot wounds from rival families fighting for turf, it was drug overdoses caused by their products. It didn’t matter which family it was – Irish, Italian, Russian – the aftermath was bloody and lethal.

New Jersey and mafia were as intertwined as the Fourth of July and apple pie. And Lucy had gone straight for the De Sanctis family. Theirs was no fly-by-night organization. The De Sanctis family ran a serious operation. They called the capo of the family the King of AC, because he ruled the casino scene with an iron fist and crushed opposition with ease. Renato De Sanctis was notorious, and no one in their right mind would cross him.

I stared at my sister, seeing her in a different light for a moment, before the murmur of approaching voices jolted me out of my thoughts.

We were no longer alone.

Sharp shouts and protests bounced off the warehouse walls. Lucy tried to get up beside me, but I quickly pulled her down, fear coating my mouth. It tasted like metal. I fumbled for my necklace. A small, simple gold pendant that my Da had given me. It bore the image of St. Anthony, patron saint of lost things and people. I’d always been a lost person; even Da had seen it.

“I’ll look,” I told her in a nearly inaudible whisper.

I rose on my knees, the cold cement floor digging through my cheap, polyester trousers. Two men entered the room from a side door. One seemed to be dragging a smaller man by the hair. I gripped Lucy’s hand hard, preventing her from kneeling up and looking. I’d gag her, if I had to.

The sound of cruelly amused laughter echoed around the space.

“You thought you could wiggle in here like a snake and win points for the Castillos? Brave, but dumb, and now it’s the last thing you’ll ever do,” one of the men grunted, throwing the shadowy figure he was hauling down on the concrete floor.

He landed with a harsh slapping sound, the two men towering over him ominously. I could tell immediately that he was smaller than them. Younger.

Miguel, Lucy’s piece-of-shit boyfriend.

One of the attackers kicked Miguel hard in the side three times. My nursing instincts kicked into gear, and I mentally assessed the damage that might have just been inflicted and how to treat it. I continued to hold Lucy down in a death grip. I couldn’t let her see her boyfriend getting beaten. As for trying to help him, I didn’t even consider it. He was the reason we were here, and Lucy was my priority. I had no illusions about how our combined strength would stack up against these mobsters.

“Did the Castillos put you up to this? Did they say they’d let you into the cartel if you stole from us? You stupid boy. Those fuckers don’t let anyone in except blood relations. You had a better chance with us…instead, you disrespected the De Sanctis name, and I have to make an example out of you. It’s not personal. It’s about optics, kid. By the look of you, it’s no great loss to society.”

The men laughed cruelly between themselves.

A sense of foreboding slithered in my gut. This wasn’t just a beating. They were going to kill him, and I was in the position of trying to stop it, and risking my own life, or letting it happen. I was a nurse. Saving life was my calling. And yet, as I glanced down at the shiny strands of Lucy’s head below mine, I knew I wouldn’t. Maybe if I’d been alone, I might have tried something, but I wouldn’t risk her safety.

“Wait! I’m not here on my own,” Miguel cried out.

Fuck. I knew that kid was a rat.

“No? Who did you come with?”

“My girlfriend – well, the girl I’m fucking around with. She has some stuff on her. You can have her. Take your time. Have a party, go nuts.”

I held my tongue, fear and guilt creating a toxic mixture inside me, fear and guilt giving way to the rising fury in my veins. This kid thought he could hand Lucy over to save his own sorry ass? Lucy’s fingers bit into mine. It was a reminder that she, too, could hear every word.

I peeked again when silence fell. I had to know what they were doing. Were they considering Miguel’s offer?

One of the men laughed and pulled a gun from his jacket. “What makes you think we won’t just do both? End you, the useless, pussy boyfriend, and have all the fun we want with your girl?”

He straightened his arm and took the safety off the gun, laughing at Miguel’s attempt to roll away. “Looks like the end of the line, kid. Not a very impressive way to go out. I’m doing you a favor really.” He pointed the gun at Miguel’s balled-up body.

The other goon stepped in. “Shit, wait a minute, Tony. Just scare the kid and beat him up a little…don’t piss off the boss again. We’re on thin ice with Ren, and we both know it.”

Ren. Renato De Sanctis. I found myself glancing over my shoulder, as if just thinking his name might invoke the man. A Bloody Mary chant.

