Falling for My Ex's Mafia Dad novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Wine Cellar
Leona finds her boyfriend with Serafina in his father's cellar, drops his ring into his glass at the Sunday table, and Carmine asks her to marry him.
I found my boyfriend of three years in his father's wine cellar with his hand up another woman's dress.
It was ten minutes before Sunday dinner, and I had come down for the Barolo.
Carmine Lucchesi liked the 2015 on the table whenever the Orsini family came to eat, and I was the one who knew which rack.
That was my job at the Lucchesi house.
I kept the books at Casa Lucchesi all week, and on Sundays I carried wine and kept my mouth shut.
The cellar light was on, and I heard a woman laugh.
"Don't," she said, in the voice of a woman who meant do.
"She's upstairs doing the napkins," Vince said.
He meant me, and my napkins.
I stood on the third step with my hand on the rail.
Serafina Corsi had her back against the racks and one cream silk shoe off.
Vince had his mouth on her neck and his hand somewhere I could not unsee.
Serafina was the goddaughter of Ottavio Orsini, the man my boyfriend's family had been at war with since before I was born.
Tonight she was supposed to be the guest of honor at the peace dinner.
"Four months of this," she whispered. "When do you tell her?"
"After tonight," Vince said. "After the dinner. She'll cry, it'll be ugly, and then she'll be gone."
He kissed her again.
"And my father's finished by Christmas. Once the Table sees I've got the Orsini behind me, he's done."
I did not say anything, and I did not run.
I took the Barolo off the third rack, the right one, the 2015, because it was my job and I was going to do it.
Then I walked down the last two steps in my flat boots.
Vince saw me first.
He did not jump.
He did not even take his hand away.
"Leona," he said. "Okay. This is how you find out."
Serafina smiled at me over his shoulder, and it was the nicest smile I have ever hated.
"Hi, sweetie," she said. "I'm so sorry. You must be the napkin girl."
I turned around and carried the wine upstairs.
At the dinner table I sat in the chair that had been mine for three years, at the far end, between Teo Bellini and an empty seat.
Teo was the Don's driver and his oldest friend, a big bald man who ate sunflower seeds from a paper cup even at funerals.
He looked at my face and slid the cup toward me without a word.
Carmine sat at the head of the table, in a navy three-piece suit, with his dark eyes on his glass.
He was forty-six, Vince's father, and the most frightening man I had ever served soup to.
He had barely looked at me in three years.
Ottavio Orsini sat at his right, white-haired, soft-voiced, leaning on a cane with a silver wolf's head.
Serafina sat beside Vince.
Her shoe was back on.
Vince stood with his glass up before the antipasto was cleared.
"Everyone," he said. "I know my father wanted this dinner to end a war."
There was a polite hush from the five old men of the Table.
"So I'm ending it the right way," Vince said, and took Serafina's hand. "Serafina has agreed to marry me."
The old men clapped.
Ottavio smiled.
Vince turned and looked straight down the length of the table at me.
"Leona, you've been great," he said kindly. "We'll make sure you're taken care of. You'll keep the restaurant job."
Three years in that house, and I would keep the restaurant job.
My ears went hot and my hands went cold, and I stood up.
Everyone looked at me, the old men and the cook in the doorway and the woman with the cream silk shoe.
I took the little gold ring off my left hand.
It was the one Vince had given me on a Tuesday, in his car, because he forgot it was my birthday on the Saturday.
I walked up the whole long table, past the capos, past Teo, who put his seeds down.
I stopped in front of Vince and dropped the ring into his glass of Barolo, the 2015, the good one.
It made a very small splash.
"Congratulations," I said. "I hope she likes wine cellars, because you're going to spend a lot of time in one."
Serafina's smile slipped.
Somebody at the table coughed into a napkin to hide a laugh.
Ottavio stopped smiling altogether.
"Wash that hand before you touch your fork, Vince," I said.
I walked out through the front hall, and nobody stopped me.
The October air hit my face on the porch, and I got three steps down before a hand closed around my wrist.
It was a big hand, warm, with a gold wedding band on a chain swinging against the shirt under his open jacket.
Carmine Lucchesi had come out without his coat.
I had never been touched by him.
My whole arm woke up.
"You heard what he said in that cellar," he said.
His voice was low and even, with the Chicago still in it.
"About Christmas."
"Yes."
"Then you're the only person alive who can say it in front of the Table," Carmine said. "And Ottavio's men watched you walk out. By tomorrow they'll want to know what you heard."
He let go of my wrist.
The skin there stayed warm.
"Teo drives you home tonight. Teo sleeps in your hallway tonight. That is not a question and it does not depend on what you say next."
I stared at him.
"What do I say next?"
"The Table gave me until Christmas to take a wife," Carmine said. "A Don without one loses his chair. My son knows it. Ottavio knows it."
The porch light caught the silver at his temples.
"I am not buying anything from you, Leona. You can walk away and still have Teo and my name."
He looked at my mouth for a moment, and then back at my eyes.
"But if you want his face when it happens," he said, "marry me."
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