Chapter 13: The Walk Out

The old head of the family laid his napkin beside his plate and stood up slowly.

Three other men rose with him, and then five more, until every head of every family at the table was on his feet except my brother.

"A gun at a host's table," the old man said. "Say what you mean to do with it, Massimo. Say it to the Table."

Massimo's hand was shaking.

The barrel wandered from Santo to the two medals on the cloth and back again.

"He will not take her," he said. "She's my sister."

"Then she can tell me so herself," said Santo.

He had not touched his coat.

He stood with both hands open at his sides, and along the walls his men stood just as still, with their hands inside their jackets.

"Tell them to put them away," I said to him.

"When that stops pointing at you."

Before I could answer, a heavy hand closed over my brother's wrist from behind.

It was the head of his guard, the thick man who had once carried me to bed with a fever.

He had come in through the service door, and his face was gray again.

"Don Massimo," he said. "Not at your own table."

He turned the gun out of my brother's fingers and tucked it into his own belt.

Massimo let him.

"Hands," Santo said quietly, and eleven hands came out of eleven coats, empty.

At the end of the table Nerina's knees folded.

Tullio caught her before she reached the floor.

Santo took one step toward her, and Tullio dragged her back against his chest.