Vendetta (Blood for Blood #1)(75)

“What?” I spluttered back into life. “Jack used my father’s diner for drug trafficking?”

“Well, I would have thought those two dots would have been easy to connect, but maybe I’m too close to the situation, so it’s easier for me.” Felice hunkered down so he could be closer to me. “Initially there were just three pivotal members of the Golden Triangle Gang operating on this side of the Atlantic, each one positioned at a different key point in the Midwest; points that, when drawn together on a map, form a perfect triangle” — he made a triangle in the air with his fingers — “of ill-earned profit.”

I felt a bee buzzing dangerously close to my ear and jerked my head on reflex.

“Careful,” Felice warned. He sprang to his feet again. “As the Falcone boss, my brother Angelo was principally in charge of ending this chain of unlawful activities. It was no mean feat, but we have always said, ‘The falcon does not hunt flies.’ Together we were to change the face of the Midwest narcotics underworld.”

Felice’s movements turned fluid, one hand tucked behind his back wistfully, as though he were taking an evening stroll down a quiet street.

“My brother was successful in coordinating the demise of founding fathers one and two of the Golden gang in relatively quick succession, not to mention several key members of their respective crews.” He widened his colorless eyes and looked toward the ceiling like he was talking to someone beyond it. “And if I may say, the family made quite an artful job of them, but I would hate to offend your sensibilities, Persephone, so I won’t go into the details.”

I remembered the newspaper article with a jolt. It had mentioned the Golden Triangle Gang. Angelo Falcone had been suspected of their murders — their brutal murders — but was never charged. I didn’t know whether I could bring myself to believe it, but before I could stop myself I was saying, “And Jack was number three.”

“And Jack Gracewell was the elusive third point on said triangle,” Felice confirmed, his expression suddenly somber. He cracked his knuckles, one by one, and I noticed they were stung just as badly as his face. “Miss Gracewell, I have yet to meet a more slippery, unconscionable individual than your uncle.”

Me too, I realized as nausea rose in my stomach. If everything Felice said was true, I didn’t know my uncle at all. Sure, I knew Jack was capable of acting out of line: He drank too much, he had a short fuse, and he had a tendency to disappear sometimes. But these accusations were something else entirely.

“We almost did it, you know — wiped them all out — and that might have been the end of it, but of course it wasn’t. Because Angelo ran into the wrong brother that fateful Valentine’s night, and then everything changed in the blink of an eye.”

I could taste the bile rising in my throat. I thought of my father all alone in the dark outside the diner and how scared he must have been when Angelo Falcone approached him, yelling. He had no idea who was coming for him. He couldn’t have. He would never be involved in something like that. Right? I clenched my fists to stop my hands from shaking. Just how many people in my life weren’t who they said they were?

“I didn’t know Jack had a brother who looked so like him until the night I saw him shoot my brother. That’s terrible research, is it not? I can tell you, a lot of heads rolled after that unfortunate mix-up.” Felice allowed himself a fleeting smirk before adding, “Literally.”

“You were there?”

He sighed, his bravado diminishing. “It was dark, and Angelo approached the wrong Gracewell. The plan was for my brother to subdue Jack and drag him back into the alley behind the diner so that I would shoot him in private — it was my personal request, you see — but we never got that far, and that is something you do know, at last.”

I flinched at the thought of him shooting Jack.

Felice wagged his finger at me, back and forth like a metronome, until I wanted to rip it off and spit it back in his face. “You mustn’t conceptualize me as the monster. It was Jack who was and is contributing to society’s underbelly in the worst way. And it was Jack who got your father into such an unfortunate position. If I were ever to traffic drugs, which of course I would not, I certainly wouldn’t use one of my brother’s family establishments for storage.”

“Jack isn’t into that stuff.” Doubt caused my words to falter. They fell out of my mouth, unsteady and forced. “My father would never let him do that. I don’t believe you.” I would have crossed my arms and stormed off if I could have. Not because I was angry, but because I was afraid of the truth, and what it meant for my understanding of family, of right and wrong.

“Well fortunately for me, it is of no concern whether you choose to believe me. It does not change the truth of the matter.”

The more I thought about it, though, the more I teetered toward his version of events. After all, it was strange to think that Angelo Falcone would be skulking, unarmed, around a small suburban diner in the middle of the night. And stranger still was all of Jack’s mysterious business in the city. And the money he always seemed to have, the fancy cars and the exquisite suits. There was always something a little off about him: something that caused my mother to keep him at arm’s length, something that had kept him from settling down with a family of his own. And then there was his vehement hatred of the Falcones. The more I pieced everything together, the less ridiculous it was beginning to sound. “So if it is true …” I began.