The Capo He Raised

They moved me into his house when I was twelve and left me there for seven years. Lev Volkov taught me how to shoot a rifle, how to lie to a cop without blinking, and how never to look at him when we were alone in a room. At nineteen I got out. At twenty-six I came back for my mother's funeral, and the family put me two doors down from him again and asked me to sign a piece of paper I didn't understand. My mother died on a parcel of land she bought with her own money, and now the family wants the parcel. Lev is a capo. He was ordered to keep me in the house until I signed. He did not keep me. He taught me to read a ledger instead. We found the man who killed her, and we found what he was hiding, and we made a decision that the family will never forgive. I didn't sign the paper. I signed the deed. My hand, my name, his witness.