Page 2 of Gary
“We argued about the way the business was being run.”
“That’s a polite way of putting it.” The edge of sarcasm could not be helped, and Gary was done with being diplomatic.
Instead of taking umbrage, he was surprised to see the old man nodding soberly. “In the past, I was excited about all of the Going Ons – seeing the way my old man operated intrigued me, well me, and George.”
His lips twisted. “Not so much with Graham. He was always of the opinion that what we were doing was wrong.” He shrugged one thin shoulder.
“You have to understand that being a Moretti was a high honor, especially in New York and New Jersey. We were feared. People looked up to us, the name was power and might.”
“A name renowned for death and destruction and mayhem, not to mention murder,” Gary intercepted grimly. Using innocent people as collateral damage meant nothing.”
His father nodded again, a faraway look on his face. “Our daddy was king. We were wealthy as hell and people envied us.” His gaze swung to his son, a thoughtful expression on his face.
“You take after your mother.”
“I consider that as a compliment. She was wonderful.”
“Too good for me,” he acknowledged, “I knew it from the beginning and that’s why I…” His voice petered off as he stared across the bedroom towards the window. “Why…, you abused her every chance you got.” Gary’s voice was loaded with bitterness as the memories surged forward.
“I never laid a hand on her!”
“There are far more subtle ways to abuse a person, and you damn well know it. You put her down, her opinions weren’t worth squat. You cheated on her constantly and for as long as she was alive and stuck in this unhappy marriage with you, you made her life a living hell.”
Pushing out of the chair, he rose jerkily and walked over to the window. Yanking the cord, he opened the blinds to allow the fading sunlight in. Sickness be damned, he thought savagely. Grant Moretti did not deserve one bit of his consideration or sympathy.
So, if the old man thought he could sway him because of his condition, well, he was in for a rude awakening. He wanted nothing to do with him or this goddamned haunted house, with the horrible memories.
The silence lengthened inside the room ponderously. The air was thick with the scent of illness and the man propped up in bed breathing was labored.
“I regret the way I treated her.” His quiet voice sounded sincere, but Gary was not buying it. This was his way of trying to make amends, but it was too little, too late.
“Too bad, she is not here to benefit from your remorse. She died knowing that you had little or no regard for her feelings.”
He turned just in time to see the look of remorse on his father’s face but refused to allow it to sway him.
The man had been a manipulator his entire life and bad habits were hard to get rid of. Gary had spent five years in his mother’s village in Italy, with her sister and cousins and had learned to come to grips with his past and the years he spent in a toxic household.
He had also learned to handle guns at the age of six, his father and uncle’s way of initiating him in the family business.
He had been made to watch the way the two men along with his grandfather dealt with the enemies and if you were not bowing to the great Moretti’s, you were essentially an enemy. Retribution was brutal and swift, with no regards for the families left behind.
The excitement wore off when he turned twelve and witnessed his uncle George beating a man to within an inch of his life because he was late with his ‘protection money’.
When he had expressed his distress to his dad, the man had accused him of being a wuss.
“You are a goddamned Moretti and that’s what we do. We get people to fear us. It’s the family business and has been that way since before I was born. You need to man up and get with the program.”
His mother had stood up for him and for her defiance, he was sent away to boarding school in the UK. He had only been back for holidays, because of her and each time he was home, he was more convinced that he did not want to be like his family.
His uncle Graham had been the exception and being the youngest, he had been regarded as a non-Moretti, not fit to be part of the family.
“I am dying.” The sober voice jarred him from his unpleasant reverie. “And I know you probably will not believe me, but I have started making amends for the pain my family has wrought throughout the years.”
Gary’s thick dark brows lifted. “The Moretti family has been around for more than a hundred years and all that time, they have been renowned for one thing only – their mafia connection and everything that goes along with it.
Pray tell me, how do you possible expect all the wrongs to be righted? What do you expect? That you will wave a magic wand and everything you did to people over the period would just what? Disappear? Poof – into the atmosphere and it will have absolved you?” Gary shook his head in disbelief. “Your arrogance is incredible.”
He watched as his father struggled to keep the anger from showing.