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Chapter 3

Author: summer
Two hours later, I was handing the North Harbor personnel roster over to Carlo when a message from Lorenzo appeared on my phone.

Bring me a coffee.

He was particular about coffee to the point of obsession. The balance of sugar and bitterness had to be exact.

No one else in the Family could make it the way he liked it.

I stared at the message for a moment, then went to the service pantry.

Sera was already there.

Lorenzo's black overcoat still hung from her shoulders, and she was turning Matteo's pocket watch slowly between her fingers.

When she saw me, a smile curved at the corner of her mouth.

"You have gotten remarkably tame lately, Erin."

"I thought you would storm into the council room and drag Lorenzo away from me."

"Did you?"

I lowered my eyes to the coffee grinder.

"Would you like a cup? It is Blue Mountain. He brought it back from Jamaica."

My calm caught her off guard.

She studied me as if trying to decide what I was planning.

"Do you really think a marriage certificate no one knows about is enough to secure your position?"

"Everyone in the Moretti Family knows that all I have to do is ask, and Lorenzo will set you aside."

I did not answer.

Sera continued, as though she had finally found the blade sharp enough to cut me.

"There is something else you may never have known."

"Lorenzo kept putting off your civil ceremony. I told him Matteo had died to keep him alive, so he owed the Family a quick marriage and a stable household."

"I told him to marry you. He took you to City Hall the next day."

"That is enough, Sera."

Lorenzo's voice came from the doorway.

He strode into the pantry, his face dark.

"I married Erin because I love her."

"What you said had nothing to do with it."

He did not hesitate.

But I watched only him.

"If you love me, why has our marriage been a secret all this time?"

"Why can every wedding you promise me be canceled because of her?"

Lorenzo went still.

His lips parted, but after a long silence, no answer came.

Sera did not look angry. She smiled as though she had won.

"There. Words are cheap."

"Every choice he makes tells the Family which woman he cannot afford to let down."

My hand froze on the coffee machine.

Every canceled wedding of the past three years came back at once, each memory cutting like a dull blade.

Lorenzo reached for me.

"Erin, it is not what she says."

I pushed the finished coffee toward him.

"Your coffee is ready, Don Moretti."

"I transferred the North Harbor roster to Carlo. I will leave you to it."

Without looking at the panic on his face, I turned and walked out.

That evening, just as I carried the first box of my belongings into my new apartment, Lorenzo called.

"Erin, Sera said those things this afternoon because she wanted to hurt you."

"I love you. No one ever had to tell me to."

His voice was tight with restrained panic.

I held the phone to my ear, my tone flat.

"I know."

That was precisely why it hurt more.

He did love me.

He simply chose me as the person he could disappoint, every single time.

Silence stretched across the line.

At last, Lorenzo sounded as if he had made a decision.

"St. Patrick's Cathedral has an opening on the eighteenth of next month."

"This time, I will announce our marriage before every Family in New York."

My fingers tightened around the phone.

For one brief moment, I hesitated. Then I decided to tell him about the settlement.

"Do you have time tomorrow? Those divorce papers -"
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  • After Fifty Two Canceled Weddings I Walked Away   Chapter 10

    New York had never lacked for fallen Families.Lorenzo's present was only the future that had already claimed countless Dons before him.According to Carlo, the Moretti chain of command began to collapse less than two months after I left.Some Capos undermined one another for control of North Harbor. Others withheld casino revenue for themselves.Lorenzo had spent years making the final call, but he had never handled the countless small matters I resolved every day.It was not that he lacked intelligence. A Family simply could not be held together by a single seal.Worse, he grew increasingly obsessive.Several former allies offered to help him rebuild the council, but he refused every one of them.He remained in the old estate, surrounded by fifty-two wedding plans that had never become real, as though waiting a little longer might bring me back through the door.After Lorenzo drew a hard line between them, Sera collected the trust Matteo had left her and returned to Sicily.When the

