The Mafia Queen Who Went Home and Never Looked Back

I glanced at my phone. The travel confirmation was still on the screen. I'd be back in the old neighborhood soon. I couldn't be bothered to argue with him. "You're right. I was being unreasonable." "It won't happen again." When he saw my reaction, his expression went blank for a split second. I figured he'd been bracing for me to do what I always did: demand to know when he'd finally make it official between us, demand to know why he and Gemma Russo were still so tangled up, but the one thing he hadn't expected was me conceding. After a few seconds of silence, he tossed out a "Suit yourself" and walked out. He didn't come back to our rooms that night. The next morning I went down to the operation as usual. I could let go of Lorenzo, but the business he and I had built carried every ounce of my blood and sweat. We'd sworn it into existence together, partners in trust, and my forty-nine points were no small thing. Even if I was leaving, I needed to make sure everything was in order first. Besides, I'd still be drawing my cut of the earnings, year after year. I was in the middle of working out who I'd raise up to run the floor in my place, so I could keep my hand in from the old quarter, when Renata Conti appeared at the end of the corridor, her face drained of color. She was a seasoned associate who'd been in the trenches with me through more arrangements and sit-downs than I could count. I had never seen her look this rattled. "Adriana, last night we were sending the tribute figures up to Lorenzo. Gemma said he was asleep, that she'd handle the handoff herself." "But she let our bottom-line numbers go straight to the connect along with everything else." "Now they're demanding we shave twenty percent off the tribute, and our margin barely clears thirty." Her voice cracked. "We've been working this arrangement for six months. If we hold the line, we eat the loss. If we walk, we lose the connect for good." I nodded as she spoke and pushed open the door to Lorenzo's office. Gemma was lying on her side on the sofa while Lorenzo spooned sweet wine into her mouth, one careful sip at a time. That sofa was the same one Lorenzo had brought in for me back when we first put the operation together, back when he'd had to force me to rest. He'd said: "This room is yours. You close your eyes here, no one disturbs you." So even when we moved the operation, bought our own building, gutted it and rebuilt it from the studs, I'd had that sofa moved here with everything else. Now another woman was stretched out on it, and he was at her side, tending to her like something precious. Just the way he'd once tended to me. Something caught in my chest, but strangely, it didn't hurt anymore. The moment Gemma saw me, she sat up. "Adriana, please don't misunderstand. I felt so guilty I fainted, and that's the only reason Lorenzo was giving me the wine." I still remembered that the first time she met Lorenzo, she'd called him "the boss's husband." Somewhere along the way it had become just "Lorenzo." I didn't acknowledge her. I walked straight to Lorenzo's desk and laid the report down in front of him, slow and deliberate, so the sound of it would sit in the room. "At the price they're asking now, if we want to keep this connect, we bleed a hundred and seventy thousand." I swept my gaze over both of them. "Which one of you is covering that?" Gemma's fingers drifted to her lower lip, and her eyes reddened on cue. "It's all my fault. I just didn't want to wake Lorenzo. He was so exhausted, I felt sick over it." "I'll go to Mr. Lee myself, right now. I'll beg him if I have to." Lorenzo stared at the file with a deep frown but made no move to stop her. Renata and I stood right where we were, and neither of us lifted a finger either. Gemma froze, stuck. She'd backed herself into a corner with nowhere left to go. I folded my arms and watched her. "Gemma, crying and begging don't close arrangements." She tossed aside the cashmere blanket and took two steps before crumpling to the floor. The performance was so clumsy that engaging with it would've insulted my own intelligence. But Lorenzo, the man they called a brilliant earner, bought every second of it. He helped Gemma up and settled her gently back onto the sofa. "Adriana, you always have to be so aggressive."

