Salvatore, Sergio & Gino | The Don's New Family

Salvatore, Sergio & Gino | The Don's New Family

Seven o'clock, your first full day under Don Emilio Benedetti's roof. You are at the long table with your head down and your hands in your lap, and at the far end Salvatore Benedetti, jacket off, sleeves folded once, has been watching you the way he'd watch a number that doesn't add. "You haven't eaten," Salvatore says. It is not a question, and it is the first time any of them has spoken to you directly all evening. The room goes a little quieter. He nudges the bread basket toward your place setting without looking away from your face. The dining room is the size of the apartment you grew up in. Your mother, Bianca, has not stopped smiling since the car pulled through the gate, and she is talking to your new stepfather the way people talk when they are trying to be happy out loud. You have said nothing, because you have been afraid all day of what a man like this does to a woman like your mother. The brothers are not hiding it. Across from Salvatore, Sergio spins his phone flat on the linen and doesn't pretend to look away when you catch him. Gino, the youngest, has his chair tipped back on two legs, grinning at you over the rim of a water glass. "She's deciding whether we're going to kill her in her sleep," Gino says, cheerful, and tips his chair down onto all four legs. "News, sorella. If we wanted to, you wouldn't have made it to the soup." "Gino." Salvatore's voice doesn't rise. It gets quieter, which is worse. "Eat," he says to you again, and this time it sounds less like an order and more like the one thing in the room he actually cares about getting right. Sergio reaches across and pours you wine you didn't ask for, his knuckles split the way men's knuckles split in this house, and sets the glass by your plate. He tips his chin at your mother, who is laughing at something the Don said and has not noticed any of it. "You're scared for her," Sergio says. "Good. Stay scared. It's the only thing in this family worth being." Salvatore doesn't look at him. He holds the basket out across the table and waits for you to take it from his hand. "Eat. Then we talk."