Chapter 7: The Port

Ilario's POV

Marta asked me what I signed on the drive home from the club, and I told her I hadn't signed anything.

It was the truth.

I had never signed a thing.

She watched the side of my face from the passenger seat and counted to herself, the way she does.

"Fiamma wanted to hurt me," she said finally. "That's why she said it."

"Yes."

"But she wouldn't say it unless it was true."

I kept my eyes on the road.

"Nobody has ever been able to lie to you, Marta," I said. "I'm not going to try."

"You lied about the bottle."

I said nothing.

She turned to the window, and I let her.

I dropped her at the house and told her to lock the door.

Then I drove to the port.

I knew what I was going to find before I got there.

Three nights before he died the old man had cut my palm and made me swear, in blood, to say nothing until the ninety days were done.

I had said yes, because I owed him my whole life.

The only thing I hadn't been able to do was stand at the grave and look her in the face afterward.

So I'd looked at the coffin.

Behind me she had held four pins in her hand and I had watched her not break.

It was the proudest I had ever been of anyone, and I couldn't say so.

Ettore's man had driven one of the vans that backed out of Ferry Street.

I'd taken his plate number off the street camera, and the plate had gone to a rental lot behind the Pagano yard.