Chapter 11
I brought Clara to breakfast the next morning.
Not the council.
Breakfast.
Just family.
Her usual chair beside mine had been returned.
Katherine was not present.
Clara climbed up, then looked at the plate in front of her.
Full.
She touched it.
“Mine?”
“Yes.”
“No eat last?”
“No.”
She looked suspicious.
Children remember rules long after adults remove them.
“Even if Daddy gone?”
My chest tightened.
“What do you mean?”
“Aunt Katherine said when Daddy gone, Clara last.”
I set down my coffee.
“Listen to me.”
She looked up.
“You do not eat last because I’m gone.”
“Why?”
“Because food is not rank.”
She frowned.
Reasonable.
Three-year-olds do not naturally understand why adults weaponize dinner seating.
I simplified.
“You eat when you’re hungry.”
She nodded.
Good.
Then she asked:
“Daddy die?”
There it was.
The sentence Katherine planted.
“No.”
I said it too quickly.
No one can promise that.
I corrected myself.
“Not today.”
Clara stared.
“Later?”
“One day. A very, very long time from now, I hope.”
She thought.
“And Clara?”
“One day too.”
She looked offended.
“Don’t want.”
I almost smiled.
“Me neither.”
Then she asked the question Katherine probably never considered.
“If Daddy gone, who hugs Clara?”
My throat tightened.
I had plans for captains.
Routes.
Money.
Succession.
But not enough for that question.
“Salvatore.”
She smiled.
“And Aunt Adriana.”
Nod.
“And your godmother.”
Another nod.
“And a lot of people.”
She relaxed.
That mattered more than who sat in my chair.
Katherine saw my death as a vacancy.
Clara saw it as missing arms.
That was the difference between power and family.
I finished breakfast understanding the succession problem differently.
May you like
If I died tomorrow, the first duty of this house was not finding another boss.
It was making sure my daughter never wondered whether love disappeared with me.
