The Don Called Me Nobody Chapter 11

The Don Called Me Nobody Chapter 11: Thursday

Nineteen people in the dining room.

Sal. Four captains. The lawyer. The old man from Atlantic City, in person this time, because a Costa on trial was

worth a drive.

Camilla, with a man she’d hired to talk for her.

And in the back, in a black suit, silent as a loaded gun: Dominic Vitale. Recused. Watching.

“Miss Costa,” the old man said. “You have something to show us.”

“I do.”

I stood up.

“Exhibit one. The comms log this house produced. Note the edit stamp. Page four. Opened in the admin panel at 11:42 p.m. the night before the exchange. Modified twice in nine minutes. Terminal 4–North.”

“That proves nothing,” Camilla’s man said.

“Exhibit two. The key–card record for that terminal at 11:41 p.m. Card 0441.” I looked up. “Camilla, is that your card?”

She said nothing.

“Exhibit three. The original location message, pulled off the backup server before the edit, with the device ID intact Device: FERRO, C. Your record and the backup don’t match. Only one of them was touched from inside this house.”

The room shifted.

“Exhibit four. Volkov’s own confirmation, sent back to the same device. He thanked her. By name.”

Sal’s face went the color of paper.

“And exhibit five,” I said. “Which I did not want to file.”

I set the last folder down.

“Seventeen hotel receipts. Filed by Miss Ferro. Approved by Mr. Bruno, who also chaired both meetings that promoted her out of turn.” I pushed it forward. “I’m not filing this to humiliate anyone. I’m filing it because this table needs to

know whether the people accusing me have a credibility problem before it takes my life.”

The silence went on a long, long time.

Then the old man said, very quietly, “Sal. Anything to say?”

He didn’t.

That was the answer.

They sent us out.

They called us back in nineteen minutes.

Camilla Ferro: stripped of everything. Banished from the city. A word sent to every family that she was not to be

employed.

Not killed. Because I asked. Because the Peacemaker’s daughter doesn’t start her second life with a body.

Sal Bruno: “retired.” Effective immediately.

Me: cleared. The Don’s letter stands. A formal apology from the table, which I have never once let anyone finish

saying.

Camilla passed me on her way out.

She stopped.

“You know what the worst part is?” she said, and she wasn’t performing anymore; she just looked thirty–four and

exhausted. “You fixed my work for three years. Forty times. So I never found out what I actually was. And now I have to

find out with no one underneath me.”

“Camilla-”

“Don’t be kind to me,” she said. “I couldn’t stand it.”

And she left.

Dominic was waiting in the hallway.

“You didn’t need me,” he said.

“No.”

“You didn’t look at me once.”

“I know.”

“I liked it,” he said. “Very much. Which is an alarming thing to learn about yourself at thirty–four.”

I laughed – an actual laugh, the first in what felt like a decade – and then put my hand over my mouth because it came out sounding like crying.

He didn’t touch me. He waited.

“There’s something I have to do,” I said. “And I don’t want to do it alone.”

“Name it.”

“There’s a letter. My father left me a letter. I told his lawyer to burn it.”

“Did he?”

“Mr. Abruzzi has called me every eleven weeks for three years,” I said. “Nobody calls that many times about ashes.”