Our family was shattered that day. My father withdrew from us for more than a year. I was passed around my relatives, and even though I wasn’t around him often and I was just a child, I could still sense the changes in my father. The seething darkness that overtook him. Not long after Matteo turned fourteen, there was a second shift in our family dynamic. My father’s anger simmered to a noxious melancholy, and the divide grew between my brothers and me. Matteo became more serious. Hardened. And Gabe began to spend more and more time away from us. I’d only been six and had no idea what had caused the turbulence in our new normal. Not until years later when I learned about the family—the Gallo crime family and the truth behind my mother’s death. I discovered my father had gone on a killing s
