The Don's Widow Carries His Heir novel · Chapter 12 of 24

Chapter 12: The Vote

I'd heard some version of that sentence my whole life.

At nine, when Marisa got the bigger bedroom because she was scared of the dark.

At sixteen, when they skipped my culinary school open house for her dance recital.

At twenty-five, when they lent her the money for a car and told me to be proud I didn't need it.

I'd always nodded.

"No," I said.

My mother blinked at me.

"She needs something," I said. "So she took my dress. And my husband's cufflinks. And a dead man's ultrasound out of a hospital bag. She's had plenty, Mom."

"Lia," my father said. "That's your sister."

"Then come to the club tomorrow and watch your daughters," I said. "Both of us."

I closed the door.

I locked it.

Then I stood with my back against it until I heard their car pull away.

The social club was a narrow brick building on Atwells with the windows painted dark green from the inside.

Women weren't allowed in the front room. They never had been.

Antonia walked through it at ten on Monday morning.

The men at the card tables stood up as she passed.

I walked behind her with a brown envelope.

Nick walked behind me.

The back room had a long table with a green cloth and five chairs on one side.

The five capos sat in them. The white-haired one with the cane in the middle.

Marisa was already there.

She sat on the left in a black dress with her hand on her stomach.

My parents sat behind her against the wall.

My mother's eyes were swollen. My father wouldn't look at me.

The family lawyer sat at the end with his folder.

I sat on the right, with Antonia.

The old capo cleared his throat.

"Thirty-three days," he said. "Two women say they carry Massimo's child. The seat goes to one of them, or to his mother. Bring what you've got."

Marisa went first.

She slid her printout across the green cloth, the trimmed one, with the crooked edge.

"Ten weeks the day of the funeral," she said softly. "He found out right before he died. He was so happy."

Her voice cracked in the right place.

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