Chapter 5
Captain Russo finally confessed the meeting.
Six months earlier.
Garrett.
Evelyn.
Five capos.
No Alessia.
No Miriam.
That detail mattered.
“What was discussed?”
Russo rubbed his jaw.
“Household continuity.”
I almost laughed.
“Try again.”
He swallowed.
“Who speaks if you become… unavailable.”
Miriam looked at me.
I kept my face still.
“What does unavailable mean?”
Russo answered carefully.
“Injured. pregnant. grieving. overwhelmed.”
Evelyn leaned back.
“All reasonable contingencies.”
I looked at her.
“I’m not pregnant.”
“No.”
She smiled.
“But you could be.”
My skin went cold.
Garrett looked away.
There.
A future plan.
Not for my death.
Something quieter.
If I had a child, Evelyn expected me to step away temporarily.
Garrett would “help.”
Then temporary would become normal.
Exactly as with Miriam.
I looked at my husband.
“Were you waiting for me to get pregnant?”
His jaw tightened.
“That’s not fair.”
Miriam laughed softly.
No humor.
“Interesting.”
Garrett glared at her.
She continued.
“You told me Alessia would understand once she had a baby to think about.”
I stared.
He closed his eyes.
“You said that?”
Garrett stood.
“I said priorities change.”
“For women?”
Silence.
“Would yours?”
His face hardened.
“I’m not the one who would carry it.”
There.
The entire marriage in one sentence.
My body would create the interruption.
His ambition would fill it.
Evelyn tried to regain control.
“This is what families do. We plan.”
“No.”
I looked around the table.
“You planned around me.”
Then I asked Russo the only question that mattered.
“Why tonight?”
He hesitated.
Garrett answered instead.
“Because your mother refused to leave the head section.”
I looked at Miriam.
She stared at him.
Garrett continued.
“She was told.”
By him.
By Evelyn.
By men who apparently believed my mother required permission to sit beside her daughter.
“And when she refused?”
Evelyn smiled.
“We needed the room to understand boundaries.”
There it was.
The kick.
The shove.
The insult.
Not temper.
Demonstration.
Garrett kicked my mother because he believed if I tolerated it in public, every man watching would understand the new hierarchy.
I looked at him.
“You were testing me.”
He said nothing.
Miriam whispered:
“No.”
I turned.
She looked at Garrett.
“He was testing everyone else.”
May you like
That was worse.
And she was right.
