Regrets of the Don: His Beloved Walked Away novel · Chapter 1 of 32
Chapter 1: The Altar
Lili's fiancé walks off the altar to her sister and the Don steps up and marries her instead; three good years later, home early, she hears him tell his underboss that her sister's baby is his and she must never know, and before she leaves she locks her sister out of every door in the house, only to receive an ultrasound photo captioned Congratulations, Auntie.
At my wedding, my fiancé let go of my hands in front of the altar and walked down the steps to my sister.
The priest stopped in the middle of a word.
Two hundred people turned in the pews to watch him go.
Ricky didn't run. He strolled.
Valentina was in the second row in a pale pink dress, almost white.
He stopped in front of her and took her hand.
"I'm sorry, Lili," he said over his shoulder. "I can't marry the wrong sister."
Somebody laughed.
Then somebody else did.
"That's five," a woman whispered behind me, not quietly. "Five men, and every one of them ends up with Valentina."
"Can you blame them? Look at her."
I stood there in my grandmother's veil with my bouquet shaking.
My sister put her hand over her mouth. Her eyes filled up on cue.
"Oh, Lili, I'm so sorry," she said. "I was only testing his loyalty. For you. I didn't think he'd actually do it."
She looked at Ricky's hand on hers.
"I ruined your wedding again, didn't I?"
My mother leaned across the aisle and patted Valentina's knee.
Not mine.
I was about to walk out alone when someone stood up at the back of the church.
Everybody knew who he was.
Cesare Lanza. The man half of Brooklyn crossed the street to avoid.
His family had bought their locks from my grandfather for forty years. I'd rekeyed his front gate the spring before.
He walked up the aisle without hurrying.
The laughing stopped.
He stopped in front of me and looked at the bouquet, then at my face.
"Do you want to walk out of here married or not?" he asked.
It was the strangest proposal anyone has ever gotten.
I looked at Ricky with my sister's lipstick already on his collar.
"Married," I said.
Cesare turned to the priest.
"You heard her, Father."
The priest swallowed and found his place in the book.
"Liliana, do you take this man..."
We had no rings. Cesare pulled the gold signet ring off his little finger and slid it onto my thumb, because it was the only finger it fit.
The next morning he bought me a diamond.
I wore it for three years.
He was good to me.
He was better than good.
He brought me coffee in the shop on 18th Avenue on the days I worked my grandfather's counter.
He let me put a lock on every door in his house and never asked me to stop being a locksmith.
When Valentina leaned too close to him at a christening, he moved her hand off his arm in front of everyone.
"Know your place," he told her, flat and cold.
His little sister, Concetta, who made everyone call her Connie, applauded from the dessert table.
For three years I was the luckiest woman in Brooklyn.
On a Thursday in October, I finished a bank job in Philadelphia a day early.
It was the night before our third anniversary.
I didn't call ahead. I wanted to see his face.
I let myself in through the side gate at eleven at night with my toolbox in my hand.
The house was quiet.
There was a line of light under the study door.
I was reaching for the handle when I heard his underboss.
"Don Lanza. The Donna's sister is pregnant."
I stopped.
"She says it's yours. What if your wife finds out?"
There was a long silence.
I could hear the old clock on the wall.
Then my husband's voice, low and tired.
"Valentina and I... it was a mistake. One night."
My hand was still an inch from the handle.
"Lili can never know," he said. "Keep it from her. Pay whatever the girl wants. I'll make it up to my wife later."
Later.
I took my hand back.
I didn't open the door.
I didn't scream, though I could feel it in my chest.
I walked down the back stairs to the basement, where my workbench was.
I sat on the stool my grandfather built.
I opened the laptop that ran every lock in the house.
Every door in that house had a code, and I had set every single one.
My mother had an emergency override. I'd given it to her two years ago, so she could let herself in if something happened to me.
Valentina knew it. Of course she did.
I deleted my mother's override.
I deleted my sister's guest code on the gate, the side door and the garage.
I changed the master code to the date of my grandfather's death, which nobody in that house would ever guess.
It didn't take long.
Then I went upstairs to the bedroom, very quietly, and packed.
Not dresses. Not jewelry he'd bought me.
My grandfather's picks. My key machine bits. Two pairs of jeans.
I took off the diamond and set it on his pillow.
The signet ring I'd given back the morning after the wedding.
I had nothing of his left to return.
At two in the morning I stood at the front door with my toolbox and one bag.
Behind me, my husband was still in his study, solving his problem.
My phone lit up in my hand.
A text from my sister.
It was a picture of a black-and-white ultrasound, a tiny gray bean in the middle of it.
Under it she'd written, "Congratulations, Auntie."
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