Chapter 5: My Father's Men

I set the empty frame down on the dresser, very gently.

"How would you know there was glass in the way, Romina?"

Her smile stayed exactly where it was.

"Everybody knows. It was on the news."

"It wasn't on the news."

For half a second something moved behind her eyes.

Then she pressed her hand to her chest and her voice went small and wet.

"Why are you being so cruel to me? I lost my husband. I almost died last night."

She was saying it to the hallway.

Downstairs, a chair scraped.

I walked past her with my father's robe over my arm and my mother's rosary in my pocket.

At the bottom of the stairs Vin's mother stood with her arms folded.

I didn't stop.

Kirill was leaning on his car with his arms crossed, looking at his watch.

"Fourteen minutes," he said.

"Romina knew about the glass."

He opened my door.

"Get in and tell me slowly."

I told him in the car.

He listened without interrupting and drove with one hand.

When I finished he was quiet for two whole blocks.

"Knowing about glass isn't proof," he said.

"I know."

"Who in that house would follow you?"

"Nobody in that house. But my father's men work the piers. Benno Sartini runs them. He's my godfather."

"Then we go see your godfather."

"I go see my godfather," I said. "If you walk into Benno's club, every man in there reaches for a gun, and we've done this already."

He looked over at me.

"Fine. I'll be at the curb."

"You like curbs."

"I like you coming back out of buildings."

The Pagano social club was a storefront on Passyunk with painted-over windows and an espresso machine older than me.

Keep reading free with an account. Start The Don Shielded Her. So I Became Bratva Queen. from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.