Page 84 of Victorious Vice

“Savannah is a lovely young lady.”

“She is.” I look down. “I should’ve been here for her. I should’ve been here for my brother too. He’d be alive today if I had been. But I ran.”

He lays a tentative hand on my shoulder. “You were a kid, Vinnie. You had your reasons.”

I cock my head. Exactly how much does Bellamy know? Clearly he knows about my run-in with Misha. That I killed him. And he knows about Puzo.

“I was eighteen, Austin. A man in the eyes of the law. But I was a selfish little bastard.”

“You returned. You returned to save your sister.”

“Yeah.” I scoff. “Seventeen short years later. That’s hardly heroic.”

“Hell, none of us are heroes, Vinnie.” He gazes out the window of the car. “You think I haven’t bent the rules in my day?”

This time I chuckle. “I know you have. I’d love to know why you allowed your son to go to prison. And, Austin, I’d love to know something else.”

“Yes.” He clasps his hands together. “Why I decided to excavate under the old barn near the Mexican border that’s on my property. And why it was stopped.”

“For what it’s worth, I wasn’t going to let that happen.”

“Interesting. Why not?”

“I’m not going to tell you that. Besides, I think you probably already know why.”

He rubs at his forehead. “My children are smart. Especially Falcon and Raven. All five of them are brilliant, but those two have an emotional intelligence as well. I know Falcon didn’t kill that young cop.” The muscles in his neck tighten. “I know damned well it was my youngest.”

“Why didn’t you tell Falcon that?”

“Because I love my children. And that’s why I keep them on a need-to-know basis.”

“Just how long has your family been involved with the cartels?” I ask.

“Not as long as you might think,” he says. “But I had to make a choice when my father died. Our money comes from my mother’s side of the family, as you know. She was the only child of Broderick Cooper of Cooper Steel.”

I nod.

“But the ranch, that comes from my father, Brick Bellamy. The Bellamy family has owned this land for a century, and each one of us has added to it. When my father married Sandy, my mother, he built an empire.”

“Yes.”

“Let’s just say this.” He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath in before continuing. “There’s not a lot of difference between a ranching empire and the organized crime empire your grandfather presides over.”

“What exactly are you saying?”

“What I’m saying”—Bellamy takes a moment to drain his glass—“is that power is power. No matter how it is gained or how it is wielded. The cattle empire my father built and the…other operations he got involved in both served to consolidate power.” He pours himself another drink. His hands are steadier than I expect, considering the topic and the hour.

He continues, “Power and influence are universal currencies. Money can be made and lost, but power and influence are constant. They exist in every society, every business, on every level. And where there is power and influence, people will do whatever it takes to protect it.”

I shift uncomfortably in my seat as the words sink in.

“Ranching or manufacturing or shipping metal or running an organized crime syndicate. It all boils down to the same thing.”

I nod. “And that is?”

His dark eyes meet mine. “Control. You asked me why I allowed my son to go to prison. The answer is complex. It was something that had to happen at that time.”

“But he’s your son!”

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