Oops, My Online Ex Is the Mafia Don novel · Chapter 27 of 32

Chapter 27: Properly

He picked his glasses up off the floor mat.

He put them on.

Then he looked at me through them for a long time, in the buzzing light, with his hair a mess.

"Saturday," he said. "Wear a warm coat."

That was all he said the whole way back to Fishtown.

On Saturday the seventh he came for me at nine at night.

Bernie zipped me into my long camel coat over a cream wool dress and tied my black bow herself.

"Warm coat," she said. "Somewhere cold. At night." She narrowed her eyes. "If he takes you ice fishing, I'm calling the cops."

"You've never called the cops in your life."

"I've got the number saved. It's under 'Cops.'"

He drove us down Delaware Avenue, carefully, through every yellow light.

The fish house sat dark on the river, with the water black behind it.

He unlocked a side door with his own key.

"Is this allowed?" I said.

"It's mine."

Inside it was exactly the way I'd written it before I'd ever seen it.

Cold blue light.

Hanging scales.

The smell of salt and ice and wet concrete.

He took my hand and walked me past the long steel tables to the big freezer door at the back.

He pulled it open.

The hinge squeaked.

I laughed out loud.

"It really squeaks."

"I've been asked to fix it twice," he said. "I told them it was important."

Inside the freezer my breath came out white.

Boxes of frozen squid were stacked to the ceiling on the left.

He moved one stack, and behind it was a steel door painted white, so you'd miss it.

My heart was going so hard I could hear it.

He opened it.

The count room was empty.

No machines.

No rubber bands.

No old man counting in fives.

Just a bare concrete room, a single bulb, and a folding table with nothing on it.

"I cleared it the morning after my uncle read your chapter in your kitchen," he said. "Before he ever read it to the table. The feds can come look at a white door all they want."

It was freezing.

It was colder than any room I'd ever stood in.

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