The Mafia Bride They Rejected Became an Underboss novel · Chapter 5 of 16

Chapter 5: Don Duarte

Nobody answered him.

Carina sat down so fast her sunglasses fell off the pew.

Lorenzo sat down next to her.

My two aunts slid all the way to the end without a word, and there was suddenly room for nine people.

Rafael waited until I sat.

Then he sat down beside me, and the kids filed in on my other side.

Chuy climbed into Rafael's lap.

The priest cleared his throat and started the Mass.

I don't remember any of it.

I remember my father's casket, and Rafael's shoulder against mine, and Carina's phone face down on the kneeler.

The reception was back at the house.

Lorenzo had hired a caterer he couldn't afford. There were silver trays of veal and a bartender in a white jacket.

Every family was there.

And every one of them wanted to shake Rafael Duarte's hand.

He shook them all. He was polite. He didn't smile.

Lorenzo waited until I was across the room with the kids.

Then he walked up to Rafael with two glasses of Dad's good scotch.

I watched it happen from beside the piano.

"Don Duarte." Lorenzo held out a glass. "Lorenzo Lombardi. I run the family now. My sister's had a hard few years, and I think we can handle the route between the two of us. Men to men."

Rafael didn't take the glass.

"You run the family?"

"Since my father passed."

"Nine days," Rafael said. "You ran it into three million dollars of debt in nine days?"

The men around them went quiet.

Lorenzo's face flushed.

"I don't know where you heard"

"Your bookmaker is my cousin's brother-in-law." Rafael finally took the glass, looked at it, and set it on the piano. "You want to talk about my route, you talk to her."

He nodded across the room at me.

"And if she says no, the answer's no. And if she says your name to me again tonight, you're going to have a very bad year."

He walked away.

Lorenzo stood there holding one glass of scotch in front of forty people.

Carina found Rafael twenty minutes later.

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