You mafia brats who mistook your mother — kneel before your real mother novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: The Price of Yes

Adriana slaps Ruggero in his car and sets terms for the lie; Bianca invites her to family dinner, and Dario calls to warn her about a bag of cash.

The hall did not go quiet after Ruggero said yes.

It got loud.

Three hundred people started talking at once, and a capo near the stage swore in Italian and shoved back his chair.

Cesare turned his back on me.

"Get her out," he said to the second son. "Both of them."

The second son started down the steps, and Ruggero came up the aisle to meet him, unhurried, with his right hand open at his side.

"I'm a guest in this house," Ruggero said. "I came at your invitation. A guest leaves on his own feet, Cesare. Your father would have told you that."

Cesare's jaw moved.

Every capo in the hall knew the rule, and every one of them was watching to see if he would break it on his first day.

"Let them walk," Cesare said.

I still had the crown in my hand.

I held it out to Bianca, and she took it with both hands.

"Wear it today," I said quietly. "It won't fit you for long."

Her smile did not change.

"Oh, Adriana," she said. "I'm so glad you're home."

I walked down the aisle with three hundred people watching and did not look at my sons.

I could feel Dario's eyes on my back all the way to the door.

Ruggero's car was parked at the curb with the engine running.

The passenger seat was already pushed back for my legs.

I got in, and he pulled away with one hand on the wheel, the left one still in his pocket.

I let him drive four blocks.

Then I hit him.

It was an open hand across the face, hard enough to turn his head, and the car drifted a foot before he corrected it.

"Why did you say yes?"

"Because it's what they believe." He did not touch his cheek. "Twelve years ago they were told you left with me. If I say no now, I'm calling their father a liar in front of his own capos."

"Your yes made me a woman who left her children for a man."

"Your no would have made you a stranger who walked in off the street with a story," Ruggero said. "Nobody puts a runaway wife in the ground before they've heard what she wants. A stranger, they put in the ground today."

I stared at the side of his face.

The mark of my hand was coming up red on his cheek.

"You had four days in Lisbon to tell me that," I said.

"You wouldn't have gotten on the plane."

That was true, and I hated that it was true.

"Where are you taking me?"

"A hotel on the river. My family owns it. Nobody will ask who you are."

"Then here are my terms."

I turned in the seat so I could see him properly.

"If the whole city thinks I'm yours, then I'm yours when someone's looking. At the Table, at dinner, at any party you can get me into. When the door shuts, you keep your hands where they are."

"Agreed," Ruggero said.

He said it too fast, and it stung, and I was angry at myself for noticing.

"And if one of my sons asks me to my face why I left, I tell him the truth."

"Not yet."

"Ruggero."

"Not until you know who in that house wants you gone." He glanced at me, once. "Tell him on the wrong day and he won't believe you, and Bianca will have a story ready by dinner."

I turned back to the windshield.

The city went by gray and wet, and every street was one I used to know.

The suite was on the ninth floor, with a view of the river and a bowl of green apples nobody had touched.

Ruggero stood in the doorway and would not come in.

"There's a man downstairs in the lobby," he said. "He's mine. If you need anything, you tell him."

"And if I need you?"

"Then you call me."

He left.

I took off the gray coat for the first time in thirty hours and sat on the edge of the bed.

My wrist still had the print of Cesare's fingers on it.

At seven the front desk sent up an envelope.

It was cream-colored, heavy, addressed to me in a round, beautiful hand.

Inside was a card.

Family dinner is tomorrow at seven. Family only. We would love to have you at the table. Come as you are, Adriana. You belong here too. Bianca.

She had written it before I'd even left the hall.

I read it twice, and found nothing in it to hate, which was what frightened me.

I was still holding it when the room phone rang.

I picked it up and said hello.

Nobody answered.

Then a boy's voice, low and fast, out of breath.

"Don't come to dinner."

"Who is this?"

"I followed Ruggero's car. I saw her driver carry a duffel bag into your hotel." He was breathing hard. "Cesare's men are coming for your suite at six tomorrow morning. There's forty thousand dollars in that bag, and it's already in your closet."

It was Dario.

He hung up before I could say his name.

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