KNOX: Volume 3 Read Online Free PDF Page A

forever.”
    I glance into the corner of the basement where the dingy sink and toilet stand open with no walls or curtains for privacy. Next to the toilet is a stack of about two hundred toilet paper rolls. Just a few feet away is a wooden worktable where we’ve been eating standing up. A plastic plate of breadcrumbs and two empty plastic bowls sit on the table. Underneath the table there are about forty gallons of drinking water.
    We’ve been surviving on various soups, pastas, and bread rolls. At least the food isn’t terrible; even if we do have to eat it with our hands. They must be getting the food from a restaurant. Or they could be giving us a portion of whatever they cook for themselves.
    Whatever the case, they don’t plan on letting us starve to death. It doesn’t even seem they want anything to do with us. Other than sliding our food through the slot in the door, they never interact with us. They don’t beat us or threaten us. They don’t talk to us. We’ve never seen their faces. We’ve never heard their voices.
    For all I know, it could be Knox out there.

7

    Bensonhurst hasn’t changed much in eight years. A good portion of 18 th Avenue is closed off tonight for the Santa Rosalia Feast. A food fair Jerry Mainella and I used to love attending, if only because it was a great place to get into trouble and pick up girls.  
    Some days I still miss this place. Today is not one of those days.
    We pass by the shop where John could usually be found sipping sparkling limonata and insisting that everyone “sit and eat a fucking meal.” Now, he’s hiding like a fucking rat in a basement in Newfoundland. We were only able to arrange the terms of his house arrest because his life was in danger. And his lawyer made an excellent case for why I could protect him better than any witness protection program.  
    We turn the corner and pass up my old house. The house where my mother was beaten to death. A “for sale” signpost stands leaning to the left, as if it’s been standing there so long it’s exhausted. The grass is a parched beige from the scorching August heat. At least, back when my mother was still alive, people would water the grass if a house was empty. But I guess this one has been empty too long for anyone to care.
    It’s hard to sell a property where a murder has occurred.
    Bruno pulls the car up next to the curb of a white two-story house on 19 th Avenue, just down the street from my old house on 80 th Street. It’s one of the biggest houses in the neighborhood. John bought up the lot on either side of his house so he could expand. The result is an eight-bedroom house with a yard about six times the size of the tiny yard my mother and I had.
    Everyone envied the Veneto’s house when we were kids. Now I have at least five houses bigger and nicer than this scattered across the globe. But I don’t rub my wealth in anyone’s face. Especially not John’s.  
    No matter what I’ve achieved, I’m still the dumb kid that couldn’t kill Tony Angelo before he got to me. The one who went crying to John after his mother was murdered. And John will always be the man who killed Frank Mainella for helping Tony escape. All because of a promise he made to me to make Tony pay.  
    John is a man of his word. It’s time for me to become a man of mine.
    Bruno opens the gate that surrounds the property and we walk up the pathway toward the front door. He stands to the side, facing the street, as I ring the doorbell. A moment later, I hear light footsteps tapping on the tile just inside the door.
    The door swings open and Marie Veneto looks up at me without a smile or a greeting. She opens the door a bit wider and steps aside for me to come in. I didn’t expect her to jump for joy when she saw me, but this cold reception only confirms my trepidation about coming here.
    “Marie, I’m so sorry about Rebecca.”
    She doesn’t speak as she leads me back toward the kitchen. I follow behind her and the aroma of