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“He’s eighty,” Savannah says. “But he’s in excellent health and can easily pass for mid-sixties. I’d love to see old age get him, but it doesn’t look like that will happen anytime soon.”
Rage rises in me, and my jaw tenses.
Savannah looks at me. “Falcon, no.”
“He’s a fucking degenerate. A criminal. He needs to go down, Vannah.”
Vinnie meets my gaze, angry fire as dark as mine in his eyes. “I couldn’t agree more. If you have an idea, Falcon, I’m all in.”
14
SAVANNAH
My entire world is shifting.
My brother, who I thought I’d never see again.
Finding out he’d been so cruelly violated at my grandfather’s hands.
My grandfather…
I was always the apple of his eye.
Little cricket, he used to call me.
Come here and sit with me, my little cricket, he used to say.
I’d crawl into his lap, curl into him, relish the smell of cigar smoke.
He was a handsome silver-haired Italian man, and he always came over for Sunday dinner.
My grandmother died before I was born, and my mother was their only child.
My mother took her role as an organization wife seriously. Caroline Gallo was subdued and quiet for the most part. Always looked good, like a housewife in the fifties. Hair always done, makeup always on, and she rarely wore pants.
Today, her body is as good as mine is. She keeps herself beautiful so she can be adequate arm candy when my father needs to go out with her.
That’s what I would’ve been groomed to be.
But at least with my father, I knew he wasn’t mistreating my mother.
But can I really be sure that’s the case?
“Vinnie,” I say.
“Yeah, Sav?”
“Our father never…”
He shakes his head. “Nope. Not once. Hardly ever laid a hand on me. Only when I actually deserved it.”
“And our mother?”
“You know as well as I do what a good mother she was, but she was a shadow compared to Dad.”
“Do you think Daddy ever…”
“I don’t know, but if he did, we’ll never know.” His face darkens. “Mom would never say a word.”
