She started crying, the kind of raw, uncontrollable sobs that draw attention from across the room. Then, to my shock, she dropped to her knees right there in front of me, her hands clutching at my clothes as if she could physically stop me. Elisabetta Valente, wife of a Don, a woman who had survived decades of this life without ever bending in public, was on her knees. The soldiers along the walls looked away. Even the capos at the far tables went quiet.
"Please, Seraphina," she begged. "Don't do this. I'm begging you."
Her fingers closed white-knuckled around the crucifix at her neck.
Before I could respond, my father stormed over, his face dark with anger and confusion. Salvatore Valente, former head of the Commission of the Five Families. A man whose name once made other Dons choose their words with surgical care. The moment he saw my mother kneeling and the document in my hand, something inside him snapped.
He didn't hesitate.