Chapter 6 - The Hands That Learned to Let Go
One year after the fire, there were no guards at the breakfast table.
That fact alone would have been unimaginable once.
Damiano lived in a smaller house now.
Smaller, in his world, meant six bedrooms instead of twenty-three, a garden instead of forty acres, and windows overlooking the Hudson instead of Long Island Sound.
Lina preferred it.
"The old house was scary," she informed him.
She was four now.
"Was it?"
"Yes."
"You never seemed scared."
"I was little."
Damiano raised an eyebrow.
"You're considerably older now."
She nodded solemnly.
"I'm four."
Lucia laughed from the kitchen.
Gabriel sat across from Damiano reading a medical journal.
He had started his residency.
They were not father and son.
Not brothers.
Not exactly family in any traditional sense.
But they were learning.
That counted.
Damiano still kept his father's pocket watch.
The wooden box was gone.
Its documents had been transferred to Gabriel.
The watch remained.
Some mornings Damiano carried it.
Most mornings he didn't.
The gloves were different.
He hadn't worn them in eleven months.
Not once.
Nobody mentioned it.
Except Lina.
Children noticed everything adults politely ignored.
She climbed onto the chair beside him.
"Your hand."
"What about it?"
"The scratch."
She traced the white scar near his thumb.
"Does it hurt?"
"Not anymore."
"How did you get it?"
Damiano considered giving her an invented story.
Instead he said, "I was careless."
"My mommy says careful people still get hurt."
Damiano glanced toward Lucia.
"Your mother is becoming increasingly philosophical."
"What does that mean?"
"It means she talks too much."
Lucia threw a dish towel at him.
Gabriel laughed.
For several seconds, Damiano simply sat there.
A year earlier, his life had been measured in territory, loyalty, debts, and threats.
Now a dish towel lay across his coffee.
He preferred this.
The trial of Salvatore Conti began that fall.
Carlo testified for three days.
The evidence was overwhelming.
Financial records.
Kidnapping.
Conspiracy.
Racketeering.
Bribery.
Salvatore would likely die in prison.
Eleanor Graves received a lighter sentence after cooperating.
Damiano never visited her.
Lucia did.
Once.
She returned quiet.
"Did she apologize?" Damiano asked.
"Yes."
"Did you forgive her?"
Lucia thought.
"I don't know yet."
Damiano understood.
Forgiveness was not a door.
It was a hallway.
Sometimes people spent years walking through it.
Carlo requested to see Damiano after sentencing.
Damiano almost refused.
Then he went.
They sat across thick glass.
Carlo looked older.
Prison had removed the polish.
"You look different," Carlo said.
"So do you."
Carlo glanced at Damiano's hands.
"No gloves."
"No."
"Kid did that?"
Damiano didn't answer.
Carlo smiled faintly.
"Thought so."
Silence followed.
Then Carlo said, "I'm sorry."
Damiano looked at him.
"For which part?"
"All of it."
"That's convenient."
"I know."
"You sold eleven years for money."
"I sold them because I was afraid."
Damiano hadn't expected that.
Carlo continued.
"I spent my whole life believing power was the only thing keeping men like us alive. Then I watched you walk away from it."
"Walking away cost me almost everything."
"But you're alive."
"Yes."
"And you have people waiting for you."
Damiano thought about Lucia.
Gabriel.
Lina.
Even Stefano, who called every Tuesday to complain that legitimate corporate security was "an insult to the concept of danger."
"Yes."
Carlo lowered his eyes.
"Then maybe you won."
Damiano stood.
"Goodbye, Carlo."
"Damiano."
He stopped.
"That night in Newark?"
Damiano turned.
Carlo's eyes were wet.
"I didn't take that bullet for you."
"I know."
"But there were other nights when I would have."
That was the tragedy.
People were rarely entirely loyal or entirely traitorous.
Carlo had loved him.
And betrayed him.
Both things could be true.
Damiano left without answering.
Outside, Lina waited with Lucia.
She was holding a paper bag.
"What is that?"
"Cookies."
"For me?"
"No."
Damiano looked offended.
"For Uncle Gabriel."
"You don't have an Uncle Gabriel."
"I do now."
Lucia shrugged.
"She decided."
Damiano looked toward the sky.
"Apparently we no longer have governance."
Lina reached for his hand.
He took hers.
They walked toward the car.
Halfway there, she stopped.
"Signor Damiano?"
"Yes?"
"Are bad men gone?"
The question was simple.
The answer wasn't.
Damiano crouched so they were eye level.
"Some."
"All?"
"No."
She frowned.
"Then what do we do?"
He thought about his father.
Carlo.
Salvatore.
Eldergate burning.
A tiny girl entering a basement carrying a teddy bear.
"We make sure we don't become them."
Lina considered that.
Then nodded.
"Okay."
She handed him one cookie.
Damiano smiled.
May you like
Apparently moral transformation earned half a cookie.
He accepted the terms.
