Dumped My Ex, Married the Mafia Don novel · Chapter 3 of 32

Chapter 3: The Cookie Heist

Josephine bargains Tito out of the closet, finds a lock fitted on her door, cleans Valerio's split knuckles at 2 a.m., and at noon the preschool calls: Tito's grandmother is taking him.

I folded the note in half and put it in my pocket.

Then I slid a fresh sheet of paper back under the door, and a pen.

"That's a very good letter," I said. "Your K is backward, but the message is clear."

Silence.

"I'm going to write back. Lawyers always answer in writing."

I took a second sheet from my bag and wrote on my knee.

DEAR CLIENT. I CAN'T GO AWAY. I SIGNED A CONTRACT. BUT I KNOW WHERE THE COOKIES ARE.

I slid it under.

A long pause.

Something scratched on the other side.

The paper came back. One word, with the S backward this time.

WARE?

"Top shelf of the pantry," I said through the door. "Behind the flour. Your Aunt Paola thinks nobody knows."

"She hides them," a small voice said.

"She does. I can't reach them alone. I need a partner who's good at climbing."

"I'm good at climbing."

"I heard that about you."

The lock clicked.

The door opened two inches.

One dark eye looked at me over a fistful of silk scarf.

"Just one cookie," I said. "And then we put the chair back so there's no evidence."

"What's evidence?"

"It's what gets you caught."

He opened the door the rest of the way.

Behind him, dresses still hung in a row. Nobody had touched them in two years.

There was a little nest of his blankets on the floor under them.

I didn't go in.

I held out my hand, and he looked at it, and then he walked past it.

But he walked next to me all the way down the stairs.

Paola was at the stove. Valerio was at the long table with his phone.

Both of them watched us cross the kitchen to the pantry.

Nobody said a word.

I dragged a chair over. Tito climbed it like a cat burglar.

He came down with two cookies and a look of pure triumph.

"One," I said.

"One for you."

I took it.

"Partner," I said.

He chewed and considered me.

"You're still fake," he said.

"Noted for the record."

Bedtime was a war.

He wanted to sleep in the suit.

I said the suit could sleep on the chair next to him, like a guard.

He wanted three stories.

I said one story and one question.

"What's the question?"

"Anything you want."

He thought hard. "Do you have a gun?"

"No."

"Daddy has a lot."

"Daddy also has a bedtime for you, and it was twenty minutes ago."

He laughed, surprised, and then looked furious at himself for laughing.

He was asleep by the end of the story.

The suit sat on the chair with its arms folded.

My room was at the end of the hall.

A real bed, a window over the garden, a desk with a reading lamp.

On the inside of the door was a new brass deadbolt.

The screws were bright. A little sawdust was still on the floorboard.

Somebody had put it in that afternoon, while I was at City Hall marrying a stranger.

I turned it. It slid home with a heavy, perfect sound.

I stood there with my hand on it for a long time.

I woke at two.

The house was dark and I was thirsty, and I wasn't used to a quiet that didn't belong to Whitman.

I unlocked the door and went down to the kitchen in my socks.

The light over the sink was on.

Valerio stood at the sink in his shirt sleeves, running water over his right hand.

His knuckles were split open across all four.

The water in the basin was pink.

He turned his head and saw me.

He didn't hide the hand. He didn't explain it.

I got the first-aid box from the cabinet over the fridge, because I'd seen Paola put the bandages back there.

"Sit," I said.

He sat at the long table.

I pulled a chair close and took his hand in both of mine.

It was a very big hand. It was shaking a little, which surprised me.

I cleaned the cuts with gauze and the brown stuff that stings.

He didn't flinch.

I could feel him watching my face the whole time.

"You're not going to ask," he said.

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because I don't want to lie on the stand in June."

The corner of his mouth moved.

I taped the gauze across his knuckles and pressed it flat with my thumb.

His fingers closed, just slightly, around mine.

Then they opened again and let me go.

"Thank you, Josephine."

"Jo is fine."

"He calls you Jo," Valerio said quietly. "Your ex."

"Then Josephine."

He nodded.

I went back up to my room and locked the door, and lay awake listening to him not come up the stairs.

At noon the next day I was at the desk with my bar-prep book open when my phone rang.

Tito's preschool. I was on the pickup list now, as of that morning.

"Mrs. Ruggeri?" the director said. Her voice was tight. "There's a woman in our lobby. She says she's Tito's grandmother."

"Is Tito with her?"

"Not yet. She says she's taking him home. She says she has every right."

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