Chapter 19: Hands on the Table

My father held the pistol on Fabrizio with a steady hand.

"You told me she would live," he said.

"I told you what you needed to hear," Fabrizio said.

He did not even raise his hands.

"You looked at the first test, Ettore, and you chose. I only finished the arithmetic."

"I chose my daughter."

"You chose one daughter over the other. I only decided which of them went first."

My father's face twisted.

His hand shook, and he fired.

The shot cracked through the dining room, and a wineglass shattered beside Fabrizio's head.

Fabrizio had not flinched.

"You see?" he said softly to the room. "He cannot even finish it. The old man is finished."

"Then I will," said the old doorman.

He did not shout.

He rapped his cane on the marble once, and every capo rose to his feet.

"By the Commission's authority," he said, "I find that Ettore Albertini knew the heart was his younger daughter's from the first night."

He looked at my father.

"He kept it from his elder daughter. He lied to this table."

My father lowered the gun.

"I find also that he held a gun to a nineteen-year-old boy and took a Family's docks."

His voice shook.

"The Commission watched, and the Commission was wrong."

He turned to the capos.

"Those who strip him of the Albertini name, put your hands on the table."

One hand came down.

Then three.

Then all eleven, flat on the cloth, one after another.

My father looked at them, and he understood that he had lost them.

He laid his pistol on the table and set his signet ring beside it.

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