“What Ren doesn’t know won’t hurt him,” the man with the gun said. I could hear in his voice that he was eager to deliver rough justice. He wanted to kill the guy lying in a bloodied heap in front of him.

His buddy once again intervened, and they argued quietly for a second. My heart pounded so hard I could barely think over it. I should call the cops. I should do something.

“We have to run,” I whispered. “They know you’re here. We have to get out of here while they’re distracted.”

“The cops—”Lucy started.

I nodded. I’d call once we were out. They weren’t going to come in the next thirty seconds, so they couldn’t save Miguel. After he’d bargained for his life by offering my sister, I wasn’t sure I cared as much. I certainly wasn’t putting myself in danger to help him. He’d chosen his path.

We never reached the door.

A bang sounded, and I shoved a fist into my mouth to muffle my scream.

Smoke and the stench of metal filled the air.

“Christ man, you shouldn’t have done that. Ren’s not going to like it.”

“Whatever. Stop trying to crawl up the boss’s ass.” The deep voice of the one who had shot Miguel was full of mirth and amusement. “Shall we look for the girl?”

“What girl? That little punk was just trying to buy himself some time. What girl would agree to creep in here? Let’s get out of here.”

“Yeah, whatever.”

Lucy shook in my arms, crying soundlessly. She knew what had happened to her troublemaking new boyfriend. We were frozen there in our guilt and fear for precious long minutes before the sound of the men talking faded away.

This was it. Our chance to go. We had to do it now, before they changed their minds about searching for the ‘girlfriend’.

We were only a few feet from the side door I’d used to sneak in. If we could creep out, we could make a run for it or hide in one of the abandoned buildings that lined this seedy end of the shore.

“Lucy, we have to get out of here now, run and never look back.”

“They killed Miguel, didn’t they? They killed him,” Lucy mumbled, the shock sending her gaze hazy.

“Yes, and they’ll kill us, too, if they find us. That’s why we have to leave before they hear us,” I explained as patiently as I could, trying to navigate through her shock.

She nodded, her big teary eyes staring into mine. My heart clenched at how incredibly young she seemed at that moment. She looked like my baby sister again.

“Let’s go,” I whispered.

Together, we crept out of our hiding place. Shadows seemed to move, pouncing at us. Lucy whimpered, trying her hardest to stifle her tears. Every step through the dilapidated warehouse felt like a target was pinned to my back. My skin crawled, my heart pounded.

Finally, we shuffled our way toward a side door and out into the dark, cool night.

It wasn’t until we were in a cab home, speeding away from the warehouse, that I realized I’d been holding my breath. My head hurt, and my lungs ached. Straightening my hands from claws took effort, but I managed it. I cradled Lucy’s head on my lap and stroked her hair. “It’s okay. Everything is going to be okay.”

For the first time in a long time, I had no idea if those words would turn out to be true.

Da’s voice spoke in my head, his old catchphrase turning in circles and holding me in a warm embrace. Worry about that later, kid. Tomorrow, you could be dead.

Oh, Da. You have no idea.

I jolted awake to the sound of sobs.

I was up and shuffling out of my messy bedroom before I could blink the sleep from my eyes.

Reality rushed in on the beams of fall light flooding the small kitchen of the apartment I shared with Lucy. The sound of taxis honking and the hubbub of the city filled my senses, but even that couldn’t drown out the sounds of anguish.

Our Southside neighborhood wasn’t glamorous, or even safe for that matter, but it was near the casino I worked at and the hospital that I did my clinical rotations in, part of my student experience, wasn’t too far, either. With our limited budget, I couldn’t afford to live closer, and I also didn’t have time for a longer commute, so we were stuck in this grim apartment by the highway. If you stood on the roof and leaned over the broken safety barrier way, you could almost see the shore.

I knocked softly on Lucy’s door and waited. I traced a finger over the old wooden plaque on the door, the one she’d made and held on to since our time at the group home. Glittery pink polish spelled out her full name. Lucy. A few faded, peeling stickers dotted the corners, but that had been the extent of the craft supplies she’d been given to carve a little place of her own.

“Lucy, I’m coming in,” I called when she failed to open the door.

My sister was curled in a ball on the bed, her face red and puffy with tears. I hadn’t heard her crying last night. I’d fallen into a kind of deathly deep sleep that I’d learned how to do as a nursing student for the last five years. The idea was to sleep when you could, no matter what was going on around you.

I sat on the bed and reached for her hand. “Hey, have you been up all night?”

