My Mafia Fiancé Thought I'd Always Let Him Get Away With Anything novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Her Mother's Painting

Renata goes back for her mother's painting and her dog. Nico offers her a way back if she apologizes on camera, and his men block the door until Cesare's men line the street.

I went back to the house the next morning at nine.

I was not going back for Nico.

I was going back for my mother's painting and my dog.

Cesare parked at the curb across from the house and turned off the engine.

Behind us, two more cars pulled in and stopped, and four of his men got out and leaned on the hoods with their arms folded.

They did not say anything.

They did not need to.

"Stay at the curb," I told Cesare.

"No."

"If you walk up that path, he'll call it a challenge."

"Good," he said, and got out.

I walked up the path alone first, and he followed three steps behind me.

I pressed my thumb to the pad out of habit.

Red.

The door opened anyway.

Fiora stood there in my gray silk robe, with her hair down and her face scrubbed clean.

It took me a second to understand why my robe looked wrong on her.

It was the one my father had given me for my twenty-first birthday.

"Ren," she said, very low. "I'm so sorry about last night."

She stepped aside before I could answer.

Her eyes did not meet mine.

I went in.

The hall still smelled of champagne.

Someone had stacked the glasses by the stairs, and the cake box was open on the table with the cake gone.

My coat hung on the third hook where she had put it.

I took it down and put it on.

Nico came out of the kitchen with a coffee cup.

He wore yesterday's shirt with the sleeves rolled, and he looked well rested.

"Look who it is," he said. "Did you sleep on Sabatini's couch, or did he give you the bed?"

"I came for my mother's painting," I said. "And my dog."

"Sure you did." He leaned on the doorframe. "Come here a second."

"Why?"

"Because I'm going to give you a second chance, baby, and I don't give those out."

Behind him, in the kitchen, his two cousins sat at the counter eating my cake.

One of them held his phone sideways.

"There's a camera on you, Nico," I said.

"There's always a camera." He smiled. "That's the point. Here's what happens. You say, on video, that you overreacted. You say you were hysterical and I was right to teach you. Sixty seconds. Then Fi moves her things to the guest room, I put your thumb back on the door, and we forget the whole thing."

"Teach me what?"

"That I decide who comes into this house."

"You gave her my door, Nico."

"I gave her a key to see what you'd do." He shrugged. "You were always the sweet one. I wanted to see if you'd stay sweet."

I felt Cesare move behind me, and I put a hand back without looking, and he stopped.

Fiora flinched at the end of the hall.

I noticed it, and I did not know yet what it meant.

"Now you know what I do," I said.

His smile thinned.

"Last chance. Say it."

"My dog is upstairs."

"Say it, Renata."

"Where is my dog?"

His eyes went flat.

"Laundry room," Fiora whispered. "I put her in there so she wouldn't get under the guests. She's fine."

I walked to the laundry room.

Nico's two men came off the wall and stood in the hallway to block me.

I did not stop walking.

"Move," I told the nearer one.

I had known him since he was nineteen.

I had gone to his mother's funeral.

He looked at Nico.

Nico did not give him a sign.

He took half a step toward me.

Behind me, Cesare said, very evenly, "Put a hand on her and I'll carry it home to your mother."

The man stopped.

Out the window by the door I could see the four men on the street.

I could see two neighbors on their steps, holding their coffee, staring.

I could see the cousin's phone swing from my face to Cesare's and back.

The dog was in the laundry room, curled on a towel.

She was fourteen years old and gray in the muzzle, and she shook all over when she saw me.

I picked her up.

Her heart was going against my arm.

I went into the living room and took my mother's painting off the wall, the small oil of a lemon tree.

It had hung over the piano since before I was born.

Nico had left the nail where it was.

I put it under my free arm and walked toward the door with the dog on my shoulder.

His men let me pass.

Nico stood in the hall with his cup.

"You're going to look so stupid," he said. "Tomorrow, when you come back."

"I'm not coming back."

"Sunday," he said. "The Table. You will stand beside me and clap when I say the date."

I kept walking.

"Or Sabatini's burns, Renata. Ask him how insurance feels."

At the curb, Cesare opened the car door for me.

He did not look at Nico.

He looked at me, and at the dog, and at the lemon tree under my arm.

"Did you hear him?" I said.

"Every word."

"He'll do it."

"He'll try," Cesare said, and shut the door.

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