Page 63 of Vendetta
‘I thought Jack would make sure you stayed away from them!’ he countered, his mounting anger beginning to match mine. If we kept this up, I’d be asked to leave by one of the prison guards.
‘You should have told me,’ I said, lowering my voice. ‘I wouldn’t have freaked out. I could have handled it.’Probably. Maybe. Eventually.
‘OK, what if you weren’t afraid, then?’ he said. ‘There was always the chance you might approach them, to try to apologize or make amends for what I did. I know you, Soph. You’ve got a good heart. It’s not foolish to expect something like that from you.’
‘That’s crazy, Dad!’ Maybe it wasn’t, but I was so riled up I wasn’t going to consider the chance he might be right. ‘And what about them staying away from me?’ I hissed. ‘They came into the diner right after they moved in! A less cryptic heads-up would have been nice. I thought Jack was just being weird!’
My father shook his head and sighed, his expression defeated. ‘Maybe we should have gone about it differently,’ he conceded.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘You definitely should have.’
He watched me quietly for a moment. His eyes grew big and round until they dominated his weathered face; there was barely any blue left in them now, just stormy grey. ‘Sophie,now that you know the truth, please stay away from the Falcones, like Jack told you. There’s no knowing how deep their resentment towards me runs, or why they’re back in Cedar Hill again.’
‘OK,’ was all I could muster. I was too spent to argue any more. And besides, it’s not like the Falcones were clamouring to hang out with me anyway.
‘They’re a dangerous family in their own right,’ he continued, his breath hitching.
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ I vaguely remembered something from the time it happened – Angelo Falcone wasn’t exactly a stand-up citizen, but I could do with a refresher course on the details, considering I had deliberately avoided reading anything in-depth about my father’s victim.
‘It means I don’t like any of this,’ he said, and now there was panic pouring from his expression. Panic I could tell he had been trying to hide from me. ‘I don’t like that they’re near my daughter and there’s nothing I can do about it.’
You’ve already done enough, a part of me wanted to say, but I couldn’t be cruel. ‘They’re just boys,’ I said. ‘They’re the same age as me.’
‘Five minutes!’ shouted a stocky prison guard standing three tables over.
My father started wringing his hands. ‘Will you stay away from them? Please be careful. I’ll speak to Jack about this.’
‘They’re just boys,’ I repeated.
He closed his eyes and made an attempt to calm himself. ‘This is what prison does to you.’ When he opened them again, his face was still creased with worry.
I nodded, feigning understanding. ‘Do you think they’re backfor something?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said quietly. ‘I honestly don’t know.’
Out of nowhere, the memory of the black-ribboned honey-pot dropped into my mind. I shook it away.
CHAPTER EIGHTEENTHE ANGEL-MAKER
When I got home, I told my mother I was going to bed with a headache. Fighting the urge to ignore everything and force myself to sleep, I pulled out my father’s old laptop and typed ‘Angelo Falcone, Chicago’ into Google. I found an article from theChicago Sun-Timesdating from two Februaries ago, and clicked on it, and suddenly I was drowning in a sea of nausea and incredulity.
A ‘WHO’S WHO’ OF AMERICA’S INFAMOUS FAMILIES ATTEND FUNERAL OF MOB BOSS ANGELO ‘THE ANGEL-MAKER’ FALCONE
The funeral of notorious mob boss Don Angelo Falcone took place on Tuesday, February 18 at Holy NameCathedral, Chicago. Falcone, who was dubbed ‘The Angel-maker’ due to his alleged position as a prolific Mafia career assassin, was gunned down at 11 p.m. on February 14.
Falcone was outside Gracewell’s, a local diner in the Cedar Hill suburb of Chicago, when he became involved in an altercation with the owner of the establishment. Falcone, who was unarmed, was shot twice in the chest. He died instantly. Michael Gracewell, proprietor of the diner, remains in custody and is awaiting trial. Despite Falcone’s position as a Mafia don, police do not suspect underworld involvement in his death.
Angelo Falcone has been well known to police since his ascendancy to the head of the Falcone crime family in the mid-1990s. Despite his arrest on several occasions, he proved questionably fortuitous in avoiding prison when key witnesses either disappeared or retracted their statements before trial. He is believed to be responsible for the recent brutal murders of two pivotal members of the Golden Triangle Gang, an infamous drug cartel based in the Midwest, among others.
Plain-clothes police officers and members of the FBI were among the crowds outside Holy Name Cathedral on Tuesday. While trouble was not expected due to a tradition of respect shared by Mafia families during funerals, law enforcement officials attended to ascertain who might succeed Angelo Falcone as head of the Falcone Mafia dynasty. The identity of the underboss was unknown at the time of Falcone’s death.
Police believe that Angelo’s younger brother, Felice Falcone, may now succeed him. In a move that seemed tosupport this assertion, Felice Falcone (pictured above) briefly spoke to reporters while other mourners remained tight-lipped after the service.
The suspected current boss of the Falcone Mafia family said about the deceased: ‘Angelo was a true soldier of God. There is no doubt in our minds that he will be rewarded in heaven for his good work here on Earth. He goes to Our Savior with honour and dignity, a clear soul, and a noble heart. We will miss him dearly, but he will never be forgotten.’
The ‘Angel-maker’ was laid to rest in a black marble coffin in the family mausoleum in Graceland Cemetery.
He is survived by his wife – daughter of the rival Genovese mob clan – Elena Genovese-Falcone and their five sons, Valentino, Gianluca, Giorgio, Domenico, and Nicolò (pictured below).
