(continued from previous post)

Massimo knew his mother would be crazy with worry about him. It had been dark for hours.  He was too afraid to come out from the hillside cave where he had run to hide.  Massimo didn't know if Vincenzo, or his man Paolo, would come back and kill him for what he'd witnessed.  Massimo was terrified, and he was sick with grief over seeing the horrific murder of Salvatore.  Who should he tell?  He checked his cell phon...

                    CHAPTER ONE                        

           The air was warm and unseasonably dry on Massimo's fourteenth birthday.  He crouched and hid among the grape vines of his family’s vineyard.  The sun beat down oppressively; rain was not coming anytime soon.  Fortunately, it was close to harvest time.  What rain had come did its job and nurtured the crop.  He looked on the vines with pride.  They were heavy, pregnant with plump, purple grapes that would produce so...