Page 136 of Powerful Deception

I wasn’t expecting that answer. I was thinking what he was going to say until he took over the mob. Not tell me that it continued into last year.

“What?” I ask, trying to speak through the shock. “Why?”

One of his hands lifts up and he goes to brush a few strands of my hair away from my face.

I close my eyes for a few seconds and marvel at his fingertips grazing my face. When I open my eyes, Dante drops his hand and answers my questions.

“I asked the same thing. Why did we keep it up for so long? Thinking about it now, I think at the beginning, it was a kid just trying to placate a cop. In my head, if I had a cop that knew me, then he would help bail me out if I did stupid shit. After a few years went by and my hate for the Falcone family grew with each passing day, we had a common goal we both wanted to destroy. He wanted Falcone behind bars and frankly I had no respect for the man, so I was happy with whatever happened to him. We became friends in a way. He told me about his wife and you and what it was like to be a cop. He was there for my parents’ funeral at twenty-three, was one of Perversa’s first clients-”

“Wait, my dad was a Perversa client?” How did I not know this?

Oh my god, I let Dante fuck me in a club my dad was once a member of.

“He signed up opening night, but he didn’t step foot in there until a few years after your mom died.”

“Seriously?” The picture is forming in my head of my dad sitting on one of the leather couches and getting a lap dance.

I gag at the image.

“He mostly went to drink and de-stress. Not once did I see him get a lap dance.”

“The image is still in my head. Why would he become a client?”

Dante shrugs. “To support me, I guess. After my parents died, or should I say when Falcone killed them, I didn’t have a whole lot of people and the people I did have wanted me dead. Your dad sort of was one of the few people I had, even if we did only meet once every two months.”

“Wow.” Is all I can say in response.

“Yeah.” he says before continuing. “When Falcone died, and I took over, the meeting stopped for a bit. Me taking over as boss was something that he wasn’t expecting, because then he would have to put me away. We clashed for a few years, and didn't talk a whole lot. We mostly just talked when I crossed the line or he arrested one of my men. Things got slightly better about five years ago, but never really got back to how things were before I took over.”

“What changed?”

Dante goes silent for a long minute, just looking at the headstone. “We came to an agreement. He would still be the cop in the friendship, and I will keep my men in check as best I could. He would also tell me if anyone was looking into me and who to stay away from. I did the same.”

I run through his words and I understand them but they are still leaving me confused. “That just sounds like he was looking out for you. How did he get involved with Gallo?”

He takes a deep breath before answering. “Gallo was one of Falcone’s men. His most loyal, I guess you can say. When Alberto died, Gallo thought that he was going to be the one to take over and honestly, I would have been fine with it. But the famiglia voted and they all voted for me to be the new boss, something that Gallo didn’t like. So he left, and took a few of his men with him and formed a famiglia of his own. From day one, Gallo had been trying to find things that would make him more powerful. First it was laundering money, then with getting into the drugs and arms business. But his biggest one was sex trafficking. That’s what started the cops' interest in him about four years ago.”

Dante continues to tell me everything. He tells me how my dad was put on the case and instead of him going to Dante for help in taking down Gallo, my dad decided to do it himself. Like going undercover and getting information from Gallo himself.

According to Dante, dad spent years getting close to Gallo until he was able to get enough to put him away.

But that being on the inside with Gallo, changed my dad. Dante tells me that he became harder, angrier, and it wasn’t just with him, it was also with his coworkers.

He tells me that I probably didn’t notice it because I was out of the house and when I did see my dad, he probably tried to hide it.

I agree. My dad was a completely different person around me than what Dante is painting him out to be.

The story continues with Dante telling me that my dad wanted to everything in his power to get the individuals that were getting sex trafficked out.

“In the end, he got some of them out, but he wasn’t able to save all of them. I think that was the tipping point for him, because three months before his death, he came to me and told me that he was going to pull the plug and arrest Gallo. That he had enough to put him away for life. Gallo found out somehow what Joe was planning, how I have no idea, but I heard from some of my men what was happening. So I went to him. I went to the brownstone and told Joe that he needed to pull away from this. That he needed to step away and hand the case to someone else. That his life was on the line. He said he would, because he couldn't take it anymore and all he wanted to do was spend time with his daughter. That he was tired of thinking that his daughter was going to be the next one to be taken.”

That’s why he would walk me home every night from the bar. Because he was scared. He was scared that I was going to be the next one to be trafficked.

“Oh my god.” I say, the thought of my dad being scared for me brings tears to my eyes. “Then he…”

I can't even say the words. So Dante says them.

“Then Gallo killed him. In the worst way possible.”

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