Page 11 of The Golden Hour

“You don’t know anything about me! So you’ve read a few articles, watched some trashy exposés on nighttime TV?” She laughs, harsh and dry. “That makes you some kind of expert on me? On my family?”

I’m on my feet, the porch-railing creaking under my clenching fingers. “Your family is full of crooked elitists and murderers. You’ve got a lot of nerve coming here, staying with my aunt.” I turn to Molly. “And you. What the fuck, Aunt Mol? Her father killed your brother-in-law. My dad.”

Callisto goes pale, shoulders deflating. “I didn’t know,” she says, slanting a glance at Molly. “Not until a few minutes ago. I would never have—”

“Okay,” snaps Molly. “That’s enough, both of you. Get your asses into the house before the neighborhood starts taking notes.”

“I’m sorry,” whispers Callisto aimlessly, then turns and slips through the front door.

When I don’t follow, Molly growls, “Five seconds or I call your mother.”

I drag my feet inside.

7

I’ve died. This is Hell. And the Devil wears the face of a murdered man’s son.

Did my father kill Finn’s father? Maybe. Maybe not. But there’s little doubt in my mind he was responsible. And if not him, another Avellino. My family is a deep-sea octopus, many-armed, all of us poisonous.

I don’t remember much about the trial that put my father in prison. I was young, obsessed with dolls and ponies, and he was often away on business, so extended absences weren’t unusual. The only time I was in the courtroom was the final day, and I later found out that Vivian gave me drugged milk so I stayed calm during the reading of the verdict. Her children—my younger sisters—stayed safe at home. They were insulated from the media storm, the cries of the victim’s family, while I heard it and felt it all, albeit through a haze of codeine.

Even then, I was merely a pawn in their game.

Was Finn there, too, that day in the courtroom? He must have been, must have been cheering in victory as my father was guided out in handcuffs.

If he was, I could hardly blame him.

It hurts, thinking about how Finn and his family must have suffered eight years ago when my father was released. The sentence overturned on appeal. A technicality. Lies.

A gigantic payoff.

I wish there was something I could say to ease his pain—I hate my father, too—but really, I’m just as responsible as anyone. After all, I’m an Avellino. My blood is corrupt.

Molly and Finn are in the living room, their voices low and tense. I’m perched at the top of the stairs, caught between the desire to grab my duffel and run and the need to hear what they’re saying.

“You don’t know that.”

“I do,” insists Molly. “Until today, she had no idea who I was. She came to town a year ago, skinny as a stick and traumatized as all hell. I don’t know what she’s running from, but I can guess.”

Finn scoffs. “You think, what, that her family tried to silence her? Come on, Mol. The Avellinos are psychos, but they wouldn’t kill one of their own.”

Wrong.

Closing my eyes, I see my uncle’s face. His tired eyes, bushy eyebrows, and stern mouth. The fear, the mania, and eventually, the resignation in him.

So much of what I saw while visiting my uncle as a child only makes sense now. Closed doors and whispered conversations in Italian. Cash exchanged in manila envelopes. The two, one-way plane tickets to Italy I found in his coat pocket when he sent me to fetch his phone.

He was planning to take me away.

One visit—one of the last before his death—he brought me to his workshop to clean and oil his guns. There was whiskey on his breath and a mad light in his eyes.

“I’ll keep you safe, Calli. They won’t ever find you, I promise.”

This wasn’t the first time he’d spoken this way. “Who?” I asked, not expecting an answer. But this time was different.

“Your father and that woman he married.”

My hands stilled in their task and I gazed up at him, utterly confused. “But… they’re my parents. Why wouldn’t you want them to find me?”

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