The Mafia Hit Man's Daughter Read Online Free Page A

“dollface,” and he always gave me hugs and kisses. He was very affectionate like a family member would be—and that just confused me even more.
    We asked a lot of questions, but my parents—Greg and my mother—didn’t really make it easy for us.
    â€œWell, Charlie is your dad. You have to see him every other Sunday, or every Sunday—whenever else you want, you could see him. But you see him on Sundays,” my mother said.
    Even so, Greg acted like a real father in the house. He put us to bed, helped us with homework—all the things fathers did. Except for Sundays when Charlie picked us up. But the fact was even when we were young, we were being taught that Greg was in charge.
    â€œSomething happens, you tell me, and I’ll take care of it,” he told us.
    When my little brother, Joey, was about four, he got into a fight with another young boy. The kid bullied my brother, and my brother came home crying.
    â€œWhat happened, Joey?” my father asked.
    My brother told him that this kid had bothered him. My father went into his bedroom and came out holding a baseball bat.
    â€œOkay, take this bat and hit him over the head with the bat, and then when he’s crying, tell him to go get his father.”
    He was telling this to a little four-year-old. So my brother went out to do what my father told him to do. But Joey made up with the other little boy and didn’t end up hitting him.
    Most of the time growing up on Fifty-Fifth Street was pretty normal. My father used to watch TV with us and play video games. He was a regular dad. Taking care of us when we got hurt or when we were sick.
    One day I was playing outside and I fell and hurt my knee. I was screaming like somebody was killing me. My father came running out of the house because I was yelling at the top of my lungs. He jumped over the patio, thinking I must have been really injured. And there I was, with a little scratch on my knee.
    He picked me up and said, “Oh. What happened, my baby? You got a little boo-boo.” But meanwhile he was having a heart attack because he thought something really bad had happened to me.
    Another time I was extremely sick. I had such a high fever and my father and my mother couldn’t bring it down. They took me into the bathroom to put me in a cool bath. I was crying and screaming and my fever just kept getting higher and higher. My father couldn’t deal with the stress. He got so crazy that he actually punched himself in the head, knocked himself out and fell into the tub. He literally knocked himself out.
    One summer after dinner I was playing on the front steps with my toys. I was ready for bed, wearing my Winnie-the-Pooh pajamas. I was about six. My father came outside to tell me it was time to come in. We started talking and sometime during the conversation I called him “Dad.” I caught myself.
    â€œOh, I mean Greggy.”
    â€œIt’s okay, honey. You can call me ‘Daddy.’”
    â€œOkay, Greggy.”
    But I still wasn’t sure. Most of the time, I called him Greggy. But every once in a while I’d call him Daddy, and he loved it. He’d always tell me it was okay to call him Daddy. I think the day I first called him Daddy was the happiest day of his life.
    Then I started getting used to calling him Daddy, even though I didn’t really think he was my dad. He felt like my dad, but at the time Charlie was really still my dad. I never let Charlie know that I called Greg, Dad. So whenever I visited Charlie, I always had to say Greg. I knew that I couldn’t refer to Greg as Daddy in front of Charlie. I was just a little kid. It was very confusing and I was very torn.
    Sometimes when my parents went out, our neighbors, Maria and Louis, used to take care of us. I hated it—I didn’t like just anybody else taking care of us. I wanted my mother and my father home. At that point I had started to think of Greg as another