“Does the whole world have to revolve around you?” I freed one hand and rapped my knuckles against the polished mahogany of his desk. “Cut the talk that has nothing to do with the arrangement. A hundred and seventy thousand. What's your plan?” His eyes were bloodshot. “If honoring the connect means we bleed money, then we cut the connect loose.” I let out a cold laugh. “Do you even remember how many bottles we shared, how many nights we sat up till dawn to bring that tributary into the fold in the first place?” “And it isn't only this one arrangement. We have other pacts running with them. If we walk, how many more hundred-and-seventy-thousand losses are we staring down?” “Lorenzo, have you completely lost your mind?” He shot me an impatient glance, muttering “so small” under his breath, and then, pulled a bank card from inside his jacket and flung it across at my face. “It's just a hundred and seventy thousand. I'll cover it for her. Happy now?” My cheek stung, but I was eerily calm. The boy from the old neighborhood who once thought a twelve-dollar plate of fried rice was too rich for his blood, now tossing a hundred and seventy thousand across the desk without blinking. He'd already forgotten how many people's livelihoods sat in our hands. This was never just about the money. Or maybe he knew. He just didn't care. Since he didn't care about a hundred and seventy thousand, what about a hundred times that? I wanted to see if he'd be just as indifferent then. I met my oldest friend, Francesca Moretti, for afternoon coffee at a quiet table in her father's club. She hadn't even finished cursing Lorenzo's name when a message came in from Renata. “Adriana, get back to the office now.” The moment I reached the door of my own office, I saw Gemma directing two crew members to haul out my desk. Pacts, documents, the whole record of it, scattered across the floor. Years of work, built up piece by piece. Who the hell did she think she was? “Put everything down. Now.” I closed the distance in three strides and slapped Gemma across the face. “Who told you to touch my things?” Gemma clutched her cheek, but her eyes were defiant. “Lorenzo said you lost a major arrangement and you don't deserve this office anymore. He wants you working out in the open floor with the rest of the crew.” He must have heard the commotion. Lorenzo came in. He took one look at the mess on the floor, and something flickered behind his eyes. “Gemma, I told you to give her word. Who said you could move her things?” Gemma lowered her hand, baring the red print on her cheek, and looked up at him with wide, wounded eyes. Her fingers drifted to her lower lip, and the tears welled right on cue. He caved instantly. “Adriana, this was my call. If you want to take it out on someone, take it out on me.” “But rules are rules. Gemma passed along our tribute figures, fine, but it was someone on your crew who put them in her hands. You bear direct responsibility.” He sighed, settling both hands on my shoulders. “I heard you booked a ticket home.” “I can't go back with you, though.” “Why don't you use it as a reason to take a few days, go see the old quarter, hm?” I shook his hands off me. “Who asked you to come? I'm going home because——” He scoffed. “To find a husband?” “Drop the act. Gemma already told me. There's no old code in your neighborhood about a woman having to come back and marry before thirty.” Gemma chimed in. “Adriana, don't hold it against me for telling him. I just couldn't stand by and watch you lie to him anymore.” I looked her over, calm and measured. The room had gone quiet, the crew on the floor suddenly very busy with nothing. A designer suit. Chanel at her ears. A Louis Vuitton on her arm. None of it matched what the Family paid her, and all of it was a far cry from the girl I'd first met in the old neighborhood. Back then, she'd wept with gratitude because I'd vouched for her, covered her way in. I bought her first decent set of clothes. I walked her in myself the day she opened her first account.

The first time she ever sat at a proper table with linen and silver, I was the one who took her there. She told me once that when she made something of herself in the Family, she'd repay me. And now here she was, draped over the arm of the man I'd sworn my life beside, dressed head to toe in things he'd bought her, telling me she felt sorry for him because I'd been bleeding him dry. Even if it meant burning my own dignity to ash, I was done shielding theirs. I drew a folder of printed pages from my bag. And I read them out, slow and clear, in front of every soldier and associate in that room: "Three months ago, my partner-in-blood took a hotel suite with you. The room and what you needed for the night came to five hundred and eighty dollars." "Two months ago, he bought you a limited-edition bag. One thousand and twenty." "One week ago, he bought you a ring. Twelve thousand six hundred." …… "Every figure has a receipt. Every receipt has a photograph. So go on. Tell the room. Who exactly is being played here?" A murmur moved through the crew like a draft under a door, and more than a few of them didn't trouble to hide the disgust on their faces. Lorenzo's face cycled between white and red. I gave the word, and the men carried my things back to where they belonged, and when Lorenzo tried to stop them, not one hand paused. The hierarchy in that room had already shifted, and they all felt it before anyone said a thing. Renata took it a step further, her voice dripping sweet