Before I Forget His Name novel · Chapter 20 of 24

Chapter 20: The Fifth Chair

Adriano's POV

The families met at Pier Seven, in the old shipping office with the cracked windows facing the cranes.

Aldo had chosen the place himself.

He wanted the Costanzos' own ground under his feet when he took it.

Five chairs stood around the long table, and four were full.

I took mine. I did not look at the door.

Aldo sat across from me in his camel coat, with the roses from Zurich wilting in a glass of water at his elbow.

"You look tired, ragazzo," he said. "Where is our girl? Where is my niece? I'm told Giulia has had an adventure."

"She's coming."

"Of course she is."

He folded his hands on the table.

He believed he had already won. I could see it in the ease of his shoulders.

The man to my left, the oldest of the heads, cleared his throat.

"We're here to vote on the Donati claim to the Brooklyn piers. Does the Scalise seat want to speak first?"

"No," I said.

They looked at me.

I had come with nothing to bargain, no favors to offer, nothing to trade. I'd decided in the plane.

"I'm not asking for a vote," I said. "I'm asking you to listen to someone else."

The door opened.

Livia came in with Giulia on one side and Bruno on the other, and nobody told her to sit.

She wore a gray wool coat and a dark green scarf.

She walked to the empty fifth chair at the head of the table and put one hand on the back of it.

She did not take it.

My chest hurt.

She had told me she would do this on her own judgment. I had said I would not stand in her way.

I had not known what it would cost me to watch.

"Gentlemen," she said. "My name is Livia Costanzo. The shares in dispute are mine. I'd like to speak before you vote on them."

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