Oops, My Online Ex Is the Mafia Don novel · Chapter 12 of 32

Chapter 12: Page Three

Luciano took his glasses off.

"No."

"You haven't heard it yet."

"I heard enough. You want to bait four made men with your book."

"Four readers," I said. "With four chapters. Same scene, four different nights, four different places. One goes to each man, and only to him."

Rosalba's mouth fell open.

"And whichever one the FBI shows up at," she said slowly.

"That's the man who's talking."

Luciano stared at the whiteboard.

"It's a canary trap," I said. "It's old. Spies did it. Writers do it to find out who leaks their drafts."

"And if he figures it out?"

"Then he's smarter than me, and I'll take up knitting."

He didn't laugh.

He walked to the window and stood there with his back to me, the way he had the first day.

"If it's my uncle," he said, and stopped.

He didn't finish.

Nobody made him.

"Not yet," he said finally. "Let me think."

"We have twenty-eight days."

"Then I'll think fast."

He kissed the top of my head on his way out.

He did it without looking.

I stood in the kitchen with my hand on my hair for a full minute after the door closed.

Rosalba watched me over her coffee.

"You two are disgusting," she said happily.

That night I couldn't write.

I sat on the bed in my blue room with the laptop open and the cursor blinking, and I couldn't make one sentence.

At midnight I gave up.

I opened my suitcase instead.

The yellow legal pad was at the bottom, under my sweaters.

Four pages.

His signature on the last one.

AND HE READS FIRST across the top of page two in my writing and his initials.

I read page three.

Separate rooms.

I'd written it at two in the morning, the night I found out, with my hand shaking.

I'd underlined it.

I was wearing a pale pink cotton nightgown that came to my knees, with a ruffle at the hem.

I took my black bow out of my bag and tied my hair back with it.

I don't know why.

I wanted to look like myself.

Then I crossed the hall barefoot with the legal pad and knocked on his door.

"It's open," he said.

He was sitting up in bed with his reading glasses on and a book face-down on his chest.

Gray sweatpants. No shirt.

The white bandage along his left ribs.

The lamp was the only light.

He started to take the glasses off.

"Leave them," I said.

He left them.

I walked to the end of his bed and held up the legal pad, open to page three.

"Page three," I said.

He went very still.

"I'm not scared," I said. "I want you to know that first. I was scared last night. I'm not now. I've been not scared all day."

"Bee."

"You said I'd still want it tomorrow. It's tomorrow."

I tore page three out.

It came away clean along the perforation, with a sound that seemed very loud in the dark house.

I tore it in half.

Then in half again, the way he'd torn my check.

I let the pieces fall on his rug.

He put the book on the nightstand very carefully.

He looked at me for so long I started to feel the cold floor under my feet.

"Come here," he said.

I went and stood beside the bed.

He didn't reach for me.

He kept his hands flat on the blanket.

"One more question," he said.

"Ask."

"Is this because you married me? Because you think you owe me for the debt? Or the stitches, or the table?"

"No."

"Because if it is, I'll sleep in the hall."

"It's because of fourteen months," I said. "Every night. Every single one. And because of Saturday, when you looked at me at the altar."

My voice wobbled.

I let it.

"I'm saying yes, Luciano. To you. Not to the Don. Not to the debt. To nightshift, and to the man with the terrible glasses."

His shoulders lowered.

"Then you lead," he said quietly. "Show me."

So I climbed onto the bed.

I climbed onto the bed and swung my leg over his hips.

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