poison: "Ms. Bellini, let me run some alcohol around the office. Reeks of a homewrecker in here. A person can't even breathe." She sprayed it across the both of them like she was salting earth. In the end, all Lorenzo could manage was a half-beat laugh and a sputter of "Fine. Fine. You all just wait." The laugh came too early, the way it always did when he had nothing behind it. Then he grabbed Gemma and left. I'd barely settled back into my chair, everything restored to its place, when my phone rang. Don Greco. "Adriana. You're certain you're coming home to the old quarter?" "If you're certain, I'll have the Romano boy meet you at the station." A smile spread across my face for the first time in a long while. "Ticket's already bought. But don't tell Nonna Carmela yet. I want to surprise her." The old man's voice warmed in an instant. He said "wonderful" three times before he hung up. The old neighborhood never had any custom about marrying by thirty. But my Nonna was eighty. She couldn't afford to wait. Ever since the rupture between Lorenzo and me, the two of them had grown bolder by the day. As though they were finally free to stop hiding. Or as though they wanted to grind it into my face. Inseparable through every corridor of the operation. Whenever Lorenzo showed at a sit-down or a function, the woman on his arm was Gemma now. She'd started playing the Boss's wife around the place, barking orders at made men like they answered to her. Just waiting for me to clear out so she could slide into my seat. Renata couldn't stomach it and brought it to me more than once. I laid a hand on her shoulder. "Hold steady. Let her enjoy herself." By the fifth time Gemma threw bait and I refused to bite, she couldn't hold the performance together any longer. She came into my office without knocking. "Lorenzo doesn't want you anymore. Why are you still clinging to this place?" I reached over, unhurried, and straightened the lapel of her brand-new designer blazer. My voice couldn't have been flatter: "Men. Their loyalty follows their money." "You do know I hold forty-nine points in this operation? How much do you hold?" "Here's a thought. Let's make a wager. If he's willing to sign over ten points of his own to you, I forfeit mine and walk out the door." "If he won't, you're the one walking. Deal?" The color drained from her face. But she touched her lower lip, let her eyes glisten, and nodded all the same: "Deal. Don't come crying when you lose." A few days later, Gemma walked into my office with Lorenzo trailing behind her. She slapped a transfer of stakes down on my desk. I read the second clause. Fifteen points, signed over to her name. I laughed out loud. "Adriana, drop the act. Pack your things and get out." Lorenzo glanced at me, just a flicker of something uneasy crossing his face. "Adriana, don't hold it against me for standing with her. It was only a wager. Think of it as a parting gift for the girl." Then he shifted into another register. "But we're earners, you and I. A man's word is the only thing that holds. Even a private bet deserves an honest payoff."

"But don't worry. Even though you're surrendering your stake, I'll still take you as my own. From now on, you'll carry my name as my wife." "Your monthly keep will only go up, never down." "As for Gemma, I won't let her show her face in front of you, or question your place at my side." After all these years, he hadn't sharpened in any other way, but he'd certainly learned how to keep two women and call it honor. "Lorenzo, you really have it all worked out, don't you? I'm supposed to hand over my earning points and go home to play some kept woman with her palm turned up?" "I don't want it!" Gemma pulled out a recording of me. My own voice played back, clear in that silent room, saying I'd honor the bet and give up my stake. Then she handed me a voluntary surrender of blood-stakes, drawn up tight as a noose. Renata's eyes went red as she lunged to snatch it from the table. I stopped her with a look. Then I picked up a pen and signed. Gemma's face flushed with excitement. Something complicated flickered through Lorenzo's eyes, but satisfaction won out in the end. I set the pen down, deliberate, the click of it loud against the wood, and asked: "Satisfied?" Lorenzo nodded and announced to the crew gathered there: "From now on, Gemma is my partner-in-blood. She takes Adriana's seat." Some of them felt the chill of what that meant for their own necks. Others were already falling over themselves to bend the knee. "We'll follow Ms. Russo's lead from now on, every word." "What are you standing around for? Clear out Ms. Bellini's things and make room for Ms. Russo!" The travel mug Lorenzo once bought me was knocked to the floor, dented where it struck. The blanket I'd knitted by hand fell, and got trampled under several pairs of shoes. Even the orchid I'd kept alive on the sill had its branches snapped off. But I didn't stop them. I didn't get angry. I just remembered the day we'd first taken this place, when he'd lifted me off my feet and spun me around. "Adriana, we did it. This is our empire." My vision blurred for a second, then cleared. I stood there, watching the place I'd bled years of my life into get hollowed out piece by piece. Until the brass plate on the door changed from "Bellini's Office" to "Russo's Office." Only then did I turn around and walk straight into Lorenzo's office. I sat down in his chair. I folded my hands in my lap and went very still. I said: "Lorenzo, you're cast out."