Page 65 of The Don

I wait until the door is closed behind the last guard before I grab Pedro by the collar of his jacket. He’s not a small man, but I am so full of rage that he feels like nothing when I slam him against the wall and lift him into the air.

“If you mention her again — if youlookat her again — I’ll make sure that you spend the rest of your days, however short, breathing, eating, and shitting through tubes.” I say these words in a calm voice. My father always told me that the best threats are quiet; the most dangerous men move in shadow. He might not have taken his own advice seriously, but I did.

I do.

Pedro has a sick smile on his face. “Eccoti, Salvatore. Il Macellaio.”

It doesn’t sting to hear my old nickname. I’ve never run from it. And if people remember me as I once was, hopefully they remember the consequences of angering me.

“Do you hear me?” I ask Pedro, still holding him in the air.

“Si, padrino.”

I let him down and then straighten his shirt. “Good. Please, lead the way.”

“Si, padrino.”

* * *

Pedro leads me to a room at the heart of the villa.

Alfonso and Giulio think in terms of conflict only, physical and mental, and they view this room as just another ring for battle. They are not wrong. Every time I have been called to this room, it has been to witness someone fight for their life with words and, more often than not, lose. I refuse to let that be my — and Shae’s — fate.

But I’m certain the other men I saw in this predicament thought the same.

“Arrivati,” Pedro says in a bright tone as if he’s a waiter leading me to my table. I would love to say that the pleasure he takes in this macabre presentation terrifies me, but it doesn’t.

This is my world.

This is where I belong.

I incline my head to Pedro as I walk past him into a long boardroom with a table specifically made to fit the full Board, which is comprised of a Don from every region of the country. While they’re in this room, they only refer to one another by their regions, but I know their names. I know each of these men by sight, and I memorized their biographies years ago, at first out of anger and then as a sound business strategy.

They are all here. Save one. But they have a quorum, and that means this meeting is serious.

I can only assume that Flavia is laughing from hell.

“Have a seat, Salvo,” Piemonte says, pointing toward the head of the long table on the other side of the room from the door.

There’s an empty chair in front of me, but no one ever sits there. Only a fool would put their back to the door. Besides, if I sat there, the dons wouldn’t get the pleasure of sitting in pure silence while I walk the full length of the room to the other chair.

It’s the smallest, pettiest display of their power. I’ve seen some men flinch at just this part, but I would never, especially not when I spot the man sitting in a chair on the side of the room — a place where I have sat, waiting silently until I was called to give The Board the information they needed to pass judgment.

Aldo Milanese is grinning at me like a child waiting for a treat. I’ve seen this look from him before, but I remind myself that he’s not a predator. He’s a bottom feeder, which holds its own kind of danger, but a predator he is not.

I’m the predator here, and I can tell which of the men around the table remember that and which ones think I have gone soft with age like them.

I sit slowly in the empty chair at the head of the table, facing the door. “Capi,” I say with a respectful tip of my head.

“We received a request,” Sardinia says.

“Two requests,” Liguria corrects, never missing a moment to argue with Sardinia.

“We’ll deal with them one at a time,” Abruzzo says, raising his voice just above respectful. He’s the youngest man on The Board and still deferential to the older capos, even when they’re behaving like children.

I let my gaze move around the table, never letting my eyes stop for too long on one face. “As you wish. Where would you like to begin?”

Piemonte turns and nods to Aldo. He stands quickly — too eager, childish.

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