The Pawn novel · Chapter 9 of 24

Chapter 9: The Meeting

The meeting was set for ten that night in a church hall on the South Side.

It had been closed since the parish merged, and Pellegrino chose it for that reason.

Neutral ground, he said on the phone.

No guns past the door.

Cosimo said yes to everything and hung up.

"They'll have guns past the door," I said.

"So will we."

He put on a fresh black suit and checked the shoulder in the mirror.

I stood behind him in a plain dark dress Rocco had bought somewhere, with my hair pinned back and my mother's bracelet on my wrist.

I had found it in my jeans pocket, and I held it tight in my fist for a minute before I put it on.

"I'm coming in," I said.

"You'll stay in the car."

"I'm coming in with you. I'll stand beside you where he can see me."

He turned.

"Nerina."

"If I sit in a car while two men trade my uncle for me, I am not a person, Cosimo. I am a parcel."

He looked at me for a long moment.

"Beside me," he said at last. "Not in front, and not alone."

"Agreed."

"And if I tell you to leave, you leave."

"We'll see."

His mouth twitched.

It was the first almost-smile I had seen since the kitchen.

The church hall was long and cold, with stacked folding chairs along one wall and a faded banner for a bake sale.

Pellegrino sat alone at a table in the middle of the floor, in his gray cardigan, with a pot of tea in front of him.

Lucio stood behind him.

A square of white gauze covered the left side of his jaw, and his eyes found me the moment I walked in.

I held them.

Eight men stood at the back of the hall, and eight more along the side.

Rocco had brought as many.

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