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Alle Kapitel von Kneel for the Donna: Kapitel 1 – Kapitel 10

10 Kapitel

Chapter 1

The windshield exploded..Glass sprayed across my face. "Get down!" I screamed.My driver jerked once and slumped over the wheel.Blood ran down his collar.Two black sedans had sealed both ends of the street. A round tore through my left arm. I bit down on a scream. I climbed over the console, shoved his body aside, and slammed my foot on the gas. The car clipped a sedan's bumper and tore through the gap. Bullets chased me down the block.I swerved into a narrow alley and killed the engine. I fell out of the car and hit the wet pavement. My sleeve was soaked red. My hands shook so badly I could barely hold my phone.I tried to call Lorenzo.The screen flashed: Battery low. Shutting down."No, no, no," I whispered. I stabbed at the emergency button with my bloody thumb.The signal went out.The phone died in my hand.I leaned against the brick wall and tried to breathe. My vision swam. Then I remembered, that button was the one I set up three years ago. I never changed it. I

Chapter 2

Dante walked me through the back door of his club and announced to the room that I was back.He said it the way a man calls out a winning hand at a poker table, loud enough for the bar to hear."You remember Elena," he told two guys nursing drinks.I remembered them. They had walked me out to a sidewalk three years ago.Two flights up, a suite that smelled of cigar smoke and lemon cleaner. "The doctor," he told Nick. "Ours. Not the clinic one."Nick left at a run. He came back twenty minutes later with a doctor . The doctor laid a towel under my arm and the doctor cut my sleeve open with scissors."The bullet's still in there," he said. "I'll need to dig."he said. "This will hurt.""Then be quick."Dante watched the whole thing. He paced the carpet. He lit a cigarette, crushed it, lit another one. Sal pushed the forceps in.I bit down on my lip, but a cry still broke out of me.Dante went white."Stop! Is she okay? Sal, she's in pain!""That's what happens when you remove a bulle

Chapter 3

"Phone. ID. Now."Dante held out his palm like a man collecting a debt."You're joking," I said."Do I look like I'm joking?" His voice cracked across the suite. "Streets are crawling with people who want you dead, and you want to run around?""I never said I wanted to run around.""You were thinking it!"He didn't wait for an answer. He dug the phone out of my coat, snatched my passport from the pocket."My phone. I need to make a call.""To who?""To my husband."He laughed. "There it is," he said. "The husband.""Where does he live? What's his name? What does the man do for a living?""Give me the phone and ask him yourself."His eyes went to my left hand, to the plain silver band on it.His mouth flattened."Somebody put a hit on your car," he said. "Somebody who knew your route, your schedule, and the day you visit your mother's grave. Until I know who sold you, you don't call anyone."I looked at him."This is detention.""This is protection."He walked out. In the hall the b

Chapter 4

At nine sharp, two women came to do my hair.They brought the white dress with the long sleeves. Of course they did.I let them zip me in. The bandage under the lace pulled at my stitches, and neither woman asked if it hurt.Three years had passed, and Dante had learned nothing. He still heard only what he wanted to hear. I had said no four times, and he had sent a hairdresser.Two men walked me down to a black sedan and sat on either side of me. Nobody spoke.We crossed the bridge. I watched the window.On Hudson Street, a gray SUV idled at the light.Two blocks later, there was another one, with plates I knew by heart. A third slid in behind us and stayed three car lengths back.I was smiling. I didn't realize it until the man on my left stared at me."What's funny?""Nothing," I said. "It's a beautiful day."He was close. My husband was very close.The Rosetti ballroom glittered. Chandeliers, white roses, two hundred guests holding champagne.Dante's men lined every wall.Dant

Chapter 5

Nobody in the ballroom stood up.Two hundred people knelt on the marble. The florists, the string quartet, the waiters with their trays on the floor. Dante's men pressed their foreheads down in their good suits.Lorenzo walked through them without a glance. He stopped in front of me and looked at my left arm.The bandage had bled through the gauze.A dark patch had spread into the sleeve of the dress Dante's people made me wear."How long has it been bleeding?" he asked, very low."Since they zipped me into this."A muscle jumped in his jaw. He didn't tell anyone to get up. He lifted my wrist with two fingers, careful, as if I were made of glass.Across the room, Dante stood alone.The diamond he had been holding lay at his feet.It had rolled in a small circle and stopped against his shoe. He hadn't noticed.His right hand still hung in the air, shaped around a ring that was no longer there.His eyes went from Lorenzo to me, then back again. His lips moved. No sound came out.I w

