"Gino," she glances out the French doors to make sure Angelica isn't standing nearby. "I know he is the uncle to that sweet child and he's done right by her, but he is not a good man."

I nod. I'm afraid to say anything that might interrupt her flow of thought, especially since Angelica could finish her phone call at any moment and come looking for us in the kitchen. It's pretty clear Rina isn't going to say anything bad about Gino in front of her.

"You cannot become a mafioso at the level he is and be a good man. He has killed people, rivals, for no other reason than to obtain power."

I feel a chill run through me. It not like I didn't already suspect that about Gino, but hearing it spoken out loud just makes it more real.

And more dangerous for Max, who does business with him. And I wonder what it would take to change Gino's view of Max from friend to rival.

As if reading my mind, Rina reaches out and touches my arm. "Do not worry about Max. Gino would never hurt him. Not just out of respect for your father and because Gino has known him since he was a boy."

I feel a bit of the weight lift off my heart. But at the risk of interrupting her, I have to ask.

"You said 'not just.' Is there another reason."

She glances around again, then leans closer to me, lowering her voice.

"Yes. Your grandfather."

I stare at her. Of all the things she could have said, that's the least I would have expected.

"My grandfather? I don't know what you mean."

She takes a long breath and exhales slowly. "Your grandfather has documents."

"Documents?" I'm not understanding this. Then the fog starts to clear. My grandfather was Maxwell Sr.'s lawyer. He was there for the meeting with Gino. Does he have legal documents that would incriminate Gino? Is my grandfather blackmailing the head of a prominent New York Mafia family? That sounds like a really good way to get yourself killed.

"Gino will not harm him, or you," Rina says, again with the uncanny ability to read my mind. But I guess it's not really a leap where my mind has gone to. He will kill us all. That's what my grandmother said, her eyes filled with fear, the night Max found her and brought her back to us.

"Your grandfather is a smart man," she reassures me. "He made arrangements so that if anything happens to him, or to his family, the documents will go directly to the FBI, and the press. Even if it appears to be an accident, this will happen."

"Wait," I say, as a sudden thought occurs to me. "Does Max know all this?" Because he supposedly told me everything he knows about what happened that day, and he sure didn't tell me this.

Rina shakes her head no. "His father never told him. Remember, he was just a little boy when all this happened. You still have to be careful with a man like Gino. He is only predictable to a point, and it would not do for Max to lower his guard, and behave as if he were protected."

She leans forward again, her eyes intense. "But if Gino ever harmed Max, he would be a dead man. He would be a man with a bullet in his head. He knows well the reputation of Maxwell Bennett and so he knows this also."

I frown. "But Max's father is in prison. I guess he could still give an order."

"For some things, no order is needed. One acts out of loyalty. And respect." She pauses. "And love."

"Gabe," I say, as it suddenly makes sense. "Gabe would avenge Max."

"I am not speaking of Gabe."

"Who then?"

"Enzo, of course."

Enzo?

I try to picture the elderly man who walks slowly with a slight limp, who polishes cars and prunes the bushes, getting on a plane and flying to New York and somehow getting past Vincenzo to kill Gino.

"You do not believe me," Rina says. "But know this. My Enzo has done what was needed, first as the right-hand man for Max's grandfather, and then for his father. There are some things you know that you never forget."

I must look skeptical because she adds, "With the right skills, you can kill anyone, if you don't mind dying."

I look at her earnest face and am amazed that she is telling me so calmly that Enzo, the man she has loved for decades, would willingly sacrifice his own life to avenge Max if anything were to happen. She says it like it's something ordinary, something to be expected.

"What was it all about, though?" I ask her, trying to get back to the point of my questions.

"What was it about?"

"The meeting, the argument, the thing that led to my grandfather stopping doing business with Maxwell Sr., the thing that left him with documents incriminating enough to make Gino back off on his plans to move into the drug trade in Miami?

"How did you know that much?" she asks me, then quickly adds, "Max. Max must have told you what he knows."