“I can’t stop hearing that awful sound over and over,” Lucy sniffled.

I grabbed a tissue and handed it to her, watching as she roughly blew her nose. She was right, after all. The last twenty-four hours had been a living nightmare. She’d seen her boyfriend get killed. She’d been there when it happened. It could have been her, too. It was terrifying.

No, Lucy was reacting appropriately. It was me who wasn’t. I was reacting out of shock and carefully honed survival skills that demanded I power through this. But deep down, a gaping chasm of panic threatened to engulf me.

“And now he’s gone…” Lucy whispered, her tears starting up again.

I leaned in and hugged her. Sure, I hadn’t liked Miguel for Lucy at all, and I’d never forgive him for trying to sell her out to save his own skin. But still, I didn’t like to see Lucy hurting, and I wanted to help her through this.

“I know, it’s so hard. I’m sorry,” I said softly.

As I held my heartbroken little sister, I realized that I’d become a bit hardened to death. Going through nursing school and doing rotations in the ER could do that to you. I’d felt the fragility of life, and I’d seen that barrier break so often that it rarely took me off guard anymore. Last night had been different, though. It wasn’t slipping away in a hospital bed or flatlining on a surgeon’s table while medical professionals worked to save you. Last night had been violent. I couldn’t get the horror out my head.

A phone vibrated on the bedside. I didn’t recognize the case. “Whose phone is that?”

Lucy sniffed and reached for it. “Miguel’s. He gave it to me to carry since I had a pocket in my hoodie.”

She looked so young for a second that it stole my breath away. Everything I’d done, the countless crappy jobs I’d worked, the sacrifices I’d made – all of it had been to keep her safe and protected from the horrible reality of the world we lived in.

Last night I’d failed.

“You have his phone? Lucy, what if the police are looking for him? They might be able to trace it,” I chastised, fresh fear running through me, waking me up more effectively than any jolt of caffeine could.

“So what? I’m not going to hide what they did to him,” Lucy said defiantly.

I was distracted from arguing with that ridiculous statement by the phone. A number had called nearly twenty times. As I stared at it, a message popped up: Kid. I said I’d give you a chance, and I did. 25k worth of chances. The boss wants to know where the cash is. Give back the product or the proceeds. Clock’s ticking.

I dropped the phone like it was a viper trying to sink its fangs into my wrist. I looked at Lucy. “Did Miguel have drugs on him? Had he been dealing?”

Her watery eyes met mine and then slid to the side. Goddamn it.

“Are you serious right now? You were dating some dealer? Some wannabe gang member? Are you out of your mind?!” I shouted.

“I liked him! I wouldn’t expect you to understand what that’s like,” Lucy shot back.

I flinched, her unexpected barb hitting me in sensitive spots. “Meaning?”

“Meaning not everyone wants to live like a robot and just work, study, work, study, then work some more. Some of us want to live.”

I swallowed my words of disagreement. Hurt spread through my chest. The only reason I worked all the damn time was to keep me and Lucy in relative comfort. Out of habit, my eyes moved to the small alarm clock on Lucy’s nightstand.

“I have to go. I have work,” I muttered, aware I was playing right into her accusation but unable to do a damn thing about it. I needed my job, and I loved it. It was my dream, and every day I single-handedly supported us was a triumph for me.

“Stay here. Don’t talk to anyone. Don’t even think about going to the police. Those men we saw, the De Sanctis family, they aren’t playing around. They’re dangerous, and I don’t want us on their radar. Miguel is dead, nothing we do now can change that, except risk joining him.”

My words sounded cold. Lucy stared at me in shock, looking like she’d just discovered that her sister was part demon. It was true, in a way. As her caregiver, I had a single-minded purpose that I’d always prioritize above everything else: Stay alive and keep Lucy alive. It was simple, really. Our survival was what it always boiled down to. I suspected it was the same for everyone, once everything else was stripped away. We were all just rats in a maze, desperately trying to survive.

I left Lucy, taking the damn phone with me. It was a smoking gun, and I didn’t want to leave it with her. I didn’t have time to worry about it right now. I’d worry about it later. It was my usual coping mechanism for things that I had no solution for.

So, it sounded like Miguel had already been working for some higher-up distributor. I wondered where the hell the drugs were, and how far this guy texting Miguel would go to find them.

A shiver of worry moved through me as I left the house and headed toward the bus stop.