Chapter 9: What the Don Keeps

Dario's POV

I let Teresa say it all before I answered.

She is my sister, and she has never wasted my time with a sentence she didn't need.

"The capos met for four hours," she said.

"Stefano spoke for one of them. Three of the five left his table nodding."

"Which three?"

"The three who didn't watch the wedding."

Elise had gone very still beside me, my shirt back on her shoulders.

She wasn't scared.

She was listening, with the quiet face she used to wear over the ledgers.

I watched her put each piece in its place.

"What does he want?" she asked.

"A sit-down," Luca said from the door. "Sunday week, here, the whole table."

"To do what?"

"Stefano will put the Don's marriage before the council. He'll ask whether the Don's judgment is sound."

"Can he?"

"He can ask," I said.

I did not say the rest.

There is a seat at my table that has been empty for fourteen years, and I had not told her what the seat was for.

I told myself she wouldn't believe me yet.

I told myself that if I put it in her hands now, she would never know whether she had chosen me or the chair.

Both are true.

Neither is the whole reason.

"Leave us," I said.

Teresa went.

Luca stayed a moment longer with his face quite blank.

"She doesn't hear about the chair from you," I told him in Italian. "Not from anyone. Not yet."

He nodded once and closed the door.

Elise tilted her head at me.

"I don't speak Italian, Dario."

"I know."

I have lied to a great many men in my life, and I had promised this one woman I never would.

I told her no lie.

I only did not finish the truth, and I knew exactly what I was doing.

She let it go, and I hated how grateful I was.

"Come upstairs," I said.

In the bedroom I locked the door and turned her to face the bed.

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