I nod. "And I believe him that that's all he knows. Max would never lie to me. If he knew something and just didn't want to tell me, he wouldn't tell me, but he'd say that outright."

"Yes," she says slowly, "I believe that Max would not lie to you."

I look down at my glass and realize it's empty. No wonder I'm starting to feel a little heady. Before I can stop her, Rina gets up, adds more ice and another shot of tequila to the cranberry mixture, flicks the switch on the blender, then refills my glass.

I might as well. What difference does it make if I get drunk by the pool with Angelica? There's no one here but Rina and Enzo.

"So what was going on?" I ask her again.

"I should not be telling you this. I especially should not be telling you things that Max doesn't even know."

"I need to understand, Rina. I can't get my grandfather to tell me anything. This is part of my family history. And from what you're telling me, there could still be danger all these years later." I lean toward her. "Rina, what if something did happen to my grandfather? Even an accident could set all kinds of things in motion, and I wouldn't have a clue. Please."

"All right," she says. "It's against my better judgment, but I guess I don't see the harm in telling you. It all happened so long ago. Before you were born."

"Right," I say, "because Max was five. I wasn't born until, like, a year later."

"Yes," Rina says, and for a moment she looks like she has drifted off into the past.

"What happened that day?" I press. I know I'm running out of time. I mean, how long can Angelica stay on the phone with Benedicto before she hangs up and comes looking for me? Once she walks in, Rina will shut the conversation down, and I don't know when I'll have another chance like this.

"Was it the drug trade? Is that what Gino was trying to move into in Miami?"

"How did you know that?"

"I just researched what was going on around that time period. That's would have been around the time Griselda Marco, and not long after her, Pablo Escabar, lost their grip on the Miami cocaine empire. Was that what Gino was trying to take over?"

Rina sits back, studies me. "You're a smart girl. Yes, there was a void. Mr. Maxwell wasn't as interested - oh, he always had a drug operation as one of the streams of income, but it wasn't his focus. He tried to keep a low profile on that. Kept out of the way of the Columbians."

I nod. This is what I had imagined was going on.

"His brother - Uncle Eddie, have you met him?"

"No. But Max mentioned him I understand he runs some aspects of the business that Max doesn't want to operate hands on."

"That's correct. Uncle Eddie had a more aggressive approach to filing the void in the drug trade. Since Mr. Maxwell was reluctant to put more resources into it, he figured the solution was to bring in an organization from the outside. Someone who didn't mind getting their hands dirty."

"And that would be Gino."

"Yes, that would be Gino. At that point, Gino was fighting his way to the top of the New York mob. Uncle Eddie had done some business in the past with Gino's brother-in-law." She glances out toward the terrace. "Angelica's dad, who was married to Gino's sister, and was a made man with a good deal of influence himself. Together, he and Gino made a formidable pair. And they clearly saw an opportunity to expand what they were doing in New York, and take over the Miami drug trade."

"With a pipeline to New York, I'm sure."

"Honey, they'd have had a pipeline to pretty much everywhere."

"So what happened?"

"Gino and his brother-in-law, with Uncle Eddie's assistance, made some connections with local gangs, and they were using them to clear out the competition.

"What does that mean?"

"Mostly it meant threats, intimidation. But also gun violence." A sadness comes over her face. "I still remember what he called it. Collateral damage." She almost spits the word out.

"Who?" I ask gently. "What happened, Rina?"

"It was a little girl. She was only six years old. Just coming out of a store with her mom. She had a one of the those oversize lollipops in her hand."

I wait for her to finish, but I think I know.

She looks up at me, her eyes glistening. "A drive-by shooting. One of the gangs Gino had hired. They meant to take out the leader of a rival gang that was trying to set up a new deal with a source in Columbia. The little girl and her mother got caught in the crossfire. They both died."

I feel a lump in my own throat. "I'm sorry."

"The media kept focusing on that. The fact that the little girl was holding the lollipop."

I can imagine. And I can't help think that if it happened today, when everyone pulls out their phone and takes pictures of tragedy, those heart-rending photos would be everywhere.

