He Ransomed His Secret Son and Left Our Daughter novel · Chapter 9 of 24

Chapter 9: Black Silk

"No," said Giacomo.

"Yes," I said.

We said it for twenty minutes, across the long table, over a pot of coffee nobody drank.

Dario stood at the window with his back to us and let us have it out.

"You don't understand what that room is," Giacomo said. "Every family in the state will be there. Sartori's men, his friends, the Russians' cousins. If something goes wrong, I can't protect you."

"They'll be wearing tuxedos," I said. "Not carrying guns."

"They'll be wearing both."

"Sartori swore at your table that he knew nothing. You let him go home. Now he's throwing a party for the woman who threatened your granddaughter and calling her my husband's bride. You think that isn't a message?"

Giacomo's jaw tightened.

"It's a message to me."

"It's a message to everyone who saw him kiss your ring," I said. "It says he can do this to your family and nothing will happen."

"Something will happen."

"When?"

He had no answer.

Because he did not have proof.

He had my word, and a recording I had kept to myself, and a boss who denied everything and smiled while he did it.

A man like Giacomo couldn't start a war over a mistress's threat and a forged lab report.

"Let me go," I said. "Let me stand in that room as Colin's wife, with my own name, in front of his law partners and her father's friends. I won't touch anyone. I'll only say what's true."

"And if it goes badly?"

"Then I'll have been the one who stood up."

Giacomo turned his head slowly toward the window.

"Dario."

Dario didn't turn around.

"If you're asking me to forbid her," he said, "I won't."

"I'm asking if you can keep her alive."

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