Chapter 22: The Grave

Gemma's POV

I came up the cemetery path with twelve men behind me, and every one of them carried a flashlight.

Twelve beams of white light crossed the fog at once and found my father's headstone.

They found Dario, standing over it in a camel overcoat with a pistol in his hand.

They found Santino ten feet from him with nothing in his.

"Dario," I said.

He did not look away from his brother.

"My wife. At last."

"Put it down."

"I don't think I will."

The gun stayed on Santino's chest.

Santino did not move, but his eyes found mine over my husband's shoulder, and I saw in them what he would not say.

Run.

I stepped forward instead, into the light, until I stood between the barrel and the headstone.

"You won't shoot him in front of twelve captains," I said.

"Won't I?"

"They'd have to answer for it. You'd be a Don who shot a made man in a graveyard, and every man here would remember."

Dario studied me.

Then he lowered the pistol, a few inches, with a tired little smile.

"You know what I envy about you?" he said. "You never stopped believing someone was on your side."

The steel box lay open in the grass.

Inside it were stacks of bound cash, two passports and a small gold ring that I recognized.

It was my father's signet.

"You took that off his hand," I said.

"The day he died. I wanted something that was his."

The captains made a sound, low and ugly.

"Tell them," I said. "Tell them why you come here every year."

"To see if I feel anything."

"And do you?"

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