In Every Friend...

Josephine enters the seedy bar, begrudgingly wiping her hands on the dark fabric of her jeans, hoping whatever sticky substance had been on the door handle, and then on her hand and now on her favorite jeans, isn’t disease riddled. She carefully pushes her sunglasses up off the bridge of her nose to rest on the top of her head. She waves a silent greeting to the bartender, Ran or Dan, she thinks, but even then she’s not entirely sure. She rarely bothers to learn the names of her brother’s employees, they rotate out at such a rapid rate, by the time she can tell two apart, one is already gone. 

Josephine moves around the bar, kicking the kitchen door with the toe of her shoe, avoiding touching any more surfaces then she has to. It swings shut behind her, the hinges squeaking. She smiles to herself, hearing the telltale whistle of the only constant in the bar, the man who’s been working here longer than she’s been alive. “Hola Jamie,” she hums, reaching over the chef’s shoulder, plucking a ripe strawberry from the tray in front of him. The older man spins around, muttering a curse.

“Nunca me dices cuando vienes, ¿y si no hubiera estado aquí?” (You never tell me when you come, what if I hadn't been here?) he scolds, pulling her into a bone crushing hug that she returns with everything she has in her. He releases his grip first, holding her at arm’s length, examining her. Josephine’s heart warms at the tenderness that he has always shown her, even when her own family severely lacked in that department.

She tilts her head, slightly smiling, guilt pulling at her stomach. “Lo siento, no fue planeado, solo estoy aquí para ver a mi hermano,” (Sorry, it was not planned, I am just here to see my brother) she says, hoping to ease the elder man’s hurt.

Worry quickly replaces his feelings of hurt. “¿Sabe él?” (Does he know?) he questions, his brows creasing to almost meet in the space between them. 

Josephine lets out a short laugh, meant to ease his concern more than anything else. “¿Dónde estaría la diversión en eso?” (Where would the fun be in that?) she teases, very well knowing that surprises were on the list of things her brother despises, only three people capable of surprising him and making it out alive; herself, their mother, and his wife. Not to say there wouldn’t be consequences, just not a bullet to the head.

“Si fueras alguien más ...” (If you were anyone else…) he pointlessly warns. She wants to laugh, but restrains herself, biting into the strawberry, letting the slightly bitter juice soak onto her tongue while she quite literally chews off the piece she bit. She should have expected it from an out of season fruit and she knows Jamie only means well, but if anyone knows her brother, it's her. She spent the better part of her youth cleaning up after Anthony’s stupid messes, being scolded when one managed to slip under her radar or over her head, but never receiving an ounce of praise for the millions that she’d managed to nip in the bud. Thankfully, it had all changed when she went away to college, worries of her stupid kid brother left behind at home, at least until he literally followed in her footsteps, graduating Harvard four years behind her, only to be brought back into the family fold while she’d almost driven herself crazy to earn her law degree in as little time as possible only to be met with barriers every time she tried to get to her rightful place next to her father.

She pats Jamie on the shoulder, moving past him, towards the refurbished freezer. “But I’m not, I’m just his older sister stopping by to say hi,” she hums, plucking another strawberry out of the bowl at the end of the counter.

“Tomar un almuerzo temprano,” (Take an early lunch) Josephine calls out behind her. 

Jamie inhales loud enough for her to hear from where she’s standing, his worry evident in it as he hadn’t already voiced it.“¿Estarán vivos los dos cuando regrese?” (Will both of you be alive when I return?) he questions.

She turns back to face him, watching him carefully, seriously considering for a moment just leaving, going back to her apartment and forgetting the whole thing, but her phone buzzes in her pocket, reminding her exactly why she came. “Sólo Dios sabe,” (Only God knows) she says, tilting her head up to exaggerate her point. From across the room she can see Jaime clutching the rosary she knows he keeps in his pocket, his lips moving, but now words escaping. “Te preocupas demasiado,” (You worry too much) she reassures him, but secretly thankful for his prayers, Lord knows she’ll need them. She plasters a smile on her face, “Dinner, tonight? On me, invite Mary, I’ll send a car around eight,” she calls, not giving him a chance to decline as she backs away, eating the strawberry before tossing both stems in the garage. She waits until she hears the hinges squeak, signalling Jamie’s departure until she moves around the corner. She stands in front of the freezer, entering her personal code with the tip of her finger nail, pressing her thumb to the scanner. The lock disengages, the door hissing as the seal is broken. 

