Chapter 24: Daughter

Giacomo came up behind me at the window and looked down at the street.

He had put on his trousers and nothing else.

"Your father's men," he said.

"I can see that."

"If he wants me gone, he'd send fewer."

"If he wants you dead, he'd send more."

"Then why..."

"Stay here," I said.

I pulled on a robe and went down the stairs barefoot, and I opened the street door.

Franco stood on the step in a black overcoat, with his rings on, holding two paper cups of coffee.

"Morning, sister."

"What is this?"

"Honor guard." He handed me a cup. "Papa was up all night."

"He called every man he has and said, 'My daughter has a television interview at nine. She walks there with the family around her.'"

"He did not."

"He said it twice."

I looked down the street at forty men in black coats.

None of them were looking at me.

They were looking at the sidewalk, respectfully.

"And Giacomo?" I said.

Franco's face did something complicated.

"Papa says the order was seven years old, and it was his to lift. He lifted it at four this morning."

He drank some coffee.

"He says he wasn't going to give his blessing until you took what you wanted without it."

I stood on the step with my cup.

"He said that?"

"Don't cry. I'll cry. Then we'll both be ruined for the cameras."

I laughed, and the men on the sidewalk, who were not supposed to hear, looked at their shoes.

Behind me, on the stairs, Giacomo stood with his shirt in his hand.

"Go," he said. "I'll be here."

I put on the green dress.

It had been cleaned and mended by one of my aunts, and she had not asked me one question.

I walked to the studio between two lines of Castellane men, and the whole street watched from its windows.

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