Chapter 18: The Vote

The council met at midnight in the back room of the club.

Fourteen chairs stood around the long table.

Thirteen were full.

The uncle sat at the head, in the seat Silvio had taken a week before.

He had laid his coat over its back to claim it.

Silvio walked to the foot of the table and stayed standing.

I stood beside him, in the scrubs I hadn't changed, with Bruno's blood dried brown on my cuffs.

Nobody told me to sit.

"My nephew brings his wife to a vote," the uncle said. "That's new."

"She treated the wound," Silvio said. "She'll speak to it."

"She's a nurse. She speaks to wounds."

A few of them smiled.

The oldest man did not.

"Let her speak," he said.

I put my hands on the back of the one empty chair, at the foot beside Silvio.

"This morning Bruno Costa was dropped on the pavement behind this club," I said.

"I was there. Two men carried him out and told Silvio he could have the car when he asked nicely."

"Rough justice," the uncle said. "A driver stole from my brother's safe."

"He didn't steal anything."

"The girl wasn't in the room."

"Neither were you," I said. "You were upstairs. You sent two men."

The room made a low noise.

"Bruno has two broken ribs and a collapsed lung," I said. "Twenty stitches in his left arm were torn open."

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