Chapter 19: Edoardo's Hall

The Mancuso hall was the same room where I should have been married.

The chairs had been cleared away.

A long table stood in the center of the floor with one man at the head of it.

Edoardo wore a gray suit and a white shirt, and his hair was combed.

Forty of his men lined the walls, and the captain from Berth Four stood by the door.

I walked the length of the room alone, and nobody spoke until I stopped.

"Viviana," Edoardo said. "You came."

"I said I would."

"Sit."

"I'll stand."

He folded his hands.

"Then we'll do this standing. The lease is on the table, and the filing is at the port authority."

He smiled.

"I'm a patient man. I'd like to do this without a scene."

"Where is the boy?"

"Upstairs. The nurse is feeding him." He tilted his head. "You don't ask about Silvia."

"She's not mine to ask about anymore."

"Good."

I put my hands behind my back so he couldn't see them shake.

"I'm here for the table," I said.

"Then ask."

"You fired on a Don at a house in Lugano without the heads' leave."

"A misunderstanding."

"In front of my mother, my brothers and me."

"A family quarrel."

"And with taking thirty percent of the Lanzetta berths on a wedding that never happened."

"It was signed."

"By my brother, who tore it in half in front of four hundred men this morning."

His smile thinned.

"I'll answer the table on Saturday," he said. "Not in my own house, and not to a girl."

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