Dumped My Ex, Married the Mafia Don novel · Chapter 2 of 32

Chapter 2: Fake Mom

Whitman calls her unstable in front of the don, she quotes his own famous brief back at him, they marry at City Hall, and Tito locks himself in his mother's closet with a note: go away, fake mom.

Whitman looked at the contract under Valerio's hand.

Then he looked at me, and he laughed.

"This is a joke," he said. "Mr. Ruggeri, with respect, you have no idea what you just bought."

"Tell me," Valerio said.

Paola put her phone face down on the bar.

The man by the kitchen door stopped wiping the same glass.

A waiter came out with two plates and froze in the doorway.

Whitman set his briefcase on a chair.

"She's unstable. She's been medicated for three years. She cries in closets."

"Go on."

"She once forgot our own address in the back of a cab. She can't keep a houseplant alive."

He turned his palms up, reasonable, sorry for everyone.

"Put her in front of a family judge and Fiorella's lawyer will eat her in ten minutes. I'm saying this as your counsel."

"And as her husband," Valerio said.

"Ex-husband. I'd know."

I sat very still.

Three years of this. At dinner parties, at his mother's birthday, in our own bed.

"Valerio, I'm the man who keeps your trucks on the road," Whitman said. "I wrote the harbor brief. Trust my judgment on this."

The harbor brief.

The one the Supreme Court quoted. The one with his picture in the Journal under it.

I heard myself start talking.

"The State asks this Court to forgive a search because it found something."

Whitman's head turned.

"But a warrant is not a permission slip that police may fill in afterward. If finding something were enough, no door in Rhode Island would ever need a key."

Nobody moved.

"Page eleven," I said. "Footnote six has the wrong year. You made me change it at two in the morning because you thought the right one looked like a typo."

Whitman's mouth opened and nothing came out.

Paola made a small noise into her wine glass.

I looked at Valerio, ready for the doubt.

There wasn't any.

He didn't look surprised at all.

He looked like a man hearing a song he already knew by heart.

"Witness it, counselor," he said.

"I won't be party to..."

"You're my lawyer. That's the job. Sign."

Whitman signed.

The pen skipped twice on his name.

He left without his briefcase, and the waiter had to run it out to the curb.

City Hall was at nine the next morning.

I wore the only dress in my suitcase, grey wool with a darned cuff.

Paola lent me lipstick in the ladies' room and said, "Don't worry, he looks like that at everybody."

Tito wore the navy suit.

He had the rings in his fist and would not give them to the bodyguard.

"He bit the bodyguard again in the car," Paola whispered. "Same thumb."

"Is the bodyguard okay?"

"He has a thumb with two sets of teeth marks. He's thinking about his life."

The clerk read the words fast.

Valerio said "I do" in a low, flat voice that didn't waste anything.

I said it louder than I meant to.

"You may kiss the bride," the clerk said.

Valerio bent his head close to mine.

"May I?" he asked, quietly enough that only I heard.

"Cheek," I said.

He kissed my cheek. His mouth was warm. It lasted a moment.

Tito made a gagging sound and the clerk laughed.

The Ruggeri house sat behind an iron gate on the East Side.

Stone, three stories, ivy on one side.

Inside it smelled like coffee and floor wax.

The kitchen had a long scarred table that could seat twenty, with crayon on one end.

A list was taped to the refrigerator.

Six names, crossed out. Next to each, in Paola's handwriting, a reason.

Bit. Bit. Glued her shoes to the floor. Hid her car keys in the lasagna. Bit. Said a word I won't write.

"The last one lasted four hours," Paola said. "Fake mom is the record to beat."

"I can hear you," I said.

"Good. Write that down."

I turned around.

Tito was gone.

The bodyguard was standing in the hall holding one small shoe.

"He went up," he said.

Valerio was already on the stairs.

I followed him to the end of the second-floor hall.

There was a white door with a brass knob, and it was locked.

"Tito," Valerio said. "Open it."

Nothing.

"That's her closet," he said to me, without turning. "His mother's. He goes in there when someone new comes."

He didn't say anything else about her.

He put his hand flat on the door.

"I'll stay out here," I said. "You go."

"He won't come out for you."

"Then he can not come out for me while you make dinner."

Valerio looked at me for a long moment.

Then he went downstairs.

I sat on the hall carpet with my back against the wall.

I heard a hanger scrape on the other side of the door.

I heard a nose being wiped on something silk.

Ten minutes passed. Then twenty.

A sheet of paper slid out under the door and stopped against my shoe.

Orange crayon. Big shaky letters. The K was backward.

GO AWAY FAKE MOM.

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