He Mocked the Voice I Ruined to Save Him novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: The Claim

Chicago boss Dario Ricci explains the Family rule that can take her back to Charleston and offers his ring as a claim, with three terms she writes herself.

"I told him I would think about it," Dario Ricci said.

We were in the back of his car, my mother between us, the airport sliding away behind the glass.

"About putting me on a plane?" I said.

"About whether I own an airline." He did not smile. "I do not take orders from Charleston. I wanted to see you first."

My mother's hand tightened on mine.

"Gianna, you should know who he is," she said. "Dario runs the Ricci family. They have the lake docks and half the trucking in this city."

"He also owns my building," my mother added. "I rent the ground floor. He has never once raised the rent."

"I raised it by a dollar in March," Dario said. "She sent it back."

My mother nearly smiled, and so did he.

The house was a tall brick building on a quiet street with a black iron gate and a camera over the door.

My mother's apartment smelled like coffee and old books, and there was a small room at the back with a made bed in it.

She had kept it ready for eight years.

I stood in the doorway of that room and could not make myself go in.

"I will make tea," my mother said, and went to cry in the kitchen where she thought I could not hear.

Dario waited at the kitchen table with his coat still on.

"Sit," he said. "You have five days, and I would rather you spend them knowing the rule."

I sat.

"A woman who walks out of a match belongs to the house she left until she is claimed. Your father has asked the Sartoris to demand you back, in person, in front of the bosses. They will do it Friday."

"And if nobody claims me?"

"They send you home. You apologize to your fiancé in public. In a year you stand at the altar and read the vows into a microphone."

My stomach turned over.

"Stefano is not my fiancé," I said.

"Under the law, he is, until another house puts a ring on you in front of witnesses."

"Your house."

"Mine is the only door that is not Sartori or Landolfi." He took his hands out of his pockets. "A claim is a public engagement. It lasts as long as the match you left would have taken. After that, you walk."

"What do you get?"

He looked at me for a moment.

"The Sartoris take a cut of my lake freight every quarter. It is an old arrangement. I would like to see it reopened, and a Landolfi bride in a Ricci house is a hole in that treaty."

"That is a good reason," I said.

"It is a business reason. There is another." He glanced toward the kitchen door, and his voice dropped. "Your mother is the only person who ever sat up all night with me when I needed it. I do not let people take things from her."

My mother came back with the tea, and I understood he had said it low on purpose, so she would not have to hear it.

"I want to write the terms myself," I said.

"Write them."

I took the pen from her prescription pad. My hand was not completely steady.

"One," I said, writing it as I spoke. "The ring comes off the second I say the word enough, and you do not ask why."

"Agreed."

"Two. Separate floors."

"Agreed."

"Three. Nobody speaks for me. Not you, not my mother, not a boss. If someone asks me a question, I answer it."

For the first time he hesitated.

"Agreed," he said slowly. "With one exception that I will name when it comes."

"I do not accept exceptions."

"Then I will make it a request instead of a rule." His grey eyes held mine, steady. "I will ask. You will decide."

That was not what I had asked for. It was close enough that I let it stand.

I wrote it down, all three, and slid the pad across the table.

He signed the bottom of the page. His handwriting was small and square.

My mother put down the teapot.

"I have only one thing to add," she said. "I have a surgeon's hands and a good phone book," she said. "Whether you ever want your voice fixed, or how much of it, is yours alone. I will not bring it up again unless you do."

I felt something in my chest give way.

For five years every person who loved me had a plan for my throat.

"Not yet," I said.

"Not ever, if that is your answer," she said. "You were never broken."

I did not trust myself to speak, so I nodded.

Dario took a small box from the inside pocket of his coat and set it on the table.

It held a plain gold band with a single pale diamond, worn smooth at the edges.

"It was my grandmother's," he said. "She would have liked you."

"You have not met me."

"She liked anyone who made a man wait for an answer."

He held out his right hand, palm up.

I put my left hand in it.

His fingers were warm and rough, and the ring slid over my knuckle with no effort at all.

His hand was not quite steady, and I thought he must be tired.

He turned my hand over and looked at it for longer than he needed to.

The cuff of his left sleeve stayed buttoned to the wrist, though the kitchen was hot with the kettle.

"Say it again," he said quietly.

"Say what?"

"The word. The one that ends it."

"Enough," I said.

He nodded, once, and let go.

"Good. You know how."

My phone buzzed on the table.

It was a message from my father, with a photograph attached.

The photo showed the engagement certificate, the one with both our families' seals, and it was already in a frame on his desk.

The bride's name had been inked over in fresh black.

It said Lidia Landolfi.

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