Reborn, My Sister Stole My Marriage novel · Chapter 11 of 24

Chapter 11: The Council

The council met on Saturday morning in the back room of the Verrazzano Social Club in Bensonhurst.

It was a low room with green walls and a long table, and the air smelled of old cigars and espresso.

The capos sat down one side of it.

The old Don sat at the head, with Nino at his right. Rosalia sat on a chair against the wall in a black dress, her hands folded, because women didn't vote.

Women did stand in the doorway if their husbands let them.

I stood in the doorway.

Dominic stood next to me.

He had worn his plain grey suit, and under it I knew there was a gun he was not supposed to be carrying.

"The first item," said the old Don.

Nino stood up.

He had slept badly. I could see it under his eyes, and in the way he held his shoulders very straight.

"Sir, I move that the Ferrante family be banned from New York for good," he said. "Not for the old reasons. For new ones. Ferrante has put a Keane woman in front of this table and taught her to shout at a Brancato mother. I won't have people like that on our streets."

A murmur ran around the table.

"Seconded," said a heavy man at the end.

"Does the accused wish to speak?" said the old Don.

"The accused wife," Nino said, with a thin smile, "can speak from the door."

I stepped forward onto the green carpet.

"Thank you," I said.

Eleven pairs of eyes turned to me.

"I'd like to start with the Keane vote."

I held out my hand.

My father stepped out from behind a pillar at the back of the room, in his best black suit, looking as uncomfortable as I had ever seen him.

He hadn't wanted to come.

I had spent Friday night on the phone with him, from the kitchen floor, and by morning he'd stopped shouting.

"Go on," I said.

"I'm Keane," my father said, gruffly, to the room. "Local 1814, Brooklyn and Staten Island. I've kept the Brancato docks running for thirty years. I'm not here to start a fight. I'm here to say that my daughter married the Ferrante man in front of a priest, and that's the end of it. If he's put out of this city, the union goes with him."

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