I’ve wanted to marry Jessie Schultz since we were fourteen years old. It doesn’t matter that I’m just a dumb schmuck from Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, and Jessie’s the most beautiful girl I ever met. It doesn’t matter that her father would rather rearrange my face than let his only daughter end up with the son of a local mobster. But it does matter when he starts threatening Jessie about what he’ll do if he sees us together again. So I gotta wait. Then I get hurt. I can’t let her see me after. Not like this. Not when I can’t even stand up to look her in the eyes. So I wait again. Hoping I get better, knowing if I don’t, it could be the end for us before we even get started.

The cops have come to arrest me. I know it’s them the second I hear that knock on the door. Cops have a knock I’d know in my sleep. That solid firm knock that you can hear anywhere in the apartment. I heard that knock many times before. I heard it when they took my father away. I heard it more times than I can count on my hands each time my brother Tony got busted. But I never thought it would ever be me. This is actually happening. These cops are taking me to jail. I’m going to be booked on a Murder One charge. I’m going to sit in a jail cell just like my brother did and my father did. I got the best lawyer in the city, but I’m not sure if even he can get me out of this one. The evidence is damning. And the worst part? I’m innocent.