Chapter 57

"My father was a monster," he said, his voice low and filled with bitterness. "He made our lives a living hell. We were just kids, and he treated us like garbage."

I could tell the anger behind those words; he sounded like a man who had a lot to say, and I was grateful he trusted me enough to tell me this part of his. Russo had always been an enigma I wanted to solve, one that I wanted to turn into reality without fear.

"For every time he got back from meetings and everything, we lived in fear. My mother, my brothers, and I included Nobody was free of his clutches. My father was a principled man, one who had witnessed the Cold War as a Soviet Union soldier and he had lots to pass down; love wasn't one of them. My brothers and I had to find our own paths. We had to craft our own emotions. My father rarely showed emotion. The only emotion he showed was anger, and he did that without fear. An angry father meant that we would be whipped till we bled."

Russo went on to tell me about his ol