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woman sat behind a desk at the front,
taking calls, as a few officers strolled throughout the building, filing
reports and taking statements.
    Nobody spoke to him. Nobody questioned
him. Nobody even tried. They brought him in and sat him down, leaving him alone
with nothing but his agitated thoughts. He wasn't surprised, given who his
father was… they wouldn't dare question him without alerting the good ol ' doctor, for fear of incurring his wrath, but it annoyed
Carmine, nonetheless.
    He didn't need his father. He didn't need
him for anything .
    Time passed. More people strolled by
without giving him a look, pretending as if he didn't exist, until the door to
the station opened and Vincent DeMarco walked in. An officer swiftly met him
right at the entrance, whispering quietly to him, as Vincent's eyes shifted
past the officer to where Carmine sat.
    Carmine stared at his father, trying to
gauge his mood as he slowly approached. He wasn't afraid of him, per se. No,
although he knew exactly what his father was capable of, he also knew the man
would never dare physically harm him. But Carmine also knew there were ways to
hurt someone without laying a finger on them .
    Nicholas had proven that to him again
tonight.
    And as Vincent approached, Carmine felt
it, seeing the disappointment in his father's eyes. He tried to put on a brave
face, to keep the mask of indifference in place, but it stung. The rage Carmine
could take. But the pity?
    That he could fucking keep .
    Vincent let out an exasperated sigh as he
sat down in the chair beside Carmine. Tension rolled from him in waves, causing
Carmine's natural instinct to want to flee to kick in. It was a defensive
mechanism—he somehow managed to remember that from psychology class. When
people were stressed their reaction was to either fight or flee, and at that
moment Carmine wanted nothing more than to get the fuck out of there. He’d
already done enough fighting to last a lifetime—after all, it was what
had landed him in the chair in the first place.
    "They're charging you with attempted
murder."
    Carmine blanched. Attempted murder ?
"I didn't—"
    Vincent raised a hand to silence him
before he could even start pleading his case. "They say you unloaded a gun
into Nicholas's truck with him there. Is that true?"
    "Of course not. I'm innocent. That's
what we say, right? Always innocent."
    "That's what we're going to say, but I'm asking you, son… is it true?"
    Carmine scoffed. He wanted to say
something mocking, to ask his father why the hell he was pretending to care
right now, but he was too frazzled.
    Attempted murder?
    Instead, bitter laughter rattled his
chest.
    "This isn’t a joke, son."
    "Isn’t it?” Carmine muttered,
uncomfortably shifting position. "I thought the, uh, punch line was
pretty good, personally."
    Vincent shook his head. "I feel like
I don't even know you anymore, Carmine. You're better than this. You weren't
raised this way."
    "Wasn't I?"
    Vincent didn't have a response to that.
    "Look, I didn't try to kill him. I
just… I wanted to scare him. I wanted to piss him off. I wanted to hurt
him."
    He wanted Nicholas to hurt as much as he
hurt.
    "Oh, you definitely succeeded
there." Vincent ran his hands down his face. "I'll see what I can do.
Just stay quiet and be on your best behavior until I sort this out, okay?"
    Carmine nodded slowly. Vincent reached
over and patted him on the back, squeezing his neck as if trying to reassure
him. It was the most fatherly gesture he'd felt from the man in years.
    Carmine fucking hated himself for relishing it.

 
    * * *

 
    Carmine was locked up overnight and released the next afternoon
into his father's custody.
    Three weeks later, he found himself right
back at the police station, but there were no handcuffs this time. Carmine sat
in a conference room, a long wooden table separating him and Nicholas. Their
fathers and lawyers flanked both of them, while the District Attorney, the
Chief of Police, and a Superior