Chapter 22: The House Keeps Its Word

Rocco stayed on his knees on the marble and waited until the ballroom had stopped moving.

"My name is Rocco Bellandi," he said. "Most of you know my father's name better than mine."

A low rustle went through the tables.

Some of the men at the back had turned their chairs. I knew a few of them by their coats.

"For seven years I made one girl's life a misery in my father's house," Rocco said. "She was fifteen when she came."

He did not look at me.

"I took her plates away. I locked her out in the rain."

He swallowed.

"Then I stood in this room and handed over a flash drive I knew nothing about. I smiled while it broke her."

"Rocco," Vittorio said, from table four.

"Let me finish, Father."

It was the first time I had ever heard him say it without fear.

"I did not check one word of it," Rocco said. "I wanted it to be true, so I carried it in."

He lifted his chin.

"Mrs. Wexley's crime is bigger than mine. But mine is mine."

He turned his head and found me at last.

"Sabina, I am sorry. I am not asking for anything."

"I know," I said.

"I'd like to say what I will do instead."

"Go on."

"I will not take my father's chair," he said.

He said it loudly, so the back tables could hear.

"Not now, and not until you tell me I may. If you never do, I'll accept it."

There was a stir among the men in the coats.

One of them said something sharp, and another said, "Quiet."

Vittorio rose from his chair.

He did it slowly and with the cane, and every head in the ballroom followed him.

He climbed no steps. He stood in the aisle with the stage above him and spoke at the level of his own voice.

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