understand why his jaw moved.

The study door closed behind her. Aleandro sat with the silk flat across his palm and let a rain that had ended six years ago begin falling again.

He had been thirty-three then. Not yet head of anything. The name Romano had still belonged to his uncle Giovanni, his father’s youngest brother, who had raised him after the funeral and taught him how to read a man’s hands before his mouth.

The meeting behind Il Girasole in Brooklyn had been Giovanni’s idea. A quiet sit-down.