Mafia Princess Returns novel · Chapter 6 of 24

Chapter 6: The Roof

Adamo found me on the bakery's back step at nine that night, eating a day-old cannoli shell for dinner.

"Come see something," he said.

"I'm busy."

"You're eating dinner on a step."

"It's a very important cannoli."

He held out a hand, and I took it, because I was tired of being careful.

The Basile yard was a chain-link lot full of wrecks and tow trucks, with a two-story cinder-block garage at the back.

He led me up an iron stair on the outside, through a door, and out onto the flat roof.

It was cold up there.

The whole Narrows lay below us, black water and red buoy lights.

The Verrazzano Bridge ran across the dark like a string of white beads.

A ship's horn moaned far out.

There were two folding chairs and a thermos on the tar paper.

"This is where I come to be somebody else," Adamo said.

"Who?"

"A man whose father didn't get cut out of his own lanes."

He poured coffee into the thermos lid and gave it to me.

I drank, and it had far too much sugar again.

"Your guy in the office is eating a ham sandwich," he said.

"He says he'll talk, but only to the Table, with a promise he walks out alive."

"The Table," I said slowly. "Sunday."

"That's what I'm thinking."

I looked at the bridge.

"Why did you laugh at the dinner?"

"I told you."

"You told me the polite reason."

He was quiet for a moment.

"Because in nine years I've never seen anyone in that family say no to your father in front of anybody," he said.

Keep reading free with an account. Start Mafia Princess Returns from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.