“JoJo,” her brother teases, using his favorite nickname for her, one she particularly hates, solely for how childish it sounds. He sits with his back to her, hiding behind the thick wood of the historical booth that he’d recently had renovated to be bulletproof, but she knows he’s smiling smugly, the smile she’s wanted to knock clear off his face so many times, but has always restrained herself. 

She walks towards the booth, setting her purse on the scratched tabletop, decades of names and dates carved into it. “Annie,” she counters, a nickname he hates equally, as she slides into the booth.

His face hardens, all good willed pretenses dropped. “Sit, have a drink,” he instructs, pushing the bottle towards her. She leans over to the opposite end of the table, retrieving a glass from the bar cart. She leans back, leaving the empty glass sitting in front of her. “No,” he states, his face unchanging. 

Josephine scoffs, leaning back against the worn leather of the booth, narrowing her eyes at her brother. “No?” she sneers, snatching his glass of bourbon before he can wrap his hand around it. He cocks an eyebrow as an answer and a question. She downs the burning liquid, managing to stifle the cough that wants to erupt from her throat.

He takes his glass back from her, carefully wiping her lipstick print off the rim. “I don’t care about your super smart sister from whatever Phi Theta Beta Sigma sorority dad bought your way into-”

She raises her hand, cutting him off. “As opposed to the girls who work hard and earn their way into sororities? Buying your way in is the only way to get in, dumbass,” she says, rolling her eyes at his extremely narrow view of the world, a bad trait for someone in his position. She knew eventually it’d be the inevitable cause of his most likely untimely demise, or at least she could only hope. Josephine interlaces her fingers, resting her hands on the table, sitting up a little straighter. “I met her in my Intro to Criminal Law class and we have become very close since then,” she says, pausing a moment to let her words simmer, settle in his gut, just to be petty knowing he didn’t have great luck at Harvard, where no one had cared about their shared last name. Once his face shifts from anger to boredom, she continues,“Katyln Catherine Lee,” she states, watching his eyes go wide.

“As in-” he starts, not bothering to finish when she nods, her turn to smile smugly. “Why would the daughter of the second biggest crime syndicate want to join us?”

Josephine smiles, happy to be in the know, especially when her brother isn’t. “Simple, she wants the American dream,” she says, shrugging her shoulders.

Anthony scoffs, “Picket white fence and two point five kids?”

“To rule the world,” she corrects. She finally unscrews the bottle, pouring some into her own glass and then some into her brothers. “Combined, we could cover every inch of this city, the next, and the next until we have someone in every city across the country, then the world,” she says, chinking her glass against his. 

He reaches forward, picking up his glass and swirling the amber liquid around, clicking his tongue. “How and why? Specifics,” he instructs, swallowing the liquor.

Josephine follows suit, downing her own drink, this time she doesn’t even have to suppress a cough, she’s running on a power high. “Don’t worry, little brother, leave the legal mumbo jumbo to me, gotta put the degree dad bought me to use, right?” With that, she stands, pats her brother on the back, and exits the bulletproof room, the door hissing shut behind her. 

She weaves her way out of the kitchen, stopping at the bar to offer a farewell to the bartender, Dan, she remembers once she’s leaning over the bar to get a close enough look at his face, a handsome face with a particularly prominent scar running down his left cheek. “Keep an eye on him, for me?” Josephine questions, slipping a hundred into his front pocket and placing a kiss just next to the scar, her red lipstick leaving a print. She backs away from the counter, using her foot to open the door this time, not wanting a repeat of the sticky situation from earlier. She removes her sunglasses from her hair, placing them precariously on her nose, glancing over them to look at the black sports car parked on the corner. If her heels didn’t clack against the concrete naturally, she would’ve purposefully walked to make them, just to have an outwardly sign of her joy as she can barely keep from smiling. 

Opening the passenger side door, she climbs into the car, the door closing behind her with thud. “By the end of the year, we’ll be running this town, not my idiot brother, he’ll be too busy sleeping,” she declares, clasping her hand over the perfectly manicured one on the gearshift. 

Katyln uses her other hand to remove her sunglasses, her lips curving into a wicked smile. “With the fishes?”

“Or six feet under, your preference, baby,” Josephine says, squeezing Katyln’s hand.