The Don Called Me Nobody Chapter 12

The Don Called Me Nobody Chapter 12: The Letter

Abruzzi’s office smelled like paper and old espresso.

He was seventy–one and he cried when he saw me, which I was not remotely prepared for.

“Miss Costa. Three years.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. Sit.” He unlocked a drawer. “He left instructions. Not to be delivered on a date. To be delivered when you

came for it yourself.” He shook his head, smiling through it. “Your father knew you very well.”

He handed me an envelope.

My name in his handwriting, which is my handwriting, which I had never noticed before and which nearly took my legs.

out from under me.

I sat in the car in the garage for eleven minutes before I opened it.

Dominic sat in the passenger seat and didn’t say a word, which is possibly the kindest thing anyone has ever done for

me.
Fina –

If you’re reading this, something went wrong, and I’m not there, and I’m so angry about it I could spit.

Here’s what I think you’ll do. I think you’ll blame yourself for a thing that wasn’t yours. I think you’ll put your hands in

your pockets and find somewhere small and quiet, and you’ll call it peace, and it’ll be a coffin with the lid off.

So let me say this while I still have a pen.

If it’s ever me on the other side of an exchange – and I know how this family’s luck runs – I want you. Not Abruzzi.

Not the Commission’s best. You. If you can’t bring me home, nobody could have, and I’ll have died walking toward the

only person I ever made who was better at this than me.

You are better than me, Fina. I never said it sober because you were twenty–four and unbearable enough already.

Your voice isn’t mine. It never was. I only taught you when to use it.

Don’t you dare go quiet.

Be scared and still be the calmest person in the room, sweetheart. It’s the only thing I ever actually wanted for you.

Papa.

I don’t know how long I cried.

Long enough that the garage lights went dark and clicked back on when someone drove past.

At some point Dominic took the letter out of my shaking hand and folded it so I wouldn’t ruin it.

“Serafina.”

“He wanted me,” I said. “He wanted me on that bridge. I spent three years thinking I got him killed, and he – he asked.”

“I know.”

“I burned three years.”

“You survived three years,” he said. “There’s a difference, and you’re going to have to learn it out loud.”

I laughed and hiccuped at the same time, which is a horrifying noise.

Then I called Abruzzi back.

“I’ll take the estate,” I said. “All of it.”

“Miss Costa, that’s forty-”

“Not for me. Set up a fund. For kids born into this life who want out. School, rent, a new city, no strings. Full ride.”

“A name?”

I looked out the windshield at nothing.

“The Raffaele Costa Fund,” I said. “For the ones who are scared and stay calm anyway.”