Chapter 9: The Ring

Nico stood up so fast his chair hit the wall.

"No," he said. "No. I built this table."

"My father built it," I said.

"I ran it for fourteen months. I ran every dock and every truck and every payment while you cried in your room."

"I know," I said. "That's what I let you do."

His two men at the back door had been quiet all night.

Now they came off the wall.

One of them put his hand inside his jacket.

I saw it, and so did Cesare, and I felt him take one step toward me.

"Don't," I said, without turning around.

"Renata."

"Let them."

The white-haired captain with the ruined nose put both palms on the table and stood up slowly.

He had held me on his knee when I was four.

"Boys," he said, to Nico's two men. "I'd think very hard about that hand."

The man at the door looked at him.

Another captain stood, and then a third.

I watched them rise one by one, heavy men in good suits, their chairs scraping back.

Seven stood.

Then nine.

Then all eleven.

The two men by the door took their hands out of their jackets and put them at their sides.

Nico looked at his men.

He looked at the captains.

I had never seen him afraid, and I saw it then, in the small muscle by his jaw.

I reached up and unfastened the chain from the back of my neck.

My father's ring slid down into my palm.

It was heavy and warm from my skin, and it had a worn red stone cut with a letter O.

I had worn it for fourteen months and I had never once looked at it in the light.

I set it on the walnut in front of me.

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