Chapter 4: The Gate

Carmine buttoned his vest as he walked, and I followed him with his jacket over my shoulders.

He stopped me at the front door with one hand on the frame.

"You don't have to be out there."

"He said 'his girl.' I'm not anybody's girl."

Carmine looked at me for a second and then stepped aside.

"After you," he said.

The night air was cold and smelled of the stockyards a mile away.

At the iron gate stood Vince, in a leather jacket, with his hair wrecked.

Behind him an Orsini town car idled with its window rolled halfway down.

Vince saw me in his father's jacket and his whole face changed.

"Lee," he said. "What the hell. It's one in the morning."

"It's one-forty," I said. "I know. I was busy."

He looked from me to his father and back.

"Dad, she's upset. She's confused. She threw a ring at me in front of the Table, for God's sake."

"Because she found you with your hand in Serafina Corsi," Carmine said.

Vince went red.

"That's private."

"You made it public when you stood up at my table."

"It's complicated," Vince said, and tried a smile. "You wouldn't get it. Come on, Lee, let's go home and talk like adults."

Carmine stepped up to the gate and put one hand on the iron.

He did not raise his voice.

"Her name is Leona," he said. "She is not yours. She is not going back to your apartment. Go home."

Four lines.

Vince's mouth opened and nothing came out.

"Dad, you can't-"

"Leona and I are getting married," Carmine said.

The silence that followed was so complete I heard the car's engine tick.

"You're what?" Vince said.

"I'm what," I said. "Goodnight, Vince."

His eyes dropped to my left hand, bare, and back up to the jacket on my shoulders.

Then, slowly, to the way his father's hand had come to rest on the small of my back.

I watched the color leave his face.

It was the first time I had ever seen him lose.

"She was mine," he said. His voice cracked. "Three years."

"You gave her away," Carmine said. "I'm only the one who picked her up."

From the town car, a dry little laugh came.

Ottavio Orsini's window slid the rest of the way down.

He had a cream-colored card between two fingers.

"Congratulations, Carmine," he said pleasantly. "What a surprise. Friday, then. The peace dinner, at my house, as we agreed. Do bring her."

He held the card out of the window.

Vince, with a shaking hand, took it and walked it through the gate.

He did not look at me again.

The town car pulled away.

Teo came out of the shadows by the garage with his seed cup and said, "Well, that was fun."

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