The Don's Secret Twins novel · Chapter 9 of 32

Chapter 9: Real Names

Ezio didn't look away from him.

"I don't know," he said. "Yet."

"Yet."

"I never gave that order. I'll find the man who did. And when I do, you'll know his name before anybody else in this city."

Fia's father looked at him for a long moment.

"And then?"

"And then a judge."

Somebody down the table spat a word in Sicilian.

Fia's father held up one hand, and it stopped.

"Sit down, Severino," he said finally. "You came in my door. You eat."

Ezio sat between two of Fia's cousins who hated him.

Coco passed him the bread.

He ate everything they put in front of him, and nobody poisoned him.

On the drive home, he didn't say a word until we turned onto St. Charles.

"Your daughter checks my ears?"

"Since Saturday. She has a whole theory."

"Is it true?"

I looked at him.

His left ear was going pink.

"Hard to say," I said.

On Monday I put the twins in a real school for the first time in their lives.

A brick building uptown with a crooked bell tower and a playground under live oaks.

The principal had a clipboard and a cardigan and a face that had seen everything.

"Last name?"

"Callaway," I said.

I spelled it slowly.

C-A-L-L-A-W-A-Y.

Ozzie watched her write it on the form.

"Is that our real name?"

"That's our real name."

He thought about it.

"Can I write it on my notebook?"

"You can write it on everything."

The principal looked up at me over her clipboard.

"Your file says you teach piano."

"I did. For five years."

"Our music teacher quit in September. We've been doing recorders with a gym coach." She sighed. "Can you start Wednesday?"

"Don't you need to hear me play?"

She pointed down the hall at an upright with a missing E-flat.

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