Arranged to the Don, Freed from the Lie novel · Chapter 20 of 24
Chapter 20: The Books
Santino's POV
The man from Providence walked up my lawn with his hands in his coat pockets.
The other two came a step behind him.
I knew them both.
One ran the docks at New Haven, and the other held the Maine coast from Portland to the border, and neither had set foot in my house in my lifetime.
My father's men turned their heads as one, and their hands drifted toward their jackets.
"Easy," I said.
It carried across the grass.
Every Carraro man went still.
"Mr. Carraro," said the man from Providence. "Congratulations again. A fine day for a marriage."
"You paid two million dollars for the last one."
"I did, and I was disappointed." He smiled around the lawn. "I thought it only fair to ask my friends what they think of a house that takes in a woman who has already made a fool of one of us."
"We came to listen," said the man from New Haven. "Nothing more."
"Say what you came to say."
"A Don's wife keeps his books," the man from Providence said. "A woman raised by people who sell their daughters. She has every account you have, every dock and every name. And she belongs, by blood, to a family now in front of a judge."
A murmur went through my men.
"Today she smiles for the lawn," he said. "Tomorrow, when the state asks, whose side is she on?"
He had picked his moment well.
I felt the Carraro side of the lawn lean toward him.
My uncle had begun to nod, slowly, and my father's oldest captain was staring at the ground.
I started forward.
A hand closed on my sleeve.
"Santino," Helena said, very quietly. "Don't."
"He's insulting you."
"He's making an argument. Let me answer it."
I looked at her.
She stood on the grass in the white dress she had worn to the lawn, with my mother's ring on her hand.
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