I Won't Bridge an Impossible Gap novel · Chapter 9 of 24

Chapter 9: Thirteen Black Stitches

By nine o'clock the terrace was full of old men again.

The council had come to look at a bullet hole.

They stood around Alessio's broken bedroom window in their black coats, with the housekeeper sweeping glass behind them.

I stood at the back, in a borrowed shirt of his, with my hair pinned up and my hands in my sleeves.

The oldest of them dug a flattened slug out of the headboard with a penknife and held it up to the light.

"Nine millimetre," he said. "Domenico swears he was at Mass."

"Domenico can swear to the Pope," said Alessio. "A man doesn't need to be at the trigger to buy it."

"You have no proof."

"I have a hole six inches over my head."

"And a girl in your bed," said another old man, not quite under his breath.

The terrace went still.

I felt every face turn toward me.

I was ready for it.

I had been ready for five years.

Alessio put the slug down on the table.

"Say that again," he said, quietly. "Louder. So that Nina can hear it."

The old man's mouth moved.

"I only said..."

"You said a girl in my bed. Say her name."

Nobody spoke.

"Her name is Nina Esposito," said Alessio. "She sewed the hem on the dress my cousin's bride wore last spring, and she refused the fee."

He looked at each man in turn.

"Every one of you has sat at my father's table and heard it said she was after the Ruffo fortune. Every one of you heard it, and not one of you put a stop to it. Least of all me."

The oldest man cleared his throat.

"Alessio..."

"I'm not finished." He turned and looked straight down the terrace at me.

"Nina. I let them talk for five years. I told you to let it go. I was wrong, and I'm sorry, in front of everyone who heard it."

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