The Don Played Broke to Test Me, So I Left With His Baby novel · Chapter 12 of 24

Chapter 12: On His Knees

Cesare came through the door at thirty minutes exactly.

He had no coat and no weapon, and his sling hung loose on his chest.

Four of his men stood in the street behind him, and he left them there.

Twenty men in the room turned to look.

Orazio still held the pistol against his leg.

"Don Lombardi," he said warmly. "Come in. I believe you have something to ask me."

Cesare walked down the red carpet.

He did not look at the men.

He looked at the boy's hand in mine, and then at me.

He stopped three steps from Orazio, and he went down on both knees.

The room made one sound, all at once.

I had never seen him bend for anyone, not his father's old men, not a priest, not me.

"I'm asking for my sister's son," Cesare said. "I'll stay on my knees as long as you want. I'll sign over the north dock if that's the price. Let the boy go home to his mother."

"The north dock," Orazio said, delighted. "That's a start."

"Say the rest, Orazio," the old man at the card table said.

Orazio's smile slipped.

"What rest?"

"Where's the widow's check?"

"Not now."

"Eleven families on the pension rolls," the old man said. "Eleven. You told us the fund was thin."

"It is thin."

"Because you paid it to a woman."

"A business arrangement."

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