Seven Days Before the Mafia Princess Died novel · Chapter 17 of 24
Chapter 17: Sit Down, Papa
My father sat down.
I don't think he chose to.
His knees folded, and he lowered himself onto the stone base of the dog's headstone, because it was the nearest thing, and he put his empty hands on his thighs.
Bianca stood over him with the pistol held loosely at her side.
She wasn't pointing it at anyone.
She was only holding it, the way you hold a cup when you've forgotten you were drinking.
"Give it to me," Carlo said quietly.
She looked at him.
For a second I thought she wouldn't.
Then she turned the gun around and put it in his palm, butt first, and Carlo thumbed the safety on and tucked it in his belt.
The eleven Landi men lowered their weapons one by one.
The sound of it went down the hill, a hundred hands settling.
The oldest of the four stepped up to the stone.
He didn't look at my father.
He looked at the Barsanti crew standing in their forty dark suits, and he said, in his dry old voice, "Who speaks for this house?"
Nobody answered.
The crew looked at the ground.
They looked at each other.
Then, one at a time, they looked at Carlo.
He stood with a hand on his belt and the other on his hip.
I watched my brother learn what he was.
"I do," he said.
His voice wasn't steady, but it was there.
"My father broke the peace of a christening. I knew nothing of it." He swallowed. "I won't pretend I'm clean of what he did to my sister. I'll answer for that."
"That is a separate matter," the old man said. "Today, the Commission asks the crew. Do you keep the Don?"
Not a man moved.
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