Super Godfather: My Ex Begs Me on Her Knees novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Padlock
The sheriff padlocks Remo's repair yard while his wife hands him divorce papers beside her lover; Remo pays his nine men with his last cash, and a Don in a black Lincoln says he watched.
The sheriff's deputy was snapping a padlock through the chain on my shop door when my wife walked up with divorce papers.
It was seven in the morning on a cold Tuesday in October.
I had opened Fiorentino Marine and Auto every day for eleven years, and I had never once found that door locked from the outside.
"Sir, step back," the deputy said.
"This is my yard."
"Not anymore, sir. The lot was sold Friday."
A new sign hung on the gate, glossy and blue.
HARBOR POINT LLC. FUTURE HOME OF THE ALLENS AVENUE RESORT.
I read it twice and it still said nothing I understood.
Then I heard heels on the gravel.
Shelby wore her cream wool coat and her ash-blonde hair pulled back in the neat low ponytail she wore to church.
She was carrying a manila envelope, and she wasn't alone.
Dean Falco walked half a step behind her in a blue blazer and a watch too loud for the hour.
I knew him from the diner on Eddy Street.
He had always tipped big and talked.
"Remo," Shelby said, in the soft voice she used for bad news at funerals. "Don't make this ugly."
"What did you do?"
"I did what I had to."
She held out the envelope.
My nine men had come in for the shift, and they stood in a line by the bay doors with their lunch bags in their hands.
All nine of them were watching.
"Divorce papers," Shelby said. "And the closing statement for the yard, so you can see it was legal."
"Legal."
"You signed the power of attorney in 2019, Remo. Remember? When your mother was sick and you couldn't be bothered with the bank."
I remembered a clipboard on the kitchen counter and her hand on my shoulder.
I remembered saying, you do the paperwork, you're better at it.
"The business account is empty," I said. I had checked my phone in the truck. "Four hundred and twelve thousand dollars. Where is it?"
"Gone to the house loan and the debts."
"What debts?"
"The ones you never looked at."
Dean cleared his throat. "She's being generous. The house loan is in your name too, so that stays with you."
"What house loan?"
"Three hundred and eighty thousand," Shelby said. "Against the equity. It's all in the papers."
My knees didn't buckle.
I wish I could say they did, because then it would have been over faster.
Instead I stood there and heard the deputy's keys jingle and my own heart in my ears.
"You sold my yard to your boyfriend," I said.
"I sold it to Harbor Point," she said. "Dean's company paid more than anyone else would."
"Shelby."
"We were done years ago, Remo. You were just too busy under a truck to notice."
Behind me, one of my men let out a breath.
I turned around.
Nine faces looked back at me.
My oldest mechanic had worked for me since the day I opened. My youngest had been sixteen when I hired him, and now he had a wife and a baby.
They were not looking at Shelby.
They were looking at me, the way men look at a boss to learn what happens next.
I had $212 in my wallet.
I had it because I'd been saving it for the truck registration.
I took it out and counted it into my hand.
"Payroll's Friday," I told them. "It won't be coming. I'm sorry."
Nobody spoke.
"This is what I've got. Split it. Then get your toolboxes, because every tool in that shop is yours and none of it is theirs."
"Remo, you don't have to," my oldest mechanic said.
"I do."
I put the bills in his palm and folded his fingers over them.
Dean laughed, a short one through his nose. "Those tools are on the property."
"Then call the deputy," I said, "and tell him you're stopping nine men from carrying out their own wrenches."
The deputy looked at Dean.
He looked at the nine men and their lunch bags.
He unlocked the padlock.
It took ten minutes for my crew to empty the bays.
They carried out red rolling boxes, torque wrenches and the old hydraulic jack my father gave me when I started.
They walked past Shelby without looking at her.
The youngest one spat in the gravel at her feet, and she flinched.
I signed nothing.
I put the envelope on the hood of Dean's car and left it there.
"I'll see you in court," Shelby said, and her voice finally cracked.
"No, you won't," I said. "You'll see me again, and it won't be in a courtroom."
Then I walked out through the gate of my own yard with my hands empty and my pockets empty.
A black Lincoln was parked across the street with its engine running.
The back window slid down.
An old man in a grey cardigan sat inside, thin as a coat hanger, with white hair and a cane across his knees.
I had seen his face in the newspaper at the funerals of men who mattered.
Everyone in Providence knew who Tullio Bardi was, and nobody said it out loud.
"Mr. Fiorentino," he said, and coughed into a folded handkerchief.
"I've got nothing for you."
"I know. I watched you give your last dollar to your men before you thought about yourself."
He opened the car door from the inside.
"Get in," said Don Tullio Bardi. "I have an offer."
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