The Mafia Heir's Revenge Baby novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: Dry Well
On their fifth anniversary Carmine seats his mistress in Juniper's chair and calls her barren at his father's table, so she walks out and steals the one thing he needs, and he calls to threaten her life.
On our fifth wedding anniversary, my husband gave my chair to his mistress.
It was Sunday dinner at his father's house in South Philadelphia.
Fourteen Corsaros around one long table, the gravy on since six that morning.
I came up from the kitchen with the bread, and there she was.
Lucia Bellomo, the hostess from Carmine's restaurant.
Cream dress, red nails, sitting in my seat at Carmine's right hand.
Carmine didn't look up from his wine.
"Sit at the end, June," he said. "Lucia's a guest."
His aunts looked at their plates.
His cousins looked at the ceiling.
Pop, at the head of the table, kept cutting his meat.
I set the bread down and took the folding chair at the end, next to the kids.
Nobody had remembered what day it was.
I had.
I'd had his watch engraved.
It was in my purse in a little box with a ribbon on it.
Carmine stood up halfway through the pasta and tapped his glass with a fork.
"Some news," he said. "This family is getting a son."
The table went still.
Every head turned toward me.
For one stupid second, I thought he meant us.
"Lucia's going to carry him," Carmine said. "The clinic has what it needs. Next month."
Lucia touched her stomach and smiled down the table at me.
One of the aunts made a small sound.
"Carmine," Pop said, without looking up. "Not at the table."
"Why not at the table?" Carmine spread his hands. "Everybody here knows. Five years, and nothing."
He finally looked at me.
"Five years, June. You're a dry well."
Somebody's fork hit a plate.
I had asked him for one thing in five years.
The year I turned twenty-seven, I begged him to try a clinic.
I'd frozen my eggs at Haverford Fertility. I'd filled in every form.
He'd torn up the consent paper in our kitchen.
"A Corsaro doesn't need a clinic," he'd said.
And now he'd found one for her.
"Carmine," said a quiet voice. "Enough."
It was Gianni, his younger brother.
He'd been out of prison eleven months, and he barely talked at these dinners.
He sat with his big shoulders hunched and his sleeves rolled, a white scar through his left eyebrow.
"Stay out of it," Carmine said. "It's my house too."
"It's Pop's house," Gianni said. "And it's her anniversary."
Carmine laughed.
"Is it?"
I stood up.
The folding chair scraped on the floor.
I took off my wedding ring.
It was a heavy old diamond, his grandmother's, and it had never fit.
I walked the length of the table and set it on Lucia's bread plate.
"He'll want you to have it," I said. "It's cold. You'll get used to it."
Lucia's smile slipped.
I turned to Pop.
"Thank you for dinner," I said. "I'm done being a Corsaro."
Pop put down his knife and looked at me for the first time all night.
He didn't say a word.
Carmine was still smiling.
"You'll be back by Tuesday," he said. "Where are you going to go? You don't have a car. You don't have a dime that isn't mine."
I walked out.
Nobody stopped me.
It was raining on the stoop, and I'd left my coat on the hook inside.
I wasn't going back for it.
The door opened behind me.
Gianni came down the steps and held something out.
A ring of car keys.
"Black Lincoln on the corner," he said. "Tank's full."
"Your brother will kill you."
"My brother's going to try." He put the keys in my hand and closed my fingers over them. "Go."
I went.
I didn't drive to my mother's in Ohio.
I drove to Haverford Fertility.
The night nurse was behind the desk, the same woman who'd held my hand two years ago when I cried in her hallway.
She remembered me.
"Mrs. Corsaro. It's after hours."
"I know. I need to withdraw my eggs. And my husband's sample."
She typed.
I watched her face.
My name was on Carmine's account. He'd put it there himself, back when he still let me pay the bills.
"You're the authorized spouse," she said slowly. "There's one vial left on his account. Your husband's appointment for it is next month."
"Not anymore."
She looked at me a long time.
Then she went into the back.
She came out with a steel canister that smoked when she set it down.
She read the label and frowned.
"Huh. This one's older than your marriage."
I didn't ask.
I signed my name, Juniper Corsaro, for the last time.
I drove the canister and my eggs to my lab at Penn at one in the morning.
The prototype was in the back room under a sheet.
Glass, tubing, a warm amber light.
My students called it the womb.
I called it the tank.
It had carried four healthy lambs to term.
It had never carried a person.
I washed my hands for a long time.
At three, I switched it on, and the heater began to hum.
At three fifteen, my phone rang.
Carmine.
I picked up.
"You took something of mine," he said.
His voice was very calm.
"The clinic called me. Bring it back tonight, June, or they'll find you in the river."
I looked at the amber light.
"No," I said. "Come and get it."
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