Valentina sits across the table beside Matteo, wearing a dress that looks expensive enough to have been born in Milan. Serafina is at the far end beside Luca, fresh off a thirty-six-hour shift at Bellevue and drinking as she earned it. Clara comes in and settles the baby into the high chair beside her. The baby studies the nearest wine glass with the focused intensity of someone who very much wants a sip.
Matteo pours wine for the three of us. Looks at Alessandro.
"Our brother brought wine."
"Did Luca approve it?"
"Nadia approved it."
"Better."
Alessandro lifts his glass. The room goes quiet.
"To Frank Donovan."
The table holds the name.
"The man who raised the brother we lost."
Sean looks at the ceiling.
I put my hand on his thigh under the table. His hand covers mine.
"To Frank," he says.
"To Frank," Matteo says.
The table follows.
We drink.
The baby watches us drink and tries to lift her sippy cup with the same gravity, which Clara catches and steadies for her.
The dead get to come home if you say the names.
I say two more in my head.
Lucia. Eleni.
You're home.
The deal happensover Clara's bread.
Sean lays it out plain. He keeps the badge. He does not investigate Moretti Global. He does not flag a Moretti nameunless it walks into his squad room on its own legs. But Stavros activity, foreign syndicates, and federal interest. Anything that touches the family from the outside. He sees it first, the family hears it second, and nobody hears it third.
He is NYPD. He is a Moretti. He is the firewall.
I have helped him build this deal for six weeks.
This is the first time the people it is for are hearing it.
Alessandro is quiet. He waits. He has the baby on his shoulder now. Clara handed her over halfway through the bread, and the baby has been content there ever since. He cradles her with the easy weight of a man who is good at this.
Sean is not done.
He looks at me.
This is the moment.
