Chapter 18: The Back Room

Rosalia's POV

The Commission met in the back room of a restaurant in Albany.

The front was open for lunch, and a waiter was folding napkins when we came through.

Nobody in the room looked up at him.

Five long tables had been pushed together in a square, with a chair on each side for the head of a family.

Gemma's father sat on the left, and the old man with white hair sat at the head.

Alessio took the chair for the Durantis. Tullio stood behind him with my brothers.

I stood at the open end of the square, where the floor was bare.

The old man rapped the table once with his ring.

"We are here for the dead of the Duranti house," he said. "Who speaks?"

"I do," Alessio said.

He rose, and the chair scraped.

"I speak before anyone else does," he said. "Not because I am brave. Because it is mine."

The room was silent.

"The test was real. I agreed to it. I sat in a castle my wife could not enter and I drank, while my women died in my house."

"I let Gemma Colombo take my wife's chair for a year."

"I let my wife wear a bullet that was never taken for her. I knew it was a lie, and I let her love me for it."

He did not look at anyone. He looked at the center of the square.

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