Vendetta: A DeLuca Family Novel (The DeLuca Family Book 2) Read Free Page B

his words before I could hear what it was.
    Eddie just nodded his head once with a pissed off look on his face. He’d been in a permanently foul mood ever since Enzo had announced he’d enlisted in the Marines three months ago. I was upset, but Eddie was furious. Every time I tried to talk to him about Enzo leaving, he’d get pissed and leave the room. I wasn’t sure why he was so angry, but I guessed it was just his way of dealing with it.
    Eddie, his mother Rosa, my mother Claudia, and I headed inside the house after waving Enzo and Marcella off. Rosa had moved in with Marcella after Eddie’s father took off when she was still pregnant. It was just Marcella and Enzo since Enzo’s father had died in a car accident the year before. They’d lived together ever since, raising Enzo and Eddie more like brothers than cousins.
    I settled myself on the couch and curled up, wrapping Enzo’s hoodie around me. I felt miserable, like my heart had just been ripped out of my chest. My best friend was on his way to start one of the most dangerous jobs in the world and pretty soon he’d be shipped off to a war zone.
    He’d explained why he thought it was the only option, and just because I understood it didn’t mean I had to like it. His mother cleaned houses for a living and had been diagnosed last year with arthritis which meant she wasn’t going to be able to continue manual labor for long. Enzo needed to find a way to support his family, and the military was the best option for an 18-year-old. The sign up bonus alone was enough to help pay some of the past-due bills and help supplement his mother’s income so she could afford to cut back on her hours.
    I kept telling myself over and over that it was the only way and he’d be fine. Enzo was strong; he was the strongest person I knew. He’d be okay, he had to be okay.
    “Stop fucking crying,” Eddie hissed from above me.
    I lifted my head from my arms and looked up at him. He’d never talked to me like that before—ever. “W-what?” I asked, bewildered.
    “I said,” Eddie gritted out, “stop fucking crying. Don’t be so selfish. If you’re still blubbering like a little baby when Marcella gets back, it’s just going to upset her more. She’s the reason he’s doing this in the first place. Imagine how she feels. Do you want her to feel worse?”
    Hot tears cascaded down my cheeks. “No, I’m sorry— “
    “Don’t be sorry, just stop crying,” Eddie said fiercely. “And I don’t just mean for today. Every time you talk about him and cry about the fact that he’s gone it’s going to remind her. Do you want that? Do you want to remind her that it’s all her fault?”
    I shook my head and wiped my eyes with my sleeves. I didn’t want to hurt Marcella. She’d always been so good to me. Eddie was right, I was being selfish. I wasn’t the only one that was losing Enzo—we all were.
    I took Eddie’s words to heart and kept my tears to myself until I was alone in my room. For 562 days, I’d turn off the light, curl up in my bed, and let my tears soak my pillow until exhaustion pulled me under. I wrote Enzo 78 letters while he was away. Every week I’d sit down and tell him everything that he’d missed.
    Almost immediately after Enzo left, Eddie started hanging out with Johnny and Emanuel. We’d gone to school with them for most of our lives, but Enzo had always made sure we stayed away from them. They’d dropped out and were running with a bunch of thugs from the neighborhood. I knew better than to go when Eddie invited me along. They were trouble. Eddie started hanging out with them more and more as the months progressed. Johnny had a car, which I guessed was part of his appeal. His cousin Juan had ‘hooked him up’—whatever that meant. Pretty soon Eddie was coming home later and later or not at all. He was barely ever at school and he stopped going altogether after his junior year.
    Enzo was gone. Eddie had left me to fend for myself. I was on