I Left the Underboss for the Man Who Remembered Me novel · Chapter 23 of 24

Chapter 23: The Seat

Five captains stood in the street at dawn, in long coats, with their breath showing.

I came down the steel stairs in a borrowed sweater with flour still in my hair.

Ettore walked half a step behind me, and I did not tell him to stand anywhere else.

The oldest of them, a stooped man with a white mustache, took off his hat.

"Miss Orsini," he said. "We have voted. Your father's chair is vacant by his own wish. We want you in it."

"Today?"

"Today. Before the Falcone captains choose a man we don't like."

I looked at the five faces.

I thought of the table in the church hall, and every woman who had ever sat at the back of it with a tray.

"I'll take it," I said, "on three terms."

A man at the end shifted.

"Terms?"

"One. The books are open. Every dollar that moves through Red Hook, every union dues roll, where anyone can see it. No more envelopes."

The old man with the mustache blinked.

"Two. Nobody in this Family is promised at birth. Not my children, not yours, not anyone's. No daughter is pledged, and no son either. They marry whom they choose."

That produced a longer silence.

A younger captain began to object, and the oldest put a hand on his arm.

"And three?"

"Three." I looked at Ettore. "The man who runs my docks is the man who ran my father's, and he is paid what he's worth. He doesn't stand at a door. He sits at the table, at my right hand."

"Miss Orsini."

"That's all."

Nobody said anything.

Then the old man with the mustache nodded slowly.

"Your father said you'd ask for more," he said. "He'd have given you more."

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