When You Make A Deal With The Biker Mafia

“Papa, you have to do something. You have to. It’s not fair!” My voice cracks, raw from hours of shouting and crying. My throat burns, but the words force themselves out anyway. “I work every day, and I still can’t pay off all the money you owe!”

The kitchen smells of stale beer and burnt cigarettes. The single bulb above the table flickers, buzzing faintly like a fly circling the room. Papa sits slouched in his chair, a bottle dangling between his fingers.

His face is blank, but his eyes betray him; they were dark, sunken, wet with something that almost looks like shame.

“You can leave then. Go,” he mutters, voice flat, as if I’m just another nuisance. He waves the bottle vaguely, like it’s part of the conversation. “I’ll handle the debts myself. I don’t know why you keep complaining.”

I let out a laugh, sharp and humorless. The sound bounces off the yellowed walls, bitter even to my own ears. Tears sting hot against my lashes, finally spilling over. They run down my cheeks in humiliating streaks.

“You won’t handle anything,” I shoot back, stepping closer, the words trembling with fury. “You never do. You just sit there and drink while I clean up your messes.”

Papa doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t argue. He just lifts the bottle to his mouth and gulps like it holds absolution.

“Even when Mama was dying,” I whisper, my voice cutting through the thick silence, “you were out gambling.

She was in pain, Papa. We were starving, and you were at some table throwing away money we didn’t have.” I press a fist to my chest, trying to hold the ache inside. “She died, and you sat there like it meant nothing.”

He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. Slow. Tired. “It’ll be different this time. I’ll find work. Real work. I’ll pay off what I owe. You won’t have to keep seeing that man.”

That man.

The words feel like a noose tightening around my throat.

I glance away, stare at the cracked tiles on the floor, at the shadows stretching along the wall. My chest feels hollow, emptied of air. He’s lying. He always lies.

He used to be someone. A capo in the Diavoli. Feared, respected. Men lowered their eyes when they spoke his name. He was supposed to be next in line for underboss. Then came the drinking. The losses. The debts.

When Mama got sick, everything collapsed. He gambled more, begged for loans from men who smile as they sharpen their knives. Eventually, even the mafia washed their hands of him.

And now… now his debt is mine.

I check my phone, thumb trembling on the cracked screen. I’m already late.

“Ciao, Papa,” I whisper, barely louder than breath. He doesn’t answer, and I don’t wait for one.

Outside, the night air slaps my cheeks, cool and sharp. A horn blares. Headlights sweep across the street. Ruby leans halfway out the window of her beat-up