Chapter 30
Allesia’s hands closed into fists at her sides.
“You killed my father.”
Vittorio looked at her with mild interest.
“I did not kill your father,” he said. “Your father drove off the Ryan at two in the morning because he was exhausted and because he had been drinking and because he was a man who had spent two years being frightened of me. That is not the same thing as killing him.” He spread his hands. “But I understand why you would prefer to think so. It’s cleaner.”
“You threatened him.”
“I told him the truth.” Vittorio’s voice was pleasant. “I told him that if he ever spoke to anyone about what your mother had given him, I would find everyone he loved and I would take them apart in front of him. He believed me. He was right to.” He looked at Allesia. “He kept his mouth shut for two years, and then he kept it shut forever. That is what a careful man does.”
Dante stepped between them.
“That’s enough.”
Vittorio looked at him, and for the first time something behind the pleasantness flickered.
“You have your mother’s temper,” he said. “She used to look at me like that.”
“Did you kill her?”
The room went quiet.
The river light moved on the concrete floor.
Vittorio did not answer for a long moment.
“I loved your mother,” he said. “Everyone loved your mother. That was the trouble with her. She was loved, and she was honest, and those two things together make a person very dangerous.” He walked to the window and looked out at the water. “She found the accounts. She asked me about them, at a dinner, in front of your father. She was not subtle. She never was.”
“What did you do?”
“I told her to be careful.” Vittorio turned. “And three weeks later, she fell down the back stairs of the house in the middle of the night, and she died in the ambulance, and the doctor said it was a hemorrhage and the coroner signed off and everyone was very sad.”
Dante did not move.
“Was it you?”
“It was an accident,” Vittorio said. “Most of it.”
The words hung in the air.
Dante took a step forward, and Matteo’s hand came up behind him — a warning, a reminder, a leash.
Vittorio saw it and smiled.
“See,” he said, “you’re learning. Your father never learned. Your father tried to hit me once, at a Christmas dinner, in front of the whole family. I let him. It cost him everything.” He looked at Dante. “I’m not going to fight you, nephew. I’m going to make you an offer.”