Chapter 21: Leave It Off

Cara's POV

Domenico did not answer for a long time.

I stood beside him with Paolo's brass keys in my hand and felt his good arm go tight under my fingers.

He looked at my brother, who still wore the sling and the warm face.

"I'm not going to kill you," Domenico said.

Paolo's eyebrows lifted a quarter of an inch.

"My brother is buried under a stone with his name on it. I'm not putting a second stone beside it for you."

"That's generous."

"It isn't." Domenico turned to the white-mustached man.

"I want him to sign it. What happened at Warehouse Nine, who gave the order and who paid."

"In his own hand, with these sixty men as witnesses."

"And?"

"And every harbor in the alliance closes to a Lombardi ship, starting tonight."

A low sound went through the hall.

"His fleet pays the widows he made, and his capos go home with their money back."

"He keeps what's in his pockets and a plane ticket to California, with no port to look at."

Paolo's smile went thin.

"A man's name is a harbor," he said. "You'd take it?"

"You took my brother's. I'm taking yours."

The white-mustached man nodded once, slowly, and the room began to nod with him.

A clerk brought pen and paper to the table.

Paolo sat in front of it, and I watched him read the page before he signed.

He read all of it, line by line, and when he came to the last paragraph he looked up at me.

"Cari."

"I read everything," I said. "You taught me that."

He signed.

The man with the white mustache folded the paper into his coat.

Keep reading free with an account. Start He Replaced His Wife and Lost His Mafia Empire from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.