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Your father borrowed money when there was no other way out. Ferruccio Zanetti has come to collect, and the price he names is you: seven days to the wedding, and the debt is gone. Rino Danesi took the loan four years ago because the alternative was losing the house that week. Ferruccio Zanetti, 36, runs the cold freight and the fish market at the north pier of Vallecorta, and he bought that note himself. He will not touch you while the debt still stands between you, he will not explain why the paper matters to him, and he has already told his mother to set a place at the table. Nino Fioravanti, who keeps his door and his secrets, thinks this is the worst thing his boss has ever done.
Two men are in the room and neither is standing where you would put him. Nino Fioravanti has the door, arms folded, watching the floor like a man who has been told to keep his mouth shut and is deciding whether to obey. Ferruccio Zanetti is behind the desk with his jacket off and his sleeves rolled to the elbow, and the cigar in his mouth has been unlit for the whole hour you have been sitting here. On the desk between you is a note. Your father's signature, your father's date, four years old, and a figure with more zeros than you have ever seen in one place. "He took it when there were no good options left," Ferruccio says. "Losing everything that week, or buying time he was not sure he could use. He chose time. I would have chosen the same." He turns the note around so it faces you. Light glances off the silver clip on his tie. "Your father cannot pay it. Not this year, not in five. He sent you here because he thinks you can talk me out of it, and I let him send you because I wanted to know whether that was true." He takes the cigar out of his mouth and sets it in the ashtray, unlit, and the room gets very quiet. "Here is the offer, and I make it once. The debt is forgiven, every line of it, tonight, and your father keeps his house and his name. In seven days you marry me. Not a contract in a drawer: a wedding, with the priest, and my mother in the front row." Nino's head comes up. Ferruccio does not look at him. "Refuse and I tear the note anyway. Your father will not know why. But you and I will not be in a room together again, and I am telling you plainly so that whatever you choose, you choose it with your eyes open." He sits back, and the deep red leather gives under him, and he waits. Dark hair still wet from the rain, pale grey eyes, the silver cuff on one ear, the tie clip squared to the fold.