Tempting the Mafia Twins novel · Chapter 5 of 24

Chapter 5: The Sunday Table

The Valenti house on Deerpath Road had a dining table that sat twenty-two, and on Sunday every chair was full.

I had the Polaroid folded inside my bag, and I held my fork.

Carmine sat at my right in a charcoal suit.

His hand lay on the tablecloth beside mine, close enough to feel the warmth, and he did not touch me.

Sergio sat at the head with the clear tube under his collar and a plate of veal he wasn't eating.

Two aunts, four cousins, three capos with their wives, a priest.

All of them looked at my plate.

"So you bake now," said the woman across from me, one of the aunts, in a voice like a drawer of knives.

"For a living."

"After the way you left, I'm surprised anyone would eat it."

A cousin laughed into his wine.

I put down my fork.

"I left a hospital three days after my daughter died," I said.

"I left in a taxi, alone, with a plastic bag holding my hospital bracelet and a prescription."

"Nobody from this table came."

The laughing stopped.

"Anyone here who wants to tell me again what I did wrong," I said, "I'm listening."

Nobody said a word.

At the head of the table, Sergio's eyes narrowed a fraction.

"Grace," he said, flatly, to the priest, and the priest cleared his throat and began.

When it was over and the plates were moving, I felt Carmine's hand turn over on the cloth.

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