Chapter 6

Dante waited outside the double doors for two hours.Nobody offered him a seat.Men he used to slap on the back walked past him and studied the floor.His collar was soaked with sweat. He checked his watch at eleven, again at eleven thirty, again at noon. Three days ago he had been the one who made other people wait.The doors finally opened. "They're ready for you," a soldier said.He didn't say Capo.Inside, the long table was full. Capos lined both sides.Perri, the consigliere, sat at Lorenzo's right hand. Lorenzo sat at the head with one finger resting on a file, his eyes on the pages.At the far end, where the table stopped, there was a bare patch of floor. No chair.Dante walked to the empty spot and stood. His hands were shaking, so he shoved them into his pockets. Then he took them out again, because that looked worse.Lorenzo didn't look up.Perri did. He folded his hands and spoke in a calm, level voice."Let's be clear about the rules. The Donna is more than the Don's w

Chapter 7

Perri found the man on the fourth day.He came into the study with a single folder and laid it in front of Lorenzo. I sat across from them, my left arm resting on the cushion."The one who sold your route," Perri said. "A dock foreman. He sat in a basement for six hours before he talked.""Who paid him?" Lorenzo asked."Nobody paid him directly. His sister lives in Queens, and she owes the wrong people about forty thousand dollars. A woman called her. Offered to clear the debt, cash, no questions. The sister gave her brother's contacts. The brother gave up the route."I stared at the folder. My hand had gone cold on the cushion."Did the sister meet this woman?""Once. In a parking garage." Perri turned a page. "She described a thin brunette with a soft voice. Cried the whole time she handed over the envelope."My stomach tightened.A soft voice. Crying. I knew exactly one woman who could cry while ordering a killing."Say her name," I said.Perri looked at Lorenzo. Lorenzo looked at

Chapter 8

I stepped out of the townhouse just after noon, one hand resting lightly over the fresh bandage beneath my sleeve.Two guards waited by the car.They moved aside the second they saw me.Then Dante came up the front steps.He had no jacket on despite the cold.His shirt was creased. His hair looked uncombed. The man who once filled every room without trying now stopped two steps away from me, breathing hard as though he had run here.“Elena.”I kept walking.He dropped to his knees.The sound hit the stone steps sharply.Both guards reached for their weapons, but I raised my hand.Dante looked up at me.His eyes were red.For three years, I had imagined him regretting what he did. I had imagined him looking at me with this exact panic. I thought it would feel satisfying.It did not.It only felt late.“Please,” he said. “Please, just listen to me.”I stopped on the next step, leaving distance between us.“What do you need, Dante?”His throat worked.“My position back.”The words came o

Chapter 9

Three days after Dante knelt on my steps, Perri came to the house with a folder under his arm."Mia leaves tomorrow morning," he said. "Escorted. Tonight she went looking for Dante."I put down my coffee. "Where?""Outside a bodega on Ninth. Half the block watched."I waited. Perri cleared his throat and gave me every word of it.Mia had come running down the sidewalk in a coat she'd never paid for, mascara streaked to her chin. She grabbed Dante by the lapels and shook him."You promised me! You promised my father you'd take care of me!"Dante peeled her fingers off one at a time. "Your father took a bullet for this family, Mia. You used his name to get a woman killed.""She was supposed to stay gone!" Mia screamed it loud enough for the whole street. "Three years, and she walks back in and you look at her like she's the only person alive! I handed you everything! I stayed with you while she ran off!""You stayed because you wanted the ring.""And you gave it to me!" She was sobbing a

Chapter 10

The anniversary of my mother's death came in late October.Every year before this one, I had gone alone. I sent the driver away at the gate and told the guards to wait outside. Mama's grave was the only place I had ever hidden.This year Lorenzo stood beside me at the car door in a black coat, holding white roses."You don't have to come," I said."I know." He opened the door for me. "I want to."I looked at the two SUVs idling behind us. For the first time, I didn't tell anyone to leave.The cemetery was quiet and wet. Lorenzo stayed one step behind me the whole way up the hill. When we reached the stone, he laid the roses down himself and stepped back again.I crouched and brushed the dead leaves off her name."Hi, Mama," I said. "I brought someone."My voice shook on the last word. Lorenzo's hand settled on my shoulder, warm and steady, and he said nothing at all. I stayed there a long time. When I stood, my knees were wet and my face was wet, and I didn't care who saw."She wou

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