Chapter 19: The Burned Page

Ettore stood in the doorway of the empty dining room until the last car had gone down Pine Street.

Forty plates sat on the long table with their crumbs.

The candle for his brother still burned at the head, and he blew it out last.

Then he went into the study and took the family book down from the safe.

It was bound in black leather gone soft with age.

It was the only thing his father had ever left him in writing.

He opened it to the first page.

Three lines in his father's hand, in ink that had faded to brown.

Nobody leaves the family with anything.

A debt is never forgiven twice.

The Don never touches what belongs to the family.

He had read them first at ten years old, standing on a chair at this desk.

He had lived by every one of them since.

He had broken all three in a single month.

The door opened behind him.

"There's soup in the kitchen," Zia said.

"I'm not hungry."

"You never are." She stopped at his shoulder and looked at the page. "Ah. That."

"Yes."

"Your father wrote it the year after your mother was taken."

"He was out of his mind with fear, and it came out as rules."

"I know."

"He'd have been wrong about this girl too."

Ettore tore the page along the spine.

It came away with a dry, tired sound.

He crossed to the fireplace, and the ash from the morning's fire was still warm.

He dropped it in.

The paper curled and went brown and caught.

For a moment the old ink showed black in the flame, each word standing up alone.

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