My Billionaire Ex Regrets Throwing Me to the Mafia Don novel · Chapter 2 of 32

Chapter 2: The Back Seat

Giulia meets Dario Vitale in the back of his car, hears his terms, and learns Brent has a meeting with him on Friday.

Brent looked from the men to me and back again.

"Caruso?" he said. "Who the hell is Caruso?"

Nobody answered him.

The man in front stepped past him and lifted my suitcase.

"Hey. Hey! That's my apartment you're walking into."

"The signorina's bag," the man said, without turning his head.

I picked up my coat.

Brent caught my elbow.

"Giulia. What is this?"

I looked down at his hand until he let go.

"I told you," I said. "I'm going home to get married."

I walked out.

He followed me into the elevator because he couldn't stand not knowing.

The four men stood around us in silence.

Brent kept looking at their shoes, their watches, the bulge under one jacket.

By the fourth floor he had decided what it was.

He laughed.

"Oh, this is good. This is really good. How much did you pay them?"

Nobody spoke.

"You hired actors. From where, a casting site? To make me jealous?"

"Nobody hired anyone, Brent."

"Two hundred bucks a head? Three? You spent my money on a Sopranos bit."

The doors opened on the lobby.

Our doorman, who had said good morning to me every day for six years, stood behind his desk and didn't say a word.

Outside, a long black car idled at the curb.

A second car sat behind it, and a third behind that.

A man in the second car got out and opened the rear door of the first one.

Brent stopped laughing.

Then he started again, louder, for the doorman's benefit.

"Three cars! You rented three cars! Babe, this is the saddest thing I've ever seen."

I stopped on the sidewalk and turned around.

"Goodbye, Brent."

"You'll be back in a week."

"No."

"When you are, bring the ring back to Haley. It's hers now."

I got into the car.

The door closed on his voice.

It was quiet inside, and warm, and it smelled like leather and cedar.

A man sat on the far side of the back seat.

He was tall even sitting down, in a charcoal suit with no tie.

His dark hair had gone gray at the temples.

A thin white scar cut through his left eyebrow.

He didn't smile.

"Giulia," he said. "I'm Dario Vitale."

I knew the name.

Everyone in my father's house knew that name.

He was the head of the Commission. Five families in North America answered to him.

"You're the groom," I said.

"I'm the man your father's elders chose. Whether I'm the groom is up to you."

The car pulled away.

Through the back window I saw Brent on the curb with his phone up, filming the license plate.

"He thinks I hired you," I said.

"I heard." Dario's voice was low and even. "Would you like me to go back and correct him?"

"No."

"Good. I didn't want to."

He handed me a bottle of water.

I realized my hands were shaking and held it with both of them.

"You know who I am," I said.

"I know you left Palermo at nineteen with one suitcase and your mother's maiden name. I know you've been Giulia Greco for ten years. I know you wrote the routing system that moves every truck Stratton Freight owns."

I stared at him.

"Your father sent me your picture a year ago," he said. "I asked for everything else."

"And you still said yes."

"I asked for you by name."

The city slid by, wet and gold.

I didn't know what to do with that.

"Here are my terms," he said. "You keep your work, whatever it is. You keep your name, if you want it. You live where you want."

"And yours?"

"There's only one."

He turned to look at me for the first time since I'd sat down.

"I don't take an unwilling wife. You have until the wedding to change your mind. If you do, you tell me no to my face. Not your father. Not the elders. Me."

"And then what?"

"Then I go home and tell them I wasn't good enough."

I laughed, and it came out wet.

It was the first time anyone had asked me anything in months.

"Where are we going?" I said.

"My house in Carroll Gardens. You'll have the top floor and a lock on the door. We fly to Palermo when your father calls."

I nodded.

I leaned my head against the cool window.

"Can I ask you something?" Dario said.

"Yes."

"The man on the sidewalk. Brent Stratton."

"What about him?"

"Is he a good businessman?"

I thought about Lodestar. About the nights I had rebuilt it while Brent slept.

"He's a good salesman," I said.

Dario nodded slowly.

"He has a meeting with me on Friday," he said. "He's been trying to get one for two years."

I sat up.

"What does he want?"

Dario looked out his own window at the river.

"My terminal," he said. "In Red Hook. He wants my port."

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