Chapter Ten
GIO
Nonna measures family loyalty in chairs.
Twenty-two chairs surround three tables in her courtyard. Twenty-one are occupied when Keira and I arrive.
The empty one is beside Nonna.
“Late,” she says.
“We are four minutes early.”
“You stopped for flowers.”
Keira looks at the bouquet in my hand.
“You said she liked roses.”
“She likes punctuality more.”
Nonna takes the flowers, kisses Keira on both cheeks, and points to the empty chair.
“You sit here.”
Keira glances at me. I have been moved to the opposite end.
“Apparently marriage has reduced my status,” I say.
“You were never interesting,” Nonna replies.
Lunch at Nonna’s house is not a meal. It is an institution with sauce.
Children move beneath the tables. Aunts argue over bread. Uncles discuss the port in voices too loud to qualify as confidential. Cousins arrive through the kitchen and leave through the courtyard carrying food they did not bring.
Keira observes the hierarchy within four minutes. Nonna serves first.
Aunt Rosa criticizes second. Everyone else waits until both have approved the pasta.
“You understand?” Nonna asks Keira.
“No one eats before you.”
“No one complains before Rosa.”
Aunt Rosa lifts her wine.
“The Irish girl learns.”
Keira tastes the sauce.
“Needs salt.”
The courtyard goes silent. Nonna turns slowly.
I prepare to intervene. Keira points toward Matteo’s plate.
“He added salt before tasting it.”
Nonna looks at Matteo. He freezes with the shaker in his hand.
“Out,” she says.
“Nonna—”
“Eat on the sidewalk.”
Laughter breaks across the table. Matteo carries his plate outside the gate while protesting discrimination.
Keira looks at me.
“Was that excessive?”
“No.”
“Good.”
She eats a second serving. I notice because I always notice.
At the far end of the table, Cousin Carlo begins discussing the terminal agreement. He is thirty-six, manages two warehouses poorly, and believes confidence is a substitute for usefulness.
“The marriage bought us time,” he says. “Now Gio should sign before the Brennans demand more.”
Keira does not look up. I cut bread.
“Counsel is reviewing the language.”
Carlo snorts.
“Counsel has been reviewing it for weeks.”
“Then you understand how difficult reading can be.”
Several people laugh. Carlo does not.
He drinks wine.
“The family needs someone willing to act.”
Nonna’s fork stops. I keep my voice even.
“What action are you volunteering for?”
“I am saying you spend too much time making restaurants respectable while the rest of us protect the name.”
There are insults designed to wound. This one is designed to perform.
Carlo wants the table to remember that I cook and negotiate while other men carry guns.
He mistakes violence for labor because violence is the only work he does well. Keira sets down her glass.
“Which warehouse do you manage?” she asks.
Carlo turns toward her.
“Excuse me?”
“North River or Crescent?”
“Both.”
“Then the family does need someone willing to act.”
His smile returns.
“Exactly.”
“North River lost eleven percent of inventory last quarter, and Crescent paid thirty-four thousand dollars in expedited freight because someone failed to renew a carrier agreement.”
Carlo’s smile disappears. The table quiets.
Keira continues in the same tone she might use to discuss weather.
“Gio’s restaurants increased operating margin while maintaining payroll through two hurricane closures. He is negotiating a terminal arrangement that will move legitimate cargo without exposing every cousin at this table to a federal conspiracy charge.”
Carlo’s face darkens.
“You have been reading our business.”
“I read public filings.”
“You are an Irish spy.”
“No.”
She lifts her napkin.
“Spies are quieter.”
Salvi chokes on his wine. Keira looks toward me only after Carlo pushes back from the table.
She does not smile. Neither do I.
The defense was not required. It was also not accidental.
Power moves strangely within families. Carlo believed he weakened me by naming the kitchen.
Keira turned the kitchen into evidence of competence. Not for the room.
For me. Nonna touches Keira’s wrist.
“She fights like she cooks.”
Keira looks confused.
“She does not cook.”
“Exactly,” Nonna says. “No waste.”
After lunch, Keira helps carry dishes inside despite protests from three aunts. I find her later beneath the lemon tree at the edge of the courtyard.
The afternoon has softened. Heat rises from the stone walls, but a breeze moves through the leaves. She is holding a glass of water.
