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...


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