Page 44 of The Strength Of A Woman

The evening breezerolls in through the open patio doors.

I pick up my glass of wine and walk out, welcoming the quiet humming of the night and the smell of the sea.

Every place has its own characteristics. I love Long Island more than anything in the world, but when I travel overseas, like now, and visit this part of Italy, the rich history of the place sits atop the present reality, adding a new layer of charm and flavor.

Interesting evening, I have to say.

Although engrossed in the beauty of this place, I can’t stop thinking about the woman who had paid me a visit a few hours ago.

Was it out of the question for her to do something stupid like that?

No.

It seems like every time I’m around, Leilani Gallo spills out of herself and becomes a little unhinged.

Taking a sip of wine, I become aware of the soft tickling of a smile.

Unhinged fits her better than it had fit her mother.

There is something in this woman that she surely hadn’t inherited from her parents.

You’d probably need to dig deep in her ancestral line to find a woman like her, the perfect balance between power and softness.

I’ve never seen anything like that.

The powerful women in this life of crime are stern, abrasive, calculated, emotionally stunted, cold-blooded killers.

They’re pretty much like their men.

They have to be like that, or they wouldn’t survive. They’re capable of the most atrocious things.

Sometimes, they’re even more vile than their men.

Leilani Gallo is different.

She’s not cold. She’s a volcano.

She’s not void of emotions. She’s drowning in an ocean of them.

Her power stems from her passion and a strange type of integrity that she had no one to learn from.

That’s why I find it odd.

Where her family excels at lying and cunning games, she explodes with uncomfortable truths that she shouts at the top of her lungs.

Where her family fights for convenience and expediency, she picks the hardest paths to follow.

She is unmanageable in every sense of the word, and she’d stop at nothing to get what she wants.

When you have someone like her, broken yet fearless, living everything through her senses, raw and magnified, and driven forward by a sharp, strong mind, you have someone unbeatable.

Death doesn’t scare her.

Punishments don’t scare her.

Losing her freedom does. And she’d do bolder things than coming to me to preserve it.

For sure, living in the house with the Gallos has only sharpened her abilities, strengthened her will, and taught her even more patience.