Chapter 7: The Table

"I'm coming," I told Remo. "The zipper stuck. Tell the driver two minutes."

Massimo had stepped back to the window before I hung up.

His face was calm, but he held the edge of the curtain too tightly.

"Two minutes," I said again, to myself.

"Go," he said. "I'll be in the room before you sit."

I went down in the green dress with my hair loose and my coat over my arm.

Remo's driver held the car door, and Remo looked up from his phone.

He looked at the dress.

He looked at it for a long time.

"Where's the blue?" he said.

"It didn't fit."

"I bought you that."

"I know. I'm sorry."

He took a breath to say something else, and let it go.

"Fine," he said. "Keep your coat on until we're inside."

The Cammarata club stood on the harbor road behind a wall of old brick.

Inside there were candles, white tablecloths, and thirty men in dark suits who stopped talking when we walked in.

Remo put his hand on the small of my back, hard, and steered me through them.

Cinzia was waiting at the head of the room beside her father.

She wore red. Her smile reached me before she did.

"Fio! You came." She kissed both my cheeks. "That color. Where did you get it?"

"A friend lent it."

"It's perfect."

She turned me by the shoulders to face her father.

"Papa, this is Fiora. She's Remo's girl. You've heard me talk about her for years."

Carmine Cammarata was tall, gray-haired and heavy through the shoulders, with a gold watch on his left wrist.

He held out his hand.

I took it.

His grip was warm and dry and went on a second too long.

He looked at my face.

Then at my hair. At the shape of my forehead.

"Miss Bell," he said. "Fiora. Is that your real name?"

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