I Bought His Love, Then He Became the Don novel · Chapter 17 of 76

Chapter 17: The Clinic

I stood up.

I knew the angle. I'd held the photograph on my shop floor the morning of the paint.

I walked across the blue mats and sat down on the bench beside him.

He lowered his phone. He smiled at me.

"Morning, sweetheart."

I took the photo out of my coat pocket and laid it face up on his newspaper.

"You dropped this," I said. "Through my shop door, Monday."

He looked at it. He didn't touch it.

"Who are you here for?"

"My uncle."

"What's his name?"

He didn't answer.

Across the gym, Dad's therapist saw my face and blew her whistle.

Two security guards came through the double doors from the lobby.

"Sir," one of them said. "Can I see your visitor badge?"

The man stood up slowly.

He didn't have a badge.

He looked at my father, still holding the bars with his good hand.

"Nice form, Joe," he said. "Real nice."

Then he walked out between the guards.

The gym was silent.

Dad's therapist came over and put her hand flat on my back.

"Honey, sit down. You're white as a sheet."

I sat down on the practice stairs.

Dad came off the bars on his own and sat down next to me on the second step.

"Well," he said. "I'm never coming back here. That's embarrassing."

"Dad."

"Kidding. Monday. Same time." He bumped my shoulder with his. "You were good. Your mother would've thrown the newspaper at him."

When we came out, Damiano's car was at the curb.

When we came out, Damiano's car was at the curb.

He was leaning on it with his arms folded.

The two men from the shop door were standing by a second car behind him.

"You were out here the whole time," I said.

"The whole time."

"I handled it."

"I heard. She blew the whistle."

He looked at Dad. "Sir. Get in the car, please. It's warm."

Dad looked at me, then got in the car.

Damiano straightened.

"I want men on him every minute he's out of that apartment," he said. "And on you."

"I don't want to live in a cage again."

"It's not a cage."

"I signed up for one in your back room. You tore it up in front of the whole street. I'm not signing another."

He looked down at the sidewalk.

"Then you say how."

I thought about it.

"They knock," I said. "They don't come into the fitting room, ever. No guns in my shop. They don't scare my customers."

"Done."

"They don't stand on the sidewalk like a funeral. They sit in the bakery. They buy something."

"Done."

"And if anybody asks, they're my cousins."

He looked at his two men by the second car.

They were both well over six feet, with necks like fire hydrants.

"Your cousins," he said.

"From Milwaukee."

"Done," Damiano said, and this time he did smile.

The cousins drove us home.

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