The Pawn novel · Chapter 20 of 24

Chapter 20: Everything I Owe

Cosimo's POV

Her uncle insisted on cooking the dinner.

Rocco told me on the sidewalk outside the restaurant, with his hands in his coat and his eyes on the rooftops.

"Three days out of the hospital and he put on an apron."

"He says if there's going to be a war at his tables, there will be good bread on them."

"Is he all right?"

"He's crying into the veal. He says it's the onions."

I almost smiled.

Then I took off my coat, and Rocco's men took everything else.

They patted me down at the door while Pellegrino's men watched, and found nothing, because there was nothing.

No gun, no knife, no wire.

The man who searched me was one of Lucio's, and his hands were shaking.

Inside, the restaurant was lit with candles, and the long tables had been pushed together under the old pressed-tin ceiling.

There were twenty-six men at them.

Thirteen of mine on the left and thirteen of his on the right, in dark suits, with their wives' perfume still on their collars.

Nobody had a gun in his hand, and every man had one on him.

I took the empty chair at the foot of the table.

Pellegrino was already at the head, in a good gray suit instead of the cardigan, with his glasses folded in his breast pocket.

He raised a glass to me.

I did not raise mine.

Then the kitchen door swung open and Nerina came through it.

She wore white.

It was the same dress, cleaned and pressed, and she had her hair pinned up and her mother's bracelet on her wrist.

She walked down the length of the room between the two sets of men, and every one of them turned to watch her pass.

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