Don Bowed To Me Chapter 15
Four months after the Marchetti Defense subsidiary went live.
Sebastian moved from Newport to New York for work.
His new place was a twelve-minute walk from my apartment.
Before long, we were commuting to work together. Eating together. Talking shop over dinner.
Somewhere along the way, we stopped being just business partners and became friends.
Thursday night, Sebastian and I had dinner plans.
I came straight from the Marchetti Defense subsidiary’s afternoon compliance meeting.
Sebastian was waiting for me at the entrance.
“Sorry.” He took my coat. “The meeting ran thirty minutes over.”
“It’s fine.”
We walked in.
The maître d’ recognized Sebastian, gave us a small bow, and led us to a quiet table tucked away in the back.
I sat down and opened the menu.
A minute later, a faint stir came from the entrance.
I looked up.
A woman was making her way across the dining room, heading straight for our table.
A wine-red Valentino gown.
Van Cleef at her wrist.
Her hair fell in the Hollywood waves that were everywhere that season.
Beautiful. Young. Twenty-three, maybe twenty-four.
She stopped at our table and spoke to Sebastian with an easy familiarity.
“Sebastian! I just got back from Positano. I was going to surprise you. Mommy said you’d be at Le Bernardin tonight, so I came right over.”
Sebastian looked up.
For the first time, I saw an expression on his face I’d never seen before.
Exhaustion.
The kind that says: not this person again.
“Chiara. I have plans tonight,” he said.
The Barone family. One of the Five Families.
Based in Philadelphia.
Their family had been tied to the Marchettis by marriage for three generations.
Chiara was the current Don’s only daughter.
Since she was twelve, she’d been trailing Sebastian at every Family gathering.
Everyone assumed Sebastian would marry her one day.
Everyone except Sebastian.
I’d heard all of this from Sebastian.
I just never expected to meet her in person.
Chiara followed Sebastian’s gaze until it landed on me.
Her smile froze for a second.
Then it stretched wider than before.
“You must be Sebastian’s client?”
She held out her hand.
“Chiara Barone. Lovely to meet you.”
I reached out.
She pulled her hand back.
Then wiped it on her dress like she’d touched something dirty.
Sebastian saw it.
He stood up.
“Chiara.” His voice had gone hard.
“This is my personal time. She is not my client. Leave.”
Chiara’s eyes went wide.
“Sebastian, you’re joking, right? I just got off a plane. Mommy said you—”
“What Donna Barone says has nothing to do with what I say.” Sebastian cut her off.
“How many times have I told you this in the last ten years?”
The color drained from Chiara’s face.
She turned to me.
“What’s your name?”
I looked at her, calm.
“Hazel Vitale.”
Chiara narrowed her eyes, and I recognized the contempt in her gaze.
I’d grown up with it.