They Left Me to Die, So I Came Home Undefeated novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: House Rules

In the warehouse office Mirella sets her own terms to her brothers, and Tancredi sets his; outside, her father's car waits with Cosima in the back seat.

Corrado's men walked me up to the office on the second floor.

They stood in the doorway with their arms folded.

Tancredi Ruggiero sat behind the desk in a black sweater with his sleeves pushed up.

He owned the warehouse, the cage and every dollar that went through the gate.

He had never once asked me my name.

He looked at the two brothers, then at the men in the door, then at me.

"Lupa," he said. "You didn't mention you had a family."

"I didn't know they were coming."

"Do they know you're mine until Friday?"

"I'm not yours," I said. "I'm on your card."

The corner of his mouth moved.

Corrado stepped into the room and the floor creaked under him.

"She's coming home tonight," he said. "Tell her to pack."

"No," I said.

Teo had come in behind his brother and stood against the wall with his hands in his coat.

He hadn't taken his eyes off my face since the cage.

"You don't decide that," Corrado said to me.

"Then you carry me," I said. "In front of two hundred people who bet money on me."

Nobody moved.

Tancredi leaned back in his chair and laced his fingers over his stomach.

He said nothing and let the brothers talk.

"I'd have to bill you for the crowd," he said to Corrado. "They'll want their money back."

My trainer pushed past the men in the doorway.

She was sixty-three, with a broken nose and thick forearms, and she did not care who was holding what.

"She fights Friday," she said. "I've had her on that card for a month. Take her out of here before then and I will take it up with every one of you."

Corrado looked at her, then at me.

"Fine," he said. "Name your terms."

I had been waiting five years to say them.

"One. I fight Friday and every Friday after, as long as I want to."

"Fine."

"Two. I walk through the front door of that house. Not the garage, not the service stairs."

"Fine."

"Three. At that table, I am Mirella Montanari. Not Rosso."

Corrado's jaw went tight.

Teo made a small noise against the wall.

"Papà changed that," Corrado said. "Legally."

"Then he can change it back in front of everyone, or I stay here."

"He'll say yes," Teo said, before his brother could answer.

Corrado shot him a look, and Teo met it.

I saw it, and I filed it away.

"Done," Corrado said. "Ten minutes."

He took his men out of the doorway, and the door swung shut behind them.

My trainer went out last and took her time.

It was quiet in the office.

"That's your family," Tancredi said.

"Yes."

"I told you the house rules when you came in," he said. "I'll say them again, because they've changed."

"What changed?"

"Now there's a man outside who will ask me where you are."

He held up one finger.

"One, I don't ask your name. I haven't, and I won't."

A second finger.

"Two, I don't touch you outside the ring. Not a hand, not a sleeve."

A third.

"Three, you come back through that door in one piece."

"That's it?"

"Rule three is the only one I'd break," he said.

He said it flat, and I looked at him for a moment too long.

"You're not my keeper," I told him.

"No."

"Then why three?"

"Because you're the best fighter I've ever had, and you've never lost," he said. "I don't like to lose either."

It was a good answer, and it was nothing like the whole of it.

I took my bag from the chair.

At the stairwell door Teo was waiting alone, one shoulder against the cinderblock.

He had grown a beard, and it didn't suit him.

"Pip," he said.

"Don't call me that."

"I'm sorry."

"I know you are," I said. "That's not what I asked for."

"What did you ask for?"

"I didn't ask for anything."

I went past him down the stairs and he followed a step behind, close enough that I could hear him breathe.

He didn't say anything else.

Outside the night was cold and clear, and the street smelled of diesel and river water.

Corrado held the back door of the black sedan at the curb.

I didn't get in.

Across the street, a long black car sat with its engine running and its lights off.

A man was in the driver's seat.

He didn't get out.

"Papà came himself," Teo said, and his voice was strange.

The back window of the long car slid down.

A girl with my face leaned out into the streetlight.

Her hair was loose, and she wore a white coat, and tears were already running down her cheeks.

"Mirella," Cosima said. "Oh, Mirella. I've missed you so much."

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