Chapter 17: A Don Without a House

On Saturday morning the church was full to the doors.

I had expected a handful of women and an old priest.

Instead the pews were packed with Greco wives, widows and daughters, and behind them, standing along the wall in their good suits, were the men.

Eleven captains came.

Not one sat with Tomasso's empty pew.

Alessia walked up the aisle with her son in her arms and her chin high, in a plain blue dress Tomasso's mother had chosen.

I walked beside her.

Lev stood outside, somewhere across the street, with a rifle I couldn't see.

The priest blessed the boy.

Alessia cried quietly through the whole of it, and the old women in the front pews cried with her.

When it was over, the doors at the back swung open, and light from the street fell down the aisle.

Tomasso stood in it.

He was alone.

His suit was perfect and his driver waited at the curb, and for the first time in all the years I had known him, there was nobody at his shoulder.

"Good morning," he said pleasantly, to the whole church. "I'm sorry to be late to my son's blessing."

Nobody answered.

He walked down the nave, and the pews drew back from him an inch at a time.

"I see my family has found a new head," he said. "Fine. Let it be remembered who fed you all." He stopped at my pew. "Walk out with me, Nika."

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