The Ricci Line

Killian

I sat at a mirrored dressing table Sera had actually been right that I would need and adjusted the sides of my tie. She’d insisted that, to commemorate the special occasion of our wedding, I had to wear something other than black or gray. I’d assented to a tie in the deep blue-violet Sera had chosen for the main wedding color. Apparently, it contrasted the flowers but didn’t clash.

“Looks uneven,” Tommaso said as he sauntered into the room.

“I’ve been tying my own tie for forty-three goddamn years—”

“Forty-four,” he corrected. “You forgetting how old you are now?.”

I turned back to the mirror, away from my best man. I shook my head at him. “I wasn’t tying ties when I was a baby.” Today was also the anniversary of my father’s death, after all. The man who’d taught me how to tie the ties I’d been wearing all my life. He’d raised me to be the man I was before Sera. Mano Della Morte, running Philadelphia with an iron fist. Vividly, I remembered being sent home from kindergarten f