He Gave My Seat to His Sweetheart, So I Went Home and Said My Name novel · Chapter 8 of 24

Chapter 8: The Tie

Aurelio Fanti saw me over Massimo's shoulder and held out both arms.

He was seventy-one, with a bald head, a grey three-piece suit and a cane with a silver wolf on top.

I had been afraid of him until I was nine and in love with him ever since.

"Marisa," he said.

His eyes were wet.

"Bambina. Look at you."

I walked into his arms and he held me with the cane hooked over his elbow.

He smelled of pipe smoke and bay rum, the same as when I was small.

"You're thin," he said into my hair.

"You're old."

"I'm a hundred and ten. I'm waiting to see you do something with my friend's house before I die."

"Aurelio," Massimo said quietly.

"I know, I know. Saturday." The old man let me go and patted my cheek.

"Saturday, then. Eat, both of you. You look like you've been fighting a war in a bed."

He went down the stairs, one slow knock of the cane at a time.

I turned on Massimo.

"What is it I don't know yet?"

"Saturday."

"I'm not a child."

"I know."

"Then tell me."

He took a long breath, and his face was patient and immovable.

"If I tell you tonight, you'll walk into that ball as the head of this family, with nine captains at your back and a plan. You won't walk in as a woman taking her mother's dress back from a girl who stole it. I want you to have the second thing first."

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