38. Vinnie

38

VINNIE

S avannah and I get through the funeral and the burial, though I’m not sure how.

Later, when I’m driving my father back to prison where he will surrender himself, I ask him something.

“Mom was trying to tell me something about you, Dad. Do you know what it was?”

He raises his eyebrows. “No, I have no idea.”

“She wasn’t making any sense.” I scratch my chin. “First she said something about Grandfather. Then about you. She said she had to tell me, and then the alarms started going off on her machines.”

“And we lost her…” he says quietly.

“Yes. So you can understand my issue. She was trying to tell me something, and I got the feeling that it was important. Something that she’d kept from me for far too long.”

He draws in a long breath. “I wish I knew, son. But I don’t. If it was about your grandfather, I probably wouldn’t know anyway. And if it was about me?” He shrugs. “You know everything about me, Vinnie. You know that my marriage to your mother was arranged, that my father was your grandfather’s consigliore. That I was a golden boy, considered to be the best match for your mother. I’m afraid I disappointed your grandfather greatly on that.”

“But you loved Mom.”

“We grew to love each other, yes. And now? I can’t think of anyone from my past I’d rather spend my life with. It’s just as well that I’ll be incarcerated for the rest of it, because I can’t imagine life without your mother.”

“No, Dad. You can’t think that way. I’m going to get you out of there. When I take over?—”

“No, Vinnie. I killed a man in cold blood.”

“It was hardly cold blood. You were defending Falcon.” I inhale deeply, steeling myself to ask the one question I’m not supposed to ask. “Is he the first man you killed?”

My father doesn’t answer.

Which is, of course, the answer.

“You killed Miles McAllister to save Falcon because you knew Savannah loved him. It wasn’t in self-defense, but it was defense of another.”

He rubs at the bridge of his nose. “None of that matters anymore. Let me stay in prison, son. I’m safe there. No one dares lay a hand on me because they know who my father-in-law is.”

Indeed, my father does not have a scratch on him. For which I’m eternally grateful.

“But I can get you out.”

He shakes his head. “I don’t want to get out. I want to pay for my crimes. And some of them I am sorry for.” He frowns. “But I’m not sorry for killing Miles McAllister. God only knows what he would’ve done to Savannah. Thank God she was able to protect herself from him. As her father, I should have been the one to do that.”

“You did, Dad. You let her go to college, and then you let her work as a parole officer instead of marrying that derelict.”

He swallows, looking down. “But in the end, I couldn’t save her. She was going to have to marry him.”

“Don’t forget that she went to him of her own accord. She thought she was doing it to save Falcon from another prison sentence.”

“Yes, Falcon’s prison sentence.” He frowns, scratching his temple. “Something about that doesn’t make sense to me.”

“It doesn’t make sense to me either. Austin Bellamy is keeping something from me.”

“Texas ranching is a funny business sometimes,” Dad says. “Ranchers often have their own sordid secrets.”

“You and Mom haven’t lived in Texas that long.”

“No, but my guess is that Austin Bellamy has his own secrets, and unfortunately his son had to pay for one of them.”

“What do you know?”

“Vinnie, if I had information that could help you, you know I would tell you. It’s only a hunch.”

“Are you sure? Because someone had to go down for the killing of that young cop.”

“Yes. But the Bellamy family could have found someone else to sacrifice other than one of their own sons.”

My father’s right, of course. The Bellamy Ranch employs hundreds. Anyone could have been out that night. Anyone could have gotten hold of Falcon’s gun.

I have a feeling that the Bellamy ranch shrouds more secrets than perhaps even Austin Bellamy himself knows.

“I believe Falcon is a good man,” I say.

“I do as well. Otherwise I wouldn’t have saved his ass.”

“What about his brothers?”

He shrugs. “I wasn’t able to find out too much about them before I had to go to prison. The older one, Hawk, seems good. But I sense that the younger one is a bit of a loose cannon.”

My father has no idea.

“I’ll look into all of them,” I say. “I’ll make sure Savannah is safe.”

He gives a weak smile. “I know you will, Vinnie.”

“I should’ve been here, Dad.” I run my hands through my hair, sighing. “If I had been, Mikey would still be alive.”

“I’ll never stop mourning your brother,” he says. “Just as I’ll never stop mourning your mother.” He looks at me, a small glimmer of light in his eyes. “But I have you, and I have Savannah. I trust Falcon to keep Savannah safe. And you know what I need you to do.”

“I’ll do it, Dad. You have my word.”

I drop him off at the prison, and when I get back to my mother’s home—now my home—my grandfather is waiting for me at the front door.

“I have nothing to say to you.” I brush past him, opening the door.

“Check your email,” he says. “You’re back on that flight to Colombia. Leaving tonight.”

“Send someone else.” I take a step inside the house.

“Nope. I’m sending you.” He grabs my arm. “You want to be my second-in-command? That’s who I need on this mission. You’d be there now if your mother hadn’t had that heart attack.”

I grit my teeth. “Don’t even talk about my mother.”

He frowns, laying a hand over his heart. “You think this isn’t killing me? She was my child.”

“Yes. Your only child.”

His lips twitch.

And I cock my head.

“My mother was trying to tell me something before she died. Something about you. Something about my father.”

He raises an eyebrow. “You mean you haven’t guessed?”

I whip my arm out of his grasp. “Stop playing games with me, old man. If there’s something I need to know about my father, you need to tell me.”

“All you need to know about Vincent Gallo Senior is that he’s a weakling.” Grandfather scowls.

“Weak men don’t kill a man to save their daughter from marriage to a degenerate.”

He says nothing.

“So don’t ever tell me my father’s a weak man again.”

“To the contrary,” he says, “your father is the strongest man I know.”

“But you just said?—”

I gulp as the truth hits me.

Hard.

Like a fucking boulder.

Oh my God.

What my mother was trying to tell me…

What my grandfather just said…

A sharp, prickling sensation creeps across my skin, as if every nerve is freezing in place, leaving me numb and rigid.

There’s a reason I look so much like my mother, so much like my grandfather. How adamant he was about wishing he’d never sold my mother off to my father. How resolute he was when he said his blood flows through my veins.

And my father doesn’t know. He doesn’t know .

And all mafia brides are supposed to be virgins…

Nausea grips me, but I resist the urge to double over and retch.

“You fucking bastard,” I grit out.

A wicked grin crawls across his wrinkled face. “Now, Vincent,” he sneers. “Is that any way to speak to your father? ”

Vinnie and Raven’s story continues in Victorious Vice!