Nero: Made Men novel · Chapter 23 of 24

Chapter 23: Made

On Saturday night the back hall held thirty men and a hundred candles again.

Nobody sat in the carved chair under the saint.

Aldo sat in the last row by the door, in his overcoat, with his hat on his knee.

I did not take my seat in the front row.

I stood on the swept floor in the black silk dress, beside Nero, in a place no woman had ever stood.

Thirty men watched me do it.

The old man from the diner rose from the row of captains.

"Nero Bellandi," he said. "The Table has heard your terms. Say them to the room."

Nero's hand found mine and held it.

He had no coat and no ring and no loft, and he stood with the quiet authority of an owner.

"No more last act," he said. "Not for me, not for any man who comes after. No one in this family is ever put out to prove they can be."

A rumble went along the wall.

"No man is tested with the person he loves. If I take the chair, that is the law of it."

"And the second term?"

"She stands beside me," Nero said. "On this floor, tonight, and at every table I ever sit at. Not behind me. Not in the row."

The fish captain grunted.

"A woman at the oath," he said.

"A woman who took a phone to a police chief," said the ninth captain, "and an oar to Sal Ferraro."

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