The Don's Wife Stopped Asking novel · Chapter 16 of 24

Chapter 16: The Old Way

Tancredi's POV

The dish on my dresser was empty when I woke.

Under it she had left a note in her small square hand.

I took your father's ring. I'm telling you, not asking. I'll give it back on Saturday, in front of everyone.

I read it, and I put it in my breast pocket.

My uncle had told me for fourteen months that I was not ready to wear that ring.

I had believed him, because it was easier.

"Where first?" Remo said in the car.

"The bakery on Forest Avenue."

"Boss, he won't see you. None of them will. Ignazio's had them to dinner every night this week."

"Then I'll sit on the step."

I did not take a gun, and I did not take Remo inside.

The man who owned the bakery was seventy-four, the oldest captain alive, and the other seventeen turned their heads when he lifted his hand.

I found him in the back room among the flour sacks, sitting at a steel table with his coffee.

He looked at my empty hands.

"You came without anyone," he said.

"I came to ask."

"Ask what?"

I stood, because he had not told me to sit.

"For your vote on Saturday," I said. "I won't give you a reason that sounds good. I let my uncle take your cut for a year, and I sat in the chair while he did it. I knew, and I said nothing."

His eyes did not move.

"Your son owes money to a man on Hylan Boulevard," I said. "My uncle holds the note and has held it over you since spring. I bought it back this morning. Here it is."

I put the paper on the steel table.

I had paid for it with my father's Cadillac and the gold watch from my twenty-first birthday, and I didn't mention either.

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