After My Heart Died, The Don Begged Crying at My Feet novel · Chapter 22 of 24
Chapter 22: Anneliese's POV
Anneliese's POV
On Tuesday I ruled my first full table by myself.
Twenty captains sat in Nolan Hall with Pace's empty chair among them, and every one of them had a hand out for his warehouses.
I listened to them for an hour.
A Nolan man wanted the rents.
A Ventresca man wanted the loading docks.
The youngest of Dominic's four said, with an edge, that his crew had paid for the privilege of being there.
Dominic stood behind my chair with his arm in a sling and kept quiet, as I had told him to.
He did it so well that I forgot he was there until I wanted him.
"Here is what happens," I said when they were done. "A third of the rents go to the families of the dock men who've died on the job. A third goes to the union pension. A third goes to the table, and the table splits it evenly, and nobody gets more because he shouted louder."
A Nolan captain opened his mouth.
"Nobody," I said.
He closed it.
The youngest Ventresca man looked at me for a moment.
"Fair," he said.
It was the best word I had heard all week.
Fitz, behind me, made a small noise that might have been a cough, and I knew he was trying not to cry.
That night, in our bedroom, Dominic sat on the edge of the bed with his shirt open and his sling folded on the chair.
"You were very good today," he said.
"I know."
"I thought you might want to hear it from somebody who isn't Fitz."
"Take off your trousers."
He looked up.
"Yes, boss," he said, very quietly.
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