Nero: Made Men novel · Chapter 9 of 24

Chapter 9: The Study

"Alone," Nero repeated behind me.

"The Don's words," the driver said.

"Mona, you don't have to."

"I know," I said.

I looked at the open door of the car and the old man's brick house waiting at the other end of it.

"I want to hear what he says to my face."

Nero's hand closed on my wrist and let go.

"I'll be right behind you," he said.

"Behind me is fine."

Aldo Bellandi's study was on the second floor of the Albemarle Street house.

It had green walls, a wide desk, and a window onto a garden where a fig tree wore burlap for winter.

He sat at the desk in shirt sleeves with his rosary beside a small silver coffee pot.

"Sit, Mona."

I sat.

He poured two cups and slid one across.

"You took a phone to the headmistress and the chief of police in front of three hundred people," Aldo said.

"Yes."

"Nobody told you to."

"No."

"My son would have had it done quietly," he said.

"A man would have lost a job, and a girl would have been moved to another city."

"That's not what I wanted."

"What did you want?"

"I wanted everyone to see her face," I said.

The old man smiled slowly.

"Good. That is exactly right."

He opened a drawer and laid a long envelope on the blotter between us.

"Open it."

Inside was a cashier's check.

Two hundred thousand dollars, made out to me.

"What is this?" I said.

"Four years at any college in the country. Or a house. Or a life far away from here, whichever you prefer."

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