Chapter 5
I asked the obvious question.
“Why are you practicing now?”
Nobody answered.
That was worse than the arrangement itself.
I looked at Victor.
“I’m alive.”
“Yes.”
“I’m healthy.”
“Yes.”
“So why does Gloria need to prove she can raise Sadie?”
His jaw tightened.
Pierce pushed his chair back slightly.
I saw fear.
Not of me.
Of Victor.
Interesting.
I turned to him.
“What do you know?”
“Nothing.”
“Wrong answer.”
He rubbed both hands over his face.
Then looked at Gloria.
She whispered, “Don’t.”
There.
Three people.
Three levels.
Victor at the top.
Gloria cooperating.
Pierce carrying things between them.
I leaned back.
“Now I’m interested.”
Pierce closed his eyes.
“There’s been pressure.”
“From who?”
“North crews.”
“What kind?”
“They think you’ve become too protective of household interests.”
I almost laughed.
“Meaning?”
Victor answered.
“You made decisions based on Sadie.”
“When?”
“The Marco dispute.”
I remembered.
A captain used his teenage son to threaten another family. I removed him.
Victor called it softness.
“The Hale dinner.”
I banned children from council tables after two cousins forced their sons to watch a punishment discussion.
Again.
Softness.
“The Bracco debt.”
I refused to take a widow’s home to cover her dead husband’s obligation.
Softness.
I looked at Victor.
“You call restraint weakness whenever the target can’t fight back.”
His face hardened.
“We call it erosion.”
There.
That was the ideology.
But still not the danger.
“Pressure from north crews doesn’t explain Gloria training my daughter for my death.”
Silence.
I stood.
“Say it.”
Pierce looked at me.
“Some men think you won’t last.”
My chest tightened.
“Why?”
“No one said you’re sick.”
“Then?”
He swallowed.
“They think you’ll be removed.”
The dining room became very quiet.
Gloria looked angry now.
Not frightened.
She believed the conversation itself was betrayal.
I looked at Victor.
“Removed by who?”
He smiled faintly.
“That depends on whether you keep making enemies.”
Finally.
There it was.
Not a prediction.
A condition.
Change your leadership or someone will move.
And Gloria was already proving she could handle Sadie afterward.
I looked at my aunt.
“You’re feeding my daughter scraps because you’re preparing to raise her after men remove me.”
She shook her head.
“No.”
I waited.
She corrected herself.
“I’m preparing her in case you force them to.”
May you like
That was worse.
They had turned my potential murder into something I could supposedly cause by refusing obedience.
