My Mafia Husband Never Filed Our Marriage, So I Walked Out Pregnant novel · Chapter 20 of 24

Chapter 20: The Vote

The doctor let her out for four hours with a wheelchair, a blanket and a lecture.

Lena did not use the wheelchair past the front step.

She went up the marble stairs of the house on Seventy-First Street with Damian's hand under her elbow and her chin up.

Cassandra walked on her other side, and Niko came behind them carrying the blanket.

The long dining room had been cleared of food.

Twenty-two captains sat around the table in the candlelight, and every one of them turned to look at her.

Stavros Karras sat at the head with his cane across his knees.

The portrait of Damian's father hung behind him.

"Welcome," Stavros said. "Please. A chair for Mrs. Karras."

Someone brought one.

She sat, and the baby fluttered inside her, a small sure kick, the first.

Damian felt her stiffen.

"Okay?" he said under his breath.

"Fine. She's with us."

"She?"

"I don't know. I just said it."

At the head of the table, Stavros rapped the silver head of his cane on the floor.

"We are here to ask a question about the future of this family," he said. "My grandson has taken a wife in secret, lied to me, and shamed the Pappas in public.

"I do not say it with anger. I say it with sorrow.

"Do we follow a man who breaks his word? Hands for Damian."

Nobody moved.

The oldest captain, a heavy man with a white mustache, looked at the cloth and cleared his throat.

"Stavros," he said, "this is a family matter. Maybe..."

"It is a family vote. Your hands."

"Let me say something first," Damian said.

He rose.

"You have a page on all of us," he said. "Every man here."

The captain with the mustache went still.

Stavros smiled.

"What is he talking about?"

"The ledger, Papou. The one you keep in the safe behind my father's portrait."

Damian crossed the room.

He did not hurry.

He lifted the portrait from its hook and set it against the wall, and the steel door behind it gleamed.

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