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Dellucci speaks gently, which is what makes his concern land. “You’ve had trouble at your door for months. Your sister is losing money at Santini’s own tables and is still battling with her demons.”

“Your father,” Dellucci says, more gently, “whom none of us have seen in over a year. Not at a wedding, not at a funeral, not once.” He leans forward just a bit, spreading his hands. “Michael Accardi built something we all respected. And if he were sitting where you’re sitting now, telling us some upstart like Santini was trying to have him killed, we wouldn’t need a folder, no matter how well put together it may be.

“But Michael isn’t here. You are. And forgive an old man, but it’s still uncertain whether or not the son is the same as the father.”

“You want to know if I’m my father’s equal.” I keep my tone even. “I suppose that’s fair. The right question, even. I’ll answer it honestly.” I look down the table, making eye contact with each man. “My father would have settled this with a body in the river. I’m asking this table to settle it another way. Call Santini in. Sit him down in front of all of you, the old way, and make him answer for what happened in my building. Let him pay whatever this table decides he owes.”

That request is met with only silence, so I continue. “Do that, and my guns stay in their drawer. Refuse, and I’ll handle it myself, and none of you can say I didn’t come to you first.”

Manfredi, who has said little since the folder came out, finally leans forward. The others quiet the moment he moves. “A reasonable request,” he says. “Which is exactly why we can’t grant it. Put Santini on trial on the strength of a folder, and every man at this table is next, the first time one of his rivals gets nervous.”

A dry smile forms on his lips. “Asking nicely isn’t the same as strength, Enzo. And it’s certainly not the same as trust. So, here’s what this table will give you.”

Finally. The answer I came here for.

“We’ll wait,” he says, “and we’ll watch. If Santini moves the way you say he will, and if you handle it in the way a man with weight handles it, then we will consider this in our evaluation of you as the next official head of the Accardi operation. But if you’re wrong, then that’s for you to answer alone. This isn’t a no, but it’s not a yes. It’s the most an unproven man gets.”

“Understood,” I say. It is. It’s also infuriating. I’ve run this family for six years, and to them I’m still unproven.

“Good.” Manfredi rises, and the others follow, old men gathering their coats and canes.

Then he pauses beside me, taking advantage of the fact that no eyes are on him or me. He lowers his body and voice, speaking at a volume only Stevie and I can hear.

“A word off the record, man to man?”

“What is it?”

“Produce your father, Enzo. I don’t care how. Sick or dying or mad, it makes no difference. Get Michael in a room where these men can see him breathing and standing behind his son. Or find a way to bury the question for good. Right now, his silence is the loudest thing about you, and Luca Santini knows it. Until there’s an answer to the biggest question in the Camorra, who is truly in charge, there will be chaos. And Luca will take advantage.”

“Understood,” I repeat.

“Good.” He pats my shoulder once. “Give him my regards if he’s still in there to receive them.”

Then he’s gone, and the others with him, and the closed restaurant empties out into the night. Stevie and I are alone with the folder nobody needed and the low lights.

For a moment, neither of us says anything.

“That went about as well as it could have,” I say finally.

“They didn’t believe you.”

“No, they believed me. That’s the problem.” I begin gathering papers, giving my hands something to do. “They don’t doubt Luca. They doubt me. As long as my father’s name is still on the chair, I’m a boy playing pretend.”

“So you’re on your own.”

“Right. And the only way to prove I’m truly in charge is to handle Luca myself.”

“The bloody way,” she says quietly.

“The bloody way.” I don’t dress it up for her. She’s earned better than that. “I came here tonight to try to talk them into the other way, the reasonable one. I promised you I’d try it first, if I could. And I did.” I look at her. “I want you to know I tried.”

“I hate it,” she says. “Everything in me says there has to be another way.”

She chews her lower lip. “But I was here. I listened to those men. You tried, and they didn’t go for it. And if Luca ever finds out who Matthew is…”

She trails off, not wanting to say the words. I take her hand and she squeezes it hard, and then she finds the rest of it. “Luca’s not going to be talked down. He has to be stopped. I’ve known it since he and I were together. I knew that one day, somehow, he’d need to be stopped. Because he’ll never come to his senses on his own. I prayed Matthew would never have to know about this world, and I’m going to keep praying. But it’s looking like the only way out is through. And I don’t know of anything else we can do.”

It’s the most honest thing she’s said to me since the suitcase. And I don’t have an answer that squares it, because there isn’t one.