No wine.
“You did not need to defend me,” I say.
She looks toward the house.
“I corrected an inaccurate assessment.”
“Of course.”
“His warehouse performance is objectively poor.”
“You memorized the filings.”
“They were short.”
I lean against the wall beside her. The family noise continues through the open windows.
For once, I am not needed inside. Keira looks at my hands.
“You trained in Sicily.”
The statement surprises me.
“Who told you?”
“Your aunt.”
“Which one?”
“The loud one.”
“That does not narrow it.”
She takes a drink.
“Why did you go?”
The family explanation is simple. Training.
Tradition. A young heir learning food, importation, and the language of the old country.
The truth is less useful.
“My father sent me away.”
“For what?”
“Disobedience.”
Her eyebrows lift.
“You?”
“I was nineteen.”
“What did you do?”
“I refused to hurt someone.”
The words remain incomplete. She hears the missing portion.
“Who?”
“A bookmaker who owed money.”
“What happened to him?”
“Someone else went.”
Her eyes move to the courtyard.
“And you?”
“I spent three years in kitchens where nobody cared about my surname because they were too busy caring whether I burned the onions.”
“Did you?”
“Once.”
“Consequences?”
“I peeled potatoes for six weeks.”
“That seems disproportionate.”
“It was a Sicilian kitchen.”
She smiles. A real one.
The sight changes the afternoon. I have seen Keira amused, triumphant, and quietly pleased when numbers behave.
This is different. Unprotected.
It disappears too quickly.
“You liked it there,” she says.
“Yes.”
“Why come back?”
“My mother died.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Thank you.”
No attempt to improve the sentence. No professional retreat.
I look toward the kitchen where Nonna is ordering grown men to move chairs.
“My father needed an heir. I returned.”
“And the restaurants?”
“The only part I kept for myself.”
Keira’s gaze returns to my hands. The awareness between us grows slowly.
Not heat arriving all at once. Something lower.
Deeper. Built from evenings at the island, contract margins, and the fact that she defended the part of my life everyone else considers secondary.
“What did you keep?” I ask.
“From where?”
“Before Declan died.”
Her fingers tighten around the glass. The change is immediate.
I should withdraw the question. I do not.
Not because I want to hurt her. Because I want something she has not given anyone in my house.
A truth that is not evidence.
“He was—”
Her phone rings. The sound cuts through the courtyard.
She looks at the screen. Orla.
Keira answers.
“What happened?”
No greeting. Her body stills.
I watch the color leave her face.
“When?”
A pause.
“No. I understand.”
Another.
“I’ll call his mother.”
She ends the call but continues holding the phone to her ear. I step closer.
“Keira.”
“Jamie died.”
The boy from the terminal shooting. Twenty-two years old.
Three weeks unconscious. A fresh body placed on top of every old grievance.
The family noise inside continues for several seconds before anyone understands. Then Orla must call someone else.
Aunt Rosa’s phone rings. Voices change.
Chairs move. The courtyard empties into urgency.
Keira remains beneath the lemon tree. Her eyes are dry.
That frightens me more than tears.
“He was awake yesterday,” she says. “Orla said he opened his eyes.”
I take the glass from her before it falls. Her fingers remain curved after it leaves them.
“Come with me.”
“Where?”
“Home.”
“I need to go to The Selkie.”
“Then I will take you.”
“The Brennans will not want you there.”
“That is not the same as you not wanting me there.”
Her gaze lifts to mine. The distance between us disappears by inches.
She is close enough that I can see the tiny gold flecks near the center of her eyes. Close enough that her breath reaches my mouth.
The noise of the courtyard fades. My hand rises toward her face.
I stop before touching her.
“Do you want me there?” I ask.
Her lips part. For one second, I think she will answer.
Church bells begin ringing six blocks away. Not for Jamie.
Not yet. But the sound reaches her like memory.
She steps back.
“I don’t know.”
It is more honest than yes would have been. I lower my hand.
“All right.”
Her phone rings again. She turns toward the house.
The moment is gone, but not erased. Three days from now, the Brennan family will bury Jamie.
Keira will stand among the people who hate my name. And I will have to decide whether protecting her means staying away.