Chapter 1
My mother paid for the banquet where my cousin made her sit beside a plate of scraps.
I learned that after I found a dog chain around her neck.
There were forty-three people on the patio when I arrived.
Capos.
Family.
Wives.
Men who had worked for me long enough to know when not to look surprised.
Yet every one of them was looking at Adelaide Carbone.
My mother.
Seventy-five years old.
Sitting beside the stone planter with a decorative chain loose around her neck.
Hattie held the other end.
Like a leash.
“If she wants dinner, she can wait like the dogs.”
She laughed.
I stopped walking.
Hattie didn't notice me immediately.
Nolan did.
His smile disappeared first.
That told me something.
I crossed the patio.
Removed the chain.
Placed my mother behind me.
Her wrist felt too thin in my hand.
That told me something else.
Then Ella ran across the patio.
My four-year-old daughter grabbed Adelaide's hand and started crying.
“Dad… They've been starving Grandma for five days.”
Five days.
I looked at the tables.
Prime cuts.
Seafood.
Fresh bread.
Fruit.
Desserts waiting beneath silver covers.
My mother had paid for all of it.
She hosted the summer family banquet every year because she said men behaved better when they had food in front of them.
Apparently Hattie had found an exception.
Nolan stepped between us.
“She eats last.”
He smirked.
“Whatever's left.”
He shoved me.
I knocked his arm aside.
Then hit him once.
Nolan disappeared backward into the copper beverage station.
Metal urns went down.
Cup racks split.
Lemon trays scattered across the stone.
Nobody laughed.
Hattie grabbed my mother's arm.
That was worse.
I tore her hand away and slapped her hard enough to send her backward through the stacked market baskets.
Then I looked at her.
“Five days?”
My voice was quiet.
“You made my mother starve for five days?”
Hattie stared at me from the ground.
Fear finally reached her face.
Good.
I turned toward Adelaide.
“Mom.”
She wouldn't look at me.
That frightened me more than anything Hattie had done.
My mother had buried a husband.
Two brothers.
Friends.
Men who had once been feared throughout half the city.
Adelaide Carbone did not lower her eyes because she was embarrassed.
She lowered them when she was protecting someone.
I crouched beside her.
“What happened?”
“Salvatore…”
“Tell me.”
Her fingers tightened around mine.
“Hattie wasn't trying to punish me.”
I looked toward my cousin.
Hattie's face changed.
Adelaide swallowed.
“They wanted me hungry enough to answer one question.”
Nolan stopped moving beneath the fallen beverage station.
I felt the patio change around me.
“What question?”
May you like
My mother finally looked into my eyes.
“Where you're going tomorrow night.”
