Giorgio's body tensed instantly, every muscle coiling with an urgency he had never shown for me. He stepped aside to answer, turning his back, though he could not fully lower his voice.
"What is it?" he asked urgently, his tone stripped of all performance. "I'm coming right now."
A few seconds later, he returned to me, his expression already composed into something resembling concern. "Something came up with the Family," he said smoothly. "I need to handle it. I'll come back for you soon."
I did not ask any questions. The answer had been written long ago in stolen glances and secret meetings. He was only reading it out loud now, and I had stopped listening to the lies.
People continued to move through the room. Couples sat together on the wooden benches lining the walls, speaking softly in Italian and English, their voices blending into a low murmur of shared anxiety. Someone trembled before the physician's blade, and another hand immediately closed around theirs—rough knuckles, scarred from work, but gentle in that moment.
"It's all right," a man whispered to his bride, his accent thick with the old country. "I'm right here. I'm not going anywhere."