Lahat ng Kabanata ng After Death, I Chose The Mafia Don: Kabanata 1 - Kabanata 10

Blair stepped out into the courtyard, and Andrew turned before the door had even finished closing behind her, like he'd been listening for it."There she is." He smiled — the easy, golden smile she'd spent a lifetime being furious she still loved. "The birthday girl.""You're early." She stayed by the door. Distance felt like the only weapon she had left."I wanted five minutes before the whole street shows up and I have to share you." He held up a small wrapped box, turning it once in his fingers like he wasn't sure yet whether to hand it over. "Happy birthday, Blair.""You didn't have to.""I know." He crossed the courtyard anyway, closing the distance she'd been careful to leave, and set the box in her hands before she could decide whether to take it. "Open it later. Or don't. I just wanted to see your face when you said yes to the dance.""I never said yes.""You will." Something in the way he said it — easy, certain, like a man reading tomorrow's weather instead of guessing at it

"You knew." Blair set the card on the kitchen table between them, letterhead up, the word Overdue facing her father like an accusation. "This whole time, you knew exactly who broke that window."Stefano didn't reach for the card. He looked at it the way a man looks at a debt he's been avoiding long enough to have opinions about the handwriting."It's not your concern.""It's in our kitchen. It's my concern.""Blair—""Who is he? Not the father. The son. The one running things now." She hadn't meant to say it that certainly. Her father's head came up fast enough that she knew she'd said too much for a girl who wasn't supposed to know there was a son at all."How do you—""Rosa," she lied, smooth enough that she almost believed it herself. "Small town."Stefano rubbed a hand down his face, and for a moment he looked every year of the debt he was carrying. "I'm going to see him this afternoon. Alone.""I'm coming.""Absolutely not.""Someone broke into our house, Papà. I'm not sitting he

The car smelled like cedar and salt. Blair sat very still in the passenger seat while her hands finally stopped shaking enough to fold in her lap, and neither of them said anything until the lighthouse road had given way to the ordinary dark of the coast highway."You didn't have to drive me yourself." It came out quieter than she meant it to."No," Alessandro agreed, eyes on the road. "I didn't."He didn't offer anything else. Blair found, oddly, that she didn't need him to."Why does this matter to you?" she asked, after a while. "The debt's paid. You could've had your men drive me and gone home.""I could have.""But?""But someone put their hands on a person standing under my protection, in front of witnesses, after I'd already said the words out loud." He said it evenly, like reciting a law rather than an opinion. "If I let that go, I might as well stop using my name.""Is that the only reason?"For the first time since the point, something almost like amusement crossed his face,

Rosa found her in the church square two days later, breathless in the way of someone who'd been saving up gossip since sunrise."Nobody's seen Andrew since Sunday." She said it like a headline, dropping onto the bench beside Blair without being invited. "His mother came by ours yesterday asking if he'd said anything to me. She looked like she hadn't slept.""Since Sunday." Blair kept her voice even with an effort that cost her more than it should have."Mm. You'd know better than me, wouldn't you." Rosa's eyes cut sideways, sharp under the gossip. "Word is you two had some kind of falling out. A real one.""Something like that."Rosa waited a beat, clearly hoping for more, and when nothing came she sighed and moved on to Renzo's latest theory about the missing church bell rope instead. Blair heard none of it. Somewhere under her ribs, a very old, very familiar dread had started counting days since Sunday right alongside her.* * *The receptionist above the harbor didn't check her nam

The house sat above a curve of coastline Blair hadn't known existed, gates swinging open before the car had even fully stopped, warm light spilling out from every downstairs window like the place had been expecting company for hours.It hadn't, as it turned out."You couldn't call ahead?" The woman who opened the door before Alessandro reached it was small, silver-haired, and entirely unbothered by the hour. "I would have made something better than leftovers.""Mamma, this is—""I know who she is." Nicoletta's eyes moved over Blair once, quick and assessing in a way that felt nothing like her son's version of the same thing. "The whole town knows who she is by now, tesoro. You're not nearly as quiet about your business as you think you are." She stepped back to let them in, already reaching to take the bag out of Blair's hands before Blair had thought to offer it. "Come in, come in. You look like you haven't had a real meal in days. Both of you, actually — look at him, he's gotten thi