"That day, at the house. It had just happened." Now her eyes are hot with anger. "It was on the news. One of the men - I don't remember who - interrupted the meeting to tell them. I was there in the room, serving coffee. Gino just shrugged, said we had to expect some collateral damage in a deal like this. Collateral damage."

"Oh god." The image is in my mind now. A little girl, her mother, both lying on the sidewalk, bleeding, maybe dead already, the bright lollipop clutched in her hand.

"Mr. Maxwell, he said this wasn't acceptable. That he had thought it was a bad idea in the first place to involve the gangs in anything but distribution. Now an innocent little girl and her mother were dead. I've never seen him so angry."

"But Gino didn't care," I say numbly.

"All Gino cared about was that they might have to delay some until the media attention died down. But he said gang violence was nothing new, and it wasn't going to be connected to their organizations. They would be in the clear."

"I'll never forget the look on your grandfather's face. By then, no one even realized I was still in the room. I pressed my back into the corner, still holding the tray with the coffee."

My heart is pounding now. It's almost as if I'm back there in the room with her.

"Your grandfather stared them all down. He said it wasn't going to be delayed, it was done. Gino could just pack up and go back to New York, because the deal was off. Uncle Eddie jumped up and I thought he was going to go after him, punch him out right then and there or maybe worse, but Mr. Maxwell told him to sit back down. Gino started shouting that nobody told him when the deal was over, and if Andrew was going to get in the way, well, Gino had ways to deal with people like him."

"He was threatening to kill him," I say, and I can feel icy fingers running along my spine.

"Vincenzo just sat there behind Gino and never took his eyes off your grandfather. I looked at Andrew and I was sure I was looking at a dead man."

"Oh my god."

"Then your grandfather turned toward him, cool as anything, and said exactly what would happen to them all if anything happened to him. The documents he had that directly linked Gino and Uncle Eddie to the gang that killed the child and her mother, but so much more. The records of Gino's dealings with Mr. Maxwell. Documents that tied Gino to drugs, to money laundering, tax fraud." Rina shakes her head.

"I really thought I'd never have to speak of this again."

"I'm sorry. I need to know."

"I suppose you do. Then there was a terrible argument between Mr. Maxwell and Andrew. Shouting at each other. Mr. Maxwell saying that if Andrew exposed Mr. Maxwell, he'd be exposing himself. He'd lose his license as a lawyer and possibly face criminal charges. Andrew shouting back that he didn't care, as long as no other child died in the street because of what they had caused between the gangs.

Gino broke in and said Mr. Maxwell better understand that if he pulled out of this deal because his lawyer didn't have the balls to play with the big boys, there would be serious consequences for him. And he glanced over at Vincenzo when he said it, just so it was clear to everyone in the room what those consequences would be. Then Enzo stood up and stared directly at Vincenzo. There were no words between them but I can tell you now that I was terrified."

I'm completely pulled into this story. I feel like if I closed my eyes I could play out the entire scene in my mind.

"What happened then?"

"Then Andrew turned to Gino and said that as Maxwell Bennett's attorney he was officially terminating their agreement for the drug venture, and that if anything happened to himself or Mr. Maxwell, all the documentation would be released to the media and the FBI, along with a pre-recorded statement by Andrew explaining the entire deal. Then your grandfather stormed out. And he never set foot in this house again."

Rina goes silent and I stare down at the smooth marble surface of the kitchen island, trying to make sense of it all. One thing still puzzles me.

"But why is my grandmother afraid of Max's father then? I know she is, but she suffers from dementia. She can't tell me why. And what does my father have to do with all this?"

"Your father?" Rina says, looking perplexed. "I don't believe he has anything to do with this. I never met your father. I can tell you he was never here for any of the meetings.

"As for why your grandmother fears Maxwell Bennett, I really can't say."

"You can't? Or you won't?"

But before she can answer that question - assuming she even intended to - Angelica is waving at me through the French doors to come back outside. And I realize when I look at her face that she's been crying.

***

The next part will become free on September 23, 2024, but until then, it can be unlocked for only 5 coins.