Page 23 of Run

I’d said the same thing so many times before, countless times, but my conviction was ever-strong.

Living under Santo’s control, being crushed under the weight of the fear he bred had been unbearable in its own right.

There was something uniquely awful about living with a father as mercurial as Santo. I never knew which version of him I’d wake up to on any given day. He’d never hurt us, hadn’t ever lifted a finger against me, my sister, or my mother. But while I suspected Santo would never hurt us, I had no doubt if I dared step out of line, those around me would incur his wrath.

Physical harm wasn’t the only risk, or even the biggest. Santo corrupted the people around him, and over time he took what might have once been good people and made them into versions of himself. I’d made peace with the business, understood the gray, sometimes black, areas my father’s business filled. I could live with that. Which probably made me a bad person, but I didn’t care about that.

What I cared about was making sure the people I loved didn’t suffer because of Santo. One of my worst, deepest fears was watching my sister fade like my mother had, twisting herself to fit the stifling mold that my father had created. The other was watching that same kind of change in Vincent, seeing him go from the tough yet still recognizably human he’d been to a mirror image of my father, a creature of calculation who lived only to feed off the pain of others.

The thought had made my heart clench, had kept me up at night. I hadn’t been able to save them, but I hadn’t been able to watch it either. Getting away from my father, from the way he would twist the people I loved most until they were unrecognizable had meant everything to me, and I had been willing to sacrifice everything for it.

Even the only man I’d ever loved.

Seeing Vincent again, touching him, had almost made me forget how much I’d hated that, how unacceptable I’d found it. Almost. But thinking of it now brought those memories back, reminded me anew of why I’d been willing to sacrifice so much.

I looked to Vincent again, ready to plead, willing to do whatever it would take to make him understand, tried to crush the tiny part of me that whispered maybe this would be my chance to convince him to come with me.

When I looked in his eyes, I saw nothing, but the slight shift in his shoulders told me there was thought behind his heavy facade of silence.

“You won’t be,” he finally said.

“Won’t be what?” I asked, searching his expression for some clue of what he meant. Finding none.

“You won’t be under Santo’s control,” he said.

The way he spoke, even, measured, had alarms bells clanging in my brain, but his face still gave away nothing. I wanted to take his words at face value, wanted what he said to be true. But nothing in my life had ever been that easy. And the promise Vincent was offering would surely come at a high price.

“What’s changed?” I asked, the alarm coursing through me, bleeding into my voice.

He locked eyes with me, and I finally saw some hint of emotion. I also saw the deep consideration in his thoughts. Saw the way he hesitated and then seemed to come to a decision.

“Santo’s dead.”

I blinked, dropped my head forward.

I wasn’t shocked, or at least I shouldn’t have been. As soon as I had finally understood who my father was, what he did, I’d known and accepted that his death would come.

But hearing that Santo was dead nearly floored me. He’d always seemed impervious to harm, so detached from humanity that his death, while something I had intellectually understood, seemed impossible emotionally.

“I take it he didn’t die a peaceful death,” I said, numb, almost unable to get the words out of my throat but still needing to know what had happened.

“That’s a matter of interpretation,” he replied.

I could have yelled in frustration but I didn’t. Vincent had never been forthcoming about business, and that wouldn’t change. I shouldn’t even have wasted the breath on the question. Instead of giving in to frustration that boiled under shock, I turned my questions to someone else.

“So Mother sent you?” I asked.

That made sense to me. I’d never understood her bond with my father, didn’t rightfully know if it could be called a bond at all. Whatever it was that tied them, however difficult Santo might have made her life, I knew she would take his death hard.

She valued family above all else. My sister and I weren’t her blood, but she loved us as if we were, and with Santo gone, she’d want her children with her now, even me, the one who’d so badly let her down.

When I looked at Vincent for confirmation, I noticed that he wasn’t responding, something that raised my suspicion, gave rise to worry.

“Vincent?” I said, my mind beginning to race while simultaneously rejecting the possibility that was the source of my concern.

“Your mother didn’t send me,” he finally whispered.

There was so much in what he said, even more in what he didn’t.