Semua Bab The Don's Ruthless Empire: Bab 531 - Bab 540

POV: Matteo"Stand up one more time and I will tie you to that chair myself, Matteo. Look at your hands. Do you see how they shake?"I am Matteo, and Dr. Lucia Fenn glared at me over a tray of brown bottles as if I were a naughty schoolboy. It was seven in the morning. The council chamber smelled of beeswax, wet wool, and cold coffee, and the tall windows were streaked with gold from the rising sun. I sat at the end of the long table in my wheeled chair, a blanket over my knees. My chest felt tight, as though a rope were tied around it and someone was slowly pulling."I am only sitting," I said."You are only sitting the way a cat is only sleeping." She pressed two fingers against my wrist and frowned. "Your pulse is galloping. You promised me.""I promised to stay quiet.""That is the same thing.""It is not," Isabella said from the other side of the table, without looking up. She was arranging papers in careful rows. "He promised me, too. He is an advisor today. Nothing more."I met

POV: Matteo"Tell me my son is not lost, Matteo. Tell me, because I am about to do something stupid, and you are the only man in this city who can stop me."I am Matteo, and Nico stood at the edge of the harbor watchhouse roof with both fists clenched on the stone rail, his shoulders trembling. It was ten o'clock. A raw wind blew in off the water, smelling of tar and fish and rain that had not quite arrived. Below us the whole harbor lay spread out like a map, the white wall of the breakwater, the red roofs of the customs sheds, and beyond them, anchored in a neat curve across the bay, Odile Verrant's sixteen ships.I had not meant to climb here. Dr. Fenn had forbidden stairs. But a boy had run in with a note from Isabella, three lines only, telling me about Emilio and the lamp, and I had known I could not sit still. Two porters had carried me up in my chair. Now I sat by the rail with a spyglass in my lap, and Nico paced back and forth in front of me like a caged animal."He is not l

POV: Matteo"Do sit, Matteo. You look like a man who came to bargain, and I look like a woman who has already won. Shall we see which of us is lying?"I am Matteo, and Odile Verrant poured tea into two white cups as if we were old friends meeting after a long winter. It was two o'clock. The parlor aboard her grey freighter was warm and tidy, with brass lamps, a map table, and a carpet so thick my chair made no sound on it. Rain had finally begun, ticking softly on the portholes. Dr. Fenn's pills sat under my tongue, bitter as old coins, and my heart beat in slow, careful steps, like a man crossing ice."I came to talk," I said."Then talk." She set a cup in front of me. "But do drink. You are the color of candle wax.""I am well enough.""You are a poor liar for a man who ran a city." She sat across from me and folded her hands. Close up, she was older than I had thought, perhaps fifty, with fine lines at her eyes and a small scar along her jaw. Her smile had no warmth in it, but it h

POV: Matteo"One ring means wait, I am afraid. Do you hear it, Matteo? Everyone on this pier is hearing it at the same moment. Tell me what a city does when it hears fear."I am Matteo, and Rosa's whisper was almost lost in the rain. It was twenty minutes to four. I sat in my chair at the end of pier nine, wrapped in two blankets, Dr. Fenn gripping the handles behind me as if she meant to hold me down. A grey launch had put me ashore ten minutes before, and the men aboard had not said one word. I still tasted Odile's tea. I still heard her voice. Your wife has an appointment with the tide.I had told Nico everything in six sentences. His face had gone the color of ash. Rosa had overheard, and she had not screamed or wept. She had simply stood there, rigid, watching the long grey line of the breakwater and the thin tower at its end, which was now a smudge in the rain.Then the lamp lit.It began as a pinprick, a spark behind the salt streaked glass. Then it swelled, and a beam of white

POV: Matteo"If you suspect me, say it to my face, Matteo. Do not hide behind a blanket and a doctor and the polite silence of old men."I am Matteo, and Tomas Reyes stood over my chair in the council chamber with his big hands shaking at his sides. It was ten o'clock the next morning. The storm had blown itself out in the night, and clean white light poured through the tall windows. The long table was crowded. Every councillor was there, even Ferrante, bruised and pale and sitting very straight. On the far wall, the bronze lamp burned low. Dr. Fenn stood at my shoulder like a small, fierce guard dog."I suspect nobody," I said. "I am an advisor today. I do not suspect. I listen.""You looked at me when the page was read.""I looked at everyone.""You looked at me longer." His voice cracked. "I voted for a Don yesterday. I was wrong, and I was frightened, and I said it in front of the whole city. Now there is a paper with two letters on it, and my name is the only one that fits. Tell