And really, did I need a smart guy? Gabriel wasn't dumb; he just wasn't school smart. My sister would never understand street smarts because she took our way of life for granted. Since we'd become part of the Laterza family, our circumstances had improved substantially. I remembered when our father was in prison and it had been very hard on my mother.

It was almost like my sister didn't grasp the life we were born into. She also wasn't dumb. She saw it through rose-colored lenses ...