The Don's Unwilling Bride

Tommy blows on the ink like it's a birthday card. "Congratulations, kids." "You move in tonight," Matteo says. I nod. I fold my hands so nobody sees them. Then I do the maths. I've been engaged to the Don for about nine seconds. And I've already broken the contract. The one thing in this city that could get me killed is sitting in a biscuit tin under the flour sacks, in my mother's back room, and I just promised him there's nothing like that at all.

That same morning, I'm pulling bread out of the oven, with no idea where my father spent the night.

Three men in black suits walk into my bakery at twenty to six, and my first thought is, we don't open till seven.

My second thought is, you don't wear a suit like that to buy bread.

"Gia Esposito?" says the one in front. Mid-forties, navy suit, the kind of smile that sells you a car you can't afford.

"We're closed."

"Door was open."

"For deliveries. Are you a delivery?"

He laughs. "Kind of. Tommy Greco. I work for Matteo Serra."

Behind me, Dee drops a tray of cornetti. Six years on my counter and she has dropped exactly zero trays.

On Ninth Street you say that name the way my mother's friends used to say cancer, quietly, like it might hear you and come in and sit down.

"Your dad sat down at Mr. Serra's table last night," Tommy says. "He lost."

"He always loses. It's his whole personality."

"He ran out of cash around two. Then he put up the bakery."

"It's my mother's bakery."

"Deed says Frank Esposito." "Then around three, he put up the last thing he had left."

"Which is what?"

He just looks at me. And I get it, standing there with dough on my hands.

"Me," I say. "He bet me."

My phone, face up by the register. Dad. Nine words.

*I'm sorry baby. Don't let them in the back.*

I don't look at the flour room door. I look at Tommy Greco instead.

"Okay," I say. "Here's what happens. I've got forty loaves proving and a tray in the oven. Drag me out now and you explain to your boss why half of Ninth Street has no bread. Or you wait eleven minutes."

The two big ones look at Tommy. Tommy looks at his watch.

"Eleven minutes," he says.

I take fourteen. Tommy spends them wandering my shelves like a tourist, touching everything.

The car smells like leather and somebody's expensive cologne, and I'm sitting in the back of it in my apron with flour up to my elbows.

"Where are we going?"

"Fitting," Tommy says.

"For what?"

"Your wedding dress. Saturday. Mr. Serra doesn't like to waste time."

"Mr. Serra can marry the oven."

He laughs again. He laughs a lot, for a guy who kidnaps bakers before breakfast.

The bridal shop on Passyunk is closed. Except it isn't, for us. A woman with pins in her mouth zips me into ivory lace and won't meet my eyes.

Then the front door goes, and the whole room drops five degrees.

He's younger than I expected. Late thirties. Black suit, black shirt, black tie, like he's dressed for a funeral and hasn't picked whose yet. Grey just starting at the temples. He looks at the dress for one second. Then he looks at my face, and he stays there.

"Miss Esposito."

"You won me at cards."

"Your father lost you at cards. It's a different sentence."

"Not from where I'm standing."

Matteo Serra sits down on the little velvet bench they keep for crying mothers.

"Your father owes the Arcuri family too," he says. "More than he owed me. Carlo Arcuri told him he'd take you instead of the money."

"So you grabbed me first. How generous."

"I took you so he can't. In this city, nobody touches my wife."

"I'm not your wife."

"Saturday you will be."

"No."

It just falls out of me. The seamstress actually stops pinning. I get the feeling people don't use that word with him. Maybe not ever.

He doesn't shout. He nods, slowly, like I've told him the price of something.

"Then you have until Saturday to change your mind," he says. "Tommy will drive you home."

"I'll walk."

"Gia."

First time he's said my name. It sounds like a warning and a please at the same time.

I walk anyway. Out the back. Still in the dress, because I'm not giving him the satisfaction of waiting for a zip.

The alley smells like bins and cigar smoke.

There's a man leaning on a silver car. Sixties. White hair, camel coat. Smiling like a grandpa at a christening.

"Congratulations, little baker," he says. "Lovely dress."

"Who are you?"

"Carlo Arcuri." He says it like I should clap. "Your father owes me a great deal of money. And a week ago, he promised me something worth more."

He holds up a paper napkin, folded once. My dad's handwriting. My name.

I look back at the shop door. Matteo's men are supposed to be out here. Two of them. I watched Tommy post them.

There's nobody in this alley but me, and Carlo, and the napkin.