Benjamin, suddenly perceptive, notices this. He laughs savagely. “Father likes to keep his women in check.” Father. Not Daddy. “Mother was never allowed to leave the house. She was a quiet, obedient woman. It was the same song-and-dance with Colleen, except she wasn’t so quiet or obedient. Father had this plan to marry her to a cartel don. They were going to form an alliance and take over the city, but Colleen didn’t want to marry him, so … She scaled down the side of a hotel window, from the second floor, clinging to the gutter in the rain. The guards saw it but by then it was too late. She was running. She got away. She’s gone. Colleen is gone. The cartel wasn’t happy, y’know, with the disrespect, so they took one of Father’s hands as punishment.”
“I miss her,” he whispers. “She always
