He Died for His Lover, Then Returned to Win His Trust novel · Chapter 13 of 40

Chapter 13: The Family Table

Dante walked into the dining hall of the Rossi estate at noon in a gray college hoodie and old sneakers.

Eleven elders sat along the long table under his father's portrait.

Every one of them looked at the hoodie first.

Maria sat at the head, in his father's chair, in a black dress and her mother's pearls.

She did not look at the hoodie at all.

"Cousin," Rodrick said, and rose with his hand out. "You came. We were afraid you wouldn't."

Dante shook the hand.

It was warm and dry and held a little too long.

Rodrick was thirty-two and always smiling, with gelled hair and a gray suit cut to look modest.

In the old life his bullets had put Javier in a hospital bed, and in this one he had not yet fired them.

"I came for the vote," Dante said. "Sit down, Rodrick."

Rodrick sat, still smiling.

"I'll be brief," he said to the table. "Three weeks ago our don left his post. He sleeps in a dormitory. He eats in a cafeteria. He gave his mother the seat and told no one why."

An elder at the far end coughed into his fist.

"I love my cousin," Rodrick said. "But a family cannot be run from a bunk bed. I ask the table to name a head who is present."

"Meaning you," Maria said.

"Meaning anyone the table trusts, signora."

"Meaning you."

Rodrick spread his hands.

Dante stayed standing.

"My father's rule," he said, "is that a don may step back for six months with his mother's hand on the seat, if the table votes it once and the table did. At the funeral. You voted yes, Rodrick. I counted it."

"Circumstances change."

"They haven't. I'm studying medicine. In five months and two weeks I'll be back at this table, and Mama will hand me the chair."

"Studying medicine." A younger elder laughed, and stopped when nobody joined him.

Rodrick leaned back.

"Then maybe our don can explain the photographs," he said.

He slid a folder down the table.

It stopped in front of Dante.

Inside were a dozen prints of the college, the quad, the clinic door, the dormitory stairs.

Javier was in four of them.

Dante looked at the fourth one for exactly as long as he could stand to.

Then he closed the folder and pushed it back with two fingers.

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