The Don Chose His Mistress, So I Chose His Enemy novel · Chapter 19 of 24
Chapter 19: The Vote
On Friday night I walked into the long room above the Calumet club with two hundred men behind me.
They filled the stairs and the doorway and lined the walls.
The families were already seated.
Renato sat at the head with his mother on his left, and my father sat at the foot with his cane across his knees.
Paola sat nowhere.
She stood against the wall beside Maeve, in her cream cardigan, with Declan's captain on her other side.
Declan stood at the back with his left arm in a sling.
He had discharged himself from the ER that afternoon over his sister's open fury.
The Don of Detroit rapped the table with his ring.
"We are called on the motion of Don Emilio Brandolini," he said. "Don Emilio, say it."
My father rose slowly on his cane.
"The Brandolini seat has stood empty of a living heir for eight years," he said.
"I move that it pass to the unborn son of Renato Falzone, held in trust by his grandfather until he comes of age."
"Grandfather?" the man from Cleveland said.
"By the marriage of his house to mine," my father said smoothly. "The child is of my blood in every way that matters."
I stepped up to the table.
"The cup on that mantel has my father's name on it," I said. "It also has my grandfather's. The rule says a Brandolini sits. I'm a Brandolini, and I'm here."
"A woman," Renato's mother said.
"The seat was held by a woman in the war years," the Detroit Don said, to her surprise. "Sit down, Signora."
She did not sit down.
"Before you vote," I said, "I have two things to show this table."
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