My Mafia Fiancé Thought I'd Always Let Him Get Away With Anything novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Locked Door
At her own engagement party Renata's thumb is refused by the front door, the mistress's thumb opens it, and Nico's men film her on the step. She walks away, and the one man her father trusted is waiting at the curb.
At my own engagement party, my thumb stopped working on my own front door.
The pad beside the frame flashed red.
I had stepped outside for two minutes to sign for the cake.
The baker's van was already pulling away behind me, and the box was still in my arms.
I pressed my thumb to the glass again.
Red.
Through the sidelight I could see the whole front hall, lit up and full of people.
Eleven of my father's captains stood in it with their wives, holding champagne.
Nico was in the middle, in his black jacket, with a whiskey in his hand.
Fiora stood beside the door, very close to the pad.
An hour earlier she had fixed my zipper and brought me a glass of water without being asked.
She had hung my coat on a hook by the stairs, the third one, the one I always used.
I had thought that was kind.
Nico had told me to be kind to her that afternoon.
"Fi is only helping with the seating chart, babe. Don't make it into something."
Now she lifted her thumb to the pad, and the light turned green.
The door opened a hand's width and stopped.
Nico's palm was flat against the other side of it.
"Oh, Ren, it's being weird," Fiora said, smiling at me. "Hang on, I've got it."
She did not have it.
Nico had it, and he was holding it shut.
Behind him, his two cousins had their phones up, grinning, filming me on my own step.
"Say hi, Renata," one of them called.
Nico looked at me through the gap.
He tipped his glass to me.
"You talked back to me in the car," he said. "In front of my driver."
"I asked where you go at night," I said.
"And that's the last time you'll ask."
He said it gently.
That was the worst part of it.
He said it like a favor.
"Here's how this works, baby. You say you're sorry. You say you'll stop asking. Then Fi lets you in."
Somebody in the hall laughed.
Nobody told him to stop.
My father's captains looked at their shoes or at their glasses, and one of them looked at his wife.
I had known all of those men since I was a child.
Not one of them moved.
"You thought I'd forget to teach you," Nico said, quieter. "Nobody gets this house for free. Not even you."
His eyes went to my collar.
"And take that ring off, while you're begging. Your father's dead. You're not a widow."
My father's ring hung on its chain under my dress, a small, heavy circle of gold against my breastbone.
I had not taken it off once in fourteen months.
I touched it through the sequins.
The cousin with the phone stepped closer to get my face.
"Come on, Rena. Say please."
I looked at Nico.
I thought about every time I had said sorry to him since the funeral.
For being tired.
For crying.
For asking.
For the second time he did not come home, and the third.
He thought he was training me.
He stood there waiting for me to give in, the same as every other time.
And I found that I felt nothing.
I had been waiting for the hurt, and it did not come.
There was only a very clear quiet, and in it I knew I was done.
I set the cake on the stone step.
Then I took my phone out of my bag, turned it to the camera, and held it up to my own face.
"This is the front door of the Orsini house," I said to it. "It is Thursday night. Nico Brancato just locked me out."
The grin slid off the cousin's face.
"Put that away," Nico said.
I did not.
"I'm not saying sorry," I said. "I'm not asking. You can keep the house tonight."
So I stepped out.
I walked down the path in my heels without my coat, because my coat was behind that door.
Nico laughed behind me, loud enough for the street.
"Film her leaving!" he called. "She'll be back by midnight. She always is."
The door shut.
I heard the lock turn.
At the curb a black car I knew was running, with its lights off.
A man stood beside it with his hand on the roof.
He was taller than I remembered, with gray coming in at his temples and his coat open.
I had not seen Cesare Sabatini in fourteen months.
Nico had told me he'd quit.
Cesare took off his coat and put it around my shoulders without a word, and opened the passenger door.
I got in.
He shut it, walked around, and sat behind the wheel.
He did not start the car.
"I don't know where to go," I said.
"Yes, you do," he said. "But first, count with me."
"Count what?"
"The captains in that hall."
I shut my eyes.
"Eleven," I said.
"Eleven men watched him lock you out and shame you at your father's own door."
His knuckles went white on the wheel.
"Renata, your father wrote a rule for exactly this night. Nico has no idea it exists."
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