Shattered Loyalty, A New Beginning Blooms novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Sunday Table
At Sunday dinner Lucio lays a burner phone from Livia's desk on the table, and Carlo gives her to Santino; she drops her ring into Carlo's espresso and walks out, and at the pier Santino fires into the water.
Carlo Abruzzo tapped his fork against his wine glass, and the whole table went quiet.
There were fourteen of us in his dining room that Sunday.
His crew captains, their wives, his son Lucio, and me.
The veal was still steaming in the middle of the table.
Marta Ranieri, who cooked for these dinners, stopped halfway through the kitchen door with a bread basket in her hands.
"Before we eat," Carlo said, "I have something sad to say."
He was sixty-one, with silver hair and a grey cardigan, and he had raised me since I was twelve.
When my father died on the steps of St. Rocco's with a bullet meant for Carlo, Carlo took me home and never let me feel like a guest.
He looked at me.
"In fourteen months, we have lost nine trucks to the federal government," he said. "Somebody at this table has been talking."
Nobody breathed.
My sapphire ring felt tight on my finger.
I had worn it eight months.
Lucio, sitting at my left, put his hand over mine and squeezed.
Then he took his hand away and reached inside his jacket.
He set a cheap black phone on the white tablecloth, right beside the bread.
"I found this in Livia's desk at the Passyunk office," he said. "I'm sorry, Papa."
I laughed once, because it was ridiculous.
"That isn't mine," I said. "I've never seen that phone in my life."
Carlo picked it up, pressed the screen, and read for a long moment.
"Saturday, Pier 40, three trucks, after midnight," he read aloud. "Sent four days before the raid."
He turned the phone so the captains could see it.
"Only five people knew that schedule," he said. "And the one who typed it into the books was you, my girl."
"Because I type every schedule," I said. "It's my job. Carlo, anyone with a key to my office could plant a phone."
"Who has a key?" he asked.
Lucio did.
I looked at the man I was going to marry in June.
"Lucio," I said. "Look at me."
He studied his plate.
His jaw was working, and his eyes stayed on the veal.
That was when I understood that nobody in this room was going to save me.
At the end of the table, Santino Ranieri stood against the wall with his arms folded.
He was Carlo's enforcer, a big, quiet man with a twice-broken nose and grey coming in at his temples.
In eight years I had heard him say maybe fifty words to me.
He wasn't looking at the phone.
He was looking at Lucio.
"I raised you in this house," Carlo said to me, and his voice cracked.
It was real, that was the worst part.
His eyes were wet.
"I can't protect you from this. If I let it go, I lose the families. I'm sorry, Livia."
"You're sorry," I said.
I stood up.
My chair scraped, and every head turned.
I pulled the sapphire ring off my finger.
I looked at Lucio's bowed head, and then I leaned across the table and dropped the ring into Carlo's espresso cup.
It sank with a small, ugly clink.
"My father bled out on the steps of that church for you," I said. "I want everybody here to remember I said so."
Nobody answered.
The wives stared at their hands.
One of the captains actually crossed himself.
Carlo wiped his eyes with his napkin and nodded at the wall.
"Santino," he said. "Take her. Make it quiet."
I will remember that sentence as long as I live.
Santino unfolded his arms and came down the length of the room.
He didn't grab me.
He stopped a step away and held the door open.
I walked out ahead of him with my head up.
I walked past Marta in the hall, and she pressed a warm roll into my hand without a word and turned her face away.
Outside, the March wind went straight through my dress.
Santino opened the passenger door of a black truck and waited.
I got in.
My legs would not stop shaking, so I held on to the roll.
We drove through South Philly with the radio off.
We crossed under the highway and rolled down to the river, where Pier 40 was dark and empty except for the gulls.
He stopped the truck at the end of the gravel.
"Get out," he said.
It was the first thing he'd said to me in an hour.
I got out.
I could hear the black water slapping the pilings.
"Walk to the edge," he said behind me. "Don't turn around."
I thought about my father.
I thought about Lucio looking at his plate.
I thought, I am not going to beg this man.
I walked to the edge and stood there with my hands open.
A gunshot cracked across the water so loud that I screamed.
Nothing hit me.
Something heavy splashed into the river.
I spun around.
Santino stood ten feet away with the gun pointing at the sky, and he had thrown a spare tire iron into the water.
His face was hard and tired and completely calm.
"Livia Montella just died," he said. "Get back in the truck."
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