The Don Shielded Her. So I Became Bratva Queen. novel · Chapter 22 of 24

Chapter 22: 9:14, Empty

I looked at the ring on the white cloth.

His father's gold.

I'd watched Vin turn it on his finger at every dinner for four years when he was bored, which was most dinners.

I didn't touch it.

"Thank you," I said to the old man. "No."

The room made a sound.

Behind me, I felt Kirill go still.

"You refuse the seat?"

"I refuse his seat." I pushed the ring back across the cloth to him with one finger. "I don't want anything that was Vin's. I wore his name for four years. It never once covered me."

I looked around the room.

At the families against the walls.

At the dockmen by the kitchen door.

At Benno, with his cap crushed in both hands.

"My father had a seat at this table for thirty years," I said. "When he died, it went to Vin with me, like a piece of furniture. I want it back. Not Cammarata. Pagano."

The oldest man leaned back.

"There hasn't been a Pagano at this table in three years."

"There is now."

"And the Cammarata streets?"

"Let his captains decide who they follow," I said. "Two of them already got up from his table. They know where to sit."

The old men looked at each other.

It took them less than a minute this time.

The oldest one raised his hand.

"The Pagano seat is restored," he said. "Simona Pagano sits at this table in her father's chair, with her father's piers and her father's men."

He looked at Benno.

"Come here, Sartini. Stand where you're supposed to."

Benno came across the room and stood behind my chair, on the other side from Kirill.

The Bratva on one shoulder.

My father's oldest friend on the other.

Benno put his hand on the back of my chair, and I felt it shaking.

Vin was still standing behind his empty chair in the middle of the room.

Nobody was looking at him.

He'd wanted the whole city to watch him shield her.

Now the whole city couldn't be bothered to look.

The second Friday in January, a small box came to the banya gate.

Benno brought it up himself.

Inside, on the velvet, was my old wedding ring.

The diamond his mother had picked.

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