I Died the Year the Don Hated Me Most

Nine hours after I died, Vincent had my body sent to be cremated.

No funeral, no priest.

When the funeral home manager handed him the urn, the first snow of the year was falling on New York.

Vincent wore a black overcoat, and his face showed nothing at all.

"Don Moretti, the Whitmore family would like to bury the Donna in their family plot."

"She doesn't deserve it."

Then my brother Arthur's voice came from outside the door.

"Vincent, give my sister back to me!"

Arthur burst in and punched Vincent in the face.

Vincent didn't dodge.

His bodyguards had Arthur pinned to the floor in seconds.

Six years ago, Arthur had been the heir to Whitmore Bank. He lived in a mansion beside Central Park, had a driver whenever he went out, and could spend an ordinary man's monthly salary on a single meal.

Now Whitmore Bank was bankrupt.

My father was dead, and Arthur was in prison for financial crimes. Today he had been escorted out to claim my body.

And Vincent, whom Arthur had once looked down on, now controlled most of New York's underground business.

The docks, the casinos, the nightclubs, and the underground fight rings all paid him.

When the other families met him, they too had to greet him first as Don Moretti.

"Why is Eloise dead?" Arthur shouted from the floor. "What did you do to her?"

"She got Sophia killed and didn't dare face the consequences," Vincent said. "She killed herself."

"It wasn't her doing!"

Arthur cursed him, his eyes red.

"She was protecting you the whole time! You fool, you're going to regret this!"

Vincent sneered.

"The only thing I regret is letting her live six more years."

I stood beside him and heard every word clearly.

My body had stopped breathing the night before, but my soul had not left. I could only follow Vincent, and go no farther than thirty feet from him.

He took my urn and walked to the bank of the Hudson.

Suddenly I understood what he meant to do.

"No!"

I rushed to grab his hand and passed straight through his body.

Vincent opened the urn and poured all of my ashes into the river.

"This is what you owe Sophia."

A gust of wind blew past.

My ashes fell into the river, and a little settled on his black coat.

I looked at him, and suddenly I didn't want to cry anymore.

When he was seventeen, three boys ganged up on him at school and beat him.

I paid for the security footage and made the principal expel all three.

So he wouldn't know I liked him, I said to him on purpose, "I just didn't want you dying on school grounds and hurting the school's reputation."

He believed me.

Fifteen years later, he poured my ashes into the river.

I suppose that was what I got for lying.