Chapter 15: A Plain Lie

Adriano's POV

I stood at the window until her taillights were gone from the dock road.

My lieutenant came up the iron stairs and stopped in the doorway.

"She walked out fast," he said.

"She did."

"Boss, you told her no."

"I know what I told her."

"I've known you since you wore short pants. You couldn't lie to a priest."

He limped to the desk and set down a mug.

"What did you think she'd do?"

"I thought I'd have one more day."

I sat down behind the steel desk.

Last night, Silvio Orsini had poured me wine on a pier under a work lamp.

He had talked for an hour in the voice of a man ordering dinner.

He wanted Manhattan. He wanted the Santoros finished on Saturday, while the captains of both families sat at my table.

"You'll get the whole waterfront," he had said. "Brooklyn to the Narrows, and nobody lifts a hand to stop you."

"All you do is stay home with a headache."

"And if I sit at my own dinner?"

"Then it's a bad night for everyone in the room."

I had told him I would think about it.

I had no intention of staying home.

I meant to sit at the head of that table with my own men behind the walls.

Silvio's people would walk into a house I had built for them.

It was a good plan. It was the best one I had.

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