Chapter 5: Eighteen

The soldiers who should have been at the gate were sitting in the grass beside the road.

They stood up when the cars came in, and none of them would look at the Don.

Alessio got out before the car stopped.

"Where is the Donna?" he said.

One of them pointed at the great hall without a word.

The big double doors were closed.

The bar was still down on the inside, so Alessio put his shoulder to the wood.

My older brother joined him, and then my father, and the third time the bar cracked and the doors swung in.

The smell reached us first.

My father stopped on the threshold with his coffee cup still in his hand.

The cup slipped and broke on the marble.

"Love?" he said.

I had never heard my father use that word in that voice.

She lay at the head of the table with her gun in her hand.

My father crossed the room and went down on his knees and gathered her up.

He took her hand and held it hard.

"Love, I am home," he said. "Last night was only a test. It was not real."

She did not answer him.

"You are testing me too, aren't you?" he said. "Wake up. I was wrong."

Her hand hung loose against his knee, and her whole body had gone stiff.

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