Super Godfather: My Ex Begs Me on Her Knees novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Federal Hill

In the Don's kitchen Remo meets Tullio's daughter and hears the offer, then goes home to find the locks changed and says yes at midnight.

The Lincoln smelled of cigar smoke and peppermint.

The driver never looked at me, and Tullio Bardi did not speak until we were across the bridge and climbing Federal Hill.

He coughed twice into the handkerchief and put it away.

"You paid them first," he said. "All nine of them."

"They've got families."

"Your wife drained your accounts and you worried about nine paychecks."

"How do you know what my wife did?"

"Because it's my business to know who is selling the waterfront," Tullio said. "Allens Avenue is the last open land on the water. Someone wants it very badly."

The car stopped at a brick house with a green awning and a detached garage.

Inside, the kitchen was long and warm and smelled of garlic.

A woman sat at the far end of the table with a laptop open and a pen behind her ear.

She was about my age, maybe younger.

Her black hair fell straight to her shoulders with a heavy fringe above dark eyes, and she wore a tailored black coat.

She looked at my work jacket, my boots, my hands.

"Papa," she said. "He still has grease on him."

"He had a long morning."

"This is Rosalia," Tullio said. "My daughter. She drives me, she keeps my books, and she does not like surprises."

"Then you'll hate me," I said.

The corner of her mouth moved a quarter inch.

It wasn't a smile, but it was close enough that I noticed.

Tullio lowered himself into the chair at the head of the table, and Rosalia poured him water without being asked.

"I am sixty-nine," he said. "I had two sons. The first drowned at twenty-four. The second died of what he put in his arm, at twenty-nine. That leaves a daughter, an underboss and five old men who call themselves a commission."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be sorry. Be useful." He folded his hands. "I want a successor. The next godfather of this family."

I laughed.

Nobody laughed with me.

"I fix boats," I said.

"You are a man who pays his people before himself. I have not met one in ten years."

"I don't hurt people for money."

"I'm not asking you to." He looked at me over his glass. "I'm asking you to pass tests. Five of them. I will not tell you what they are, and if you fail one, you walk out with nothing, same as this morning."

"And if I pass?"

"Then you sit in my chair and the family answers to you."

"Why would you pick a stranger?"

"Because every man I know has his hand in the cash drawer," Tullio said, "and the one who has been in it longest is my underboss, Corrado Falco."

I held still.

"Falco," I said.

"Dean Falco is his nephew. The company that bought your yard belongs to a family with a long reach, and if you want it back, you will need a longer one."

That was the first time I wanted it.

Not the chair.

The look on Dean's face when I walked back through that gate.

Rosalia closed her laptop.

"Papa asks everyone for something," she said. "Usually it's a favor. Today it's an inheritance. You can say no."

"I'm saying no."

I stood.

My chair scraped the floor.

"I'm sorry about your sons, Don Bardi," I said. "I'm not the man you want."

"You'll know where I live," Tullio said.

My truck was in the lot behind my house in Edgewood, because I hadn't taken it to the yard that morning.

The key didn't work in the front door.

I tried it twice, then walked around to the back and tried the kitchen door.

New brass, shining.

A white envelope was taped to the glass.

I tore it off.

The first page was a foreclosure warning for the house, thirty days.

The second was a note on cream stationery in Shelby's handwriting.

I took my things. I left you the Christmas boxes. Please don't contact me. S.

Please don't contact me.

I read it again standing in my own backyard in the cold.

My mother's roses, dead for the winter, were still tied to the fence the way she had taught me.

I sat down on the back step.

I sat there until the sun went behind the neighbor's roof, with the notice in one hand and a phone that held nine missed calls from my men asking if there would still be work.

I wanted to tell them yes.

I had nothing to tell them.

At eleven that night I was parked on Atwells Avenue with an empty gas tank and a notice that gave me thirty days.

I thought of Dean's laugh through his nose.

I thought of Shelby saying you were just too busy to notice.

I put the truck in gear and drove up Federal Hill.

The lights were on in the green-awning house.

Rosalia opened the door in a grey sweater with her hair tied back and a pen still behind her ear.

She did not say I told you so.

She looked at me for a long moment.

"He said you'd be back before midnight," she said.

"I'm early."

"Say it."

"Tell him yes."

Rosalia stepped aside to let me in.

"First test is at noon," she said. "Don't wear that."

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