Chapter 16: The Largest Credit

Livia's POV

The garden room went quiet when I came in.

Fifty people held plates of cake, and my mother stopped one step behind me, where she had stopped all my life.

I did not stop.

I walked to the middle of the carpet and turned around.

"Three capos swore at one table," I said. "The Family's rule says the head of the Family signs."

"Where is the book?"

My father came in through the far door with the consigliere behind him.

Valerio came in last, with his six men.

His face was set and his men stood close behind him.

Something had happened to him in that hall, and none of them would look at me.

"Livia," my father said, pleasantly. "We were interrupted. Sign the claim and we'll all have our toast."

"I'm not claiming anything."

"Then there is no entry." He spread his hands for the room. "A service and its reward are one line in the book. That's the custom."

"That's the custom for you," the old capo said from his window.

Fifty heads turned.

"Zio, you're not well," my father said.

"I'm eighty-one and I'm better than any of you." The tank hissed. "Consigliere. Open to the spring of ninety-four."

The consigliere did not move.

"Open it," the old man said.

"The page where you signed your brother's service, Aurelio. The year he died on the Hudson docks."

"The Family paid his widow nothing, because nobody had claimed anything."

"You signed the service anyway, with no claim, because the oaths were sworn."

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