I Bought His Love, Then He Became the Don novel · Chapter 70 of 76
Chapter 70: Now They Want Me
I didn't name a price on the church steps.
I put the card in my sewing basket, on top of my good shears, and I didn't take it out for a week.
I didn't need to. I knew what it said.
On Saturday the six of them came to the shop.
They didn't wait on the sidewalk anymore. They didn't even wait on the bench.
The pinky ring held the door for a bride's mother.
The captain with the bad hip helped the bride carry her train in off the street.
The deaf man sat in the window and smiled at everybody, with his hearing aids off.
At ten a widow came in from Bridgeport in a black coat.
Her husband had been a made man for thirty years. When he died, the table sent her an envelope every month.
Then Vito went to Phoenix, and the envelopes stopped, and nobody told her why.
She told me all of it at my fitting room door, with her purse held in front of her in both hands.
"Who stopped it?" I asked the bench.
The captain with the veil looked at his shoes.
"It was Vito's list, Donna. When Vito went, the list went."
"Then make a new list. Put her at the top. Starting this month."
"Donna, with respect, the table..."
I lifted one finger.
He stopped talking.
The whole shop stopped.
The bride stopped turning on the platform. Rita's shears stopped on the green crepe.
I stood there with my finger in the air and pins in my wrist cushion.
I knew where I'd learned it.
At a font, from an old man in a white carnation, stopping a priest.
I put my hand down.
"Starting this month," I said again, more quietly.
"Starting this month, Donna," the veil said.
The widow kissed both my cheeks and went out crying.
At noon the captain in glasses stayed behind when the others went for espresso.
He sat on the edge of the fitting platform in his good suit.
"You got our card."
"I got it."
"I'll say it plain, since you like things read out loud."
He took off his glasses and cleaned them on his tie.
"The pinky ring has four other streets. Two hundred a door, every Friday."
"I know."
"You stay in that chair, and you can stand on every one of them and say 'paid in full.'"
"He won't like it. He'll do it."
He put his glasses back on.
"You leave in May, and the next man in that chair won't."
I didn't say anything.
There wasn't anything honest to say.
He nodded and went out to his espresso.
That night Damiano was at the drafting table when I came in.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–32 of I Bought His Love, Then He Became the Don are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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