  • After Fifty Two Canceled Weddings I Walked Away   Chapter 9

    For Lorenzo, freedom was nothing like that.He, too, had entered a new world without me, but everywhere he looked, it was desolate."Erin, now that we are no longer married...""As an ordinary man asking for a second chance, do I still have the right to pursue you?""I will show you that I have finally learned how to choose."A pulse began beating at my temple."No, Mr. Moretti.""If possible, I would prefer never to see you again after today.""You and Sera never crossed a physical line. I have never accused you of doing so.""But the fifty-two times you abandoned me were just as real.""I do not hate you. But I will never love you again."Lorenzo's brow tightened. Without me to steady him, his eyes were full of bewilderment."But without you..."I turned away before he could finish."The world keeps moving, no matter who leaves it.""Time will carry you through whatever pain you think you cannot survive."Leaving Lorenzo had never frightened me.During my eight years as Underboss, I

  • After Fifty Two Canceled Weddings I Walked Away   Chapter 8

    During those three days without me, Lorenzo barely slept.He rehearsed every possible version of our meeting at the law office, returning again and again to the same questions.If he was honest enough, would I soften one more time?Would I be willing to pay one final price for a marriage already beyond saving?During my three days without him, I became completely calm.I began arranging a future that belonged only to me: no Moretti crest, no phone I was required to answer at every hour, and no wedding I would be expected to surrender to someone else.I stepped out of the cage Lorenzo had built with his own hands and, for the first time, saw how vast the New York sky could be.Three days later, we met outside Anthony's law office.Lorenzo had failed to appear at all fifty-two of our weddings. For the one appointment that would end our marriage, he arrived early.The moment I stepped out of the car, he came toward me."Erin, I have spent the last three days thinking.""I saw the stories

  • After Fifty Two Canceled Weddings I Walked Away   Chapter 7

    The chat filled almost immediately with exclamation marks.So you were the woman waiting every time the Don canceled a wedding?Sera was always seated at his right hand. We thought it was something Matteo had arranged before he died.Erin, do not go soft on him again. A man who hid his own wife for three years deserves to lose her.The balance Lorenzo had worked so carefully to preserve had finally collapsed. Only then did everyone see whose pain had paid for the duty he spoke of so proudly.As for me, I had laid down the heaviest chain around my neck. Whatever Lorenzo felt from that day forward no longer belonged to me.Without me, he returned alone to the estate where we had lived for three years.Eight years could not disappear without leaving something behind. But what remained was nowhere near enough to make me turn back.Lorenzo rarely drank at home. That night, he sat in the darkened living room and emptied an entire bottle of whiskey.He could not understand why I had forgiven

  • After Fifty Two Canceled Weddings I Walked Away   Chapter 6

    Lorenzo tried to speak again, but I did not stop.At the door, I addressed him with the same distant formality I would have shown any other Don."I know you are a busy man, but our appointment in three days is already on the Family calendar.""It will be the last time we ever need to see each other.""I suggest you do not arrive late."After I left, the unease inside Lorenzo deepened into something close to panic.The last bargaining chip he had expected to work had failed, and for the first time, he could think of nothing else that might keep me at his side.He called Anthony at once."Why was I not informed that Erin had resigned?"His voice was cold enough to frighten anyone, but Anthony sounded even more confused."Don Moretti, Erin transferred the North Harbor operations, the casino accounts, and every Capo roster in her possession.""The council raised no objection. You signed and stamped the resignation yourself.""The Family is still operating normally for now. What exactly is

  • After Fifty Two Canceled Weddings I Walked Away   Chapter 5

    Lorenzo stared at his signature at the bottom of the page, and I watched the color drain slowly from his face.Before that day, I had forgiven him fifty-one times.Perhaps, in his mind, so many acts of forgiveness had become indistinguishable from forgiveness without limit. He had come to believe that I would always understand him, always yield, and always be waiting exactly where he had left me.Sera had learned the same lesson from my silence. Every concession I made had emboldened her, until she no longer hesitated to parade Lorenzo's choices in front of me."Erin, is this some kind of joke?"Lorenzo turned quickly back to the first page. His eyes raced over the words, but with every line he read, his grip on the papers tightened."If this is only because Sera upset you, there is no reason to go this far.""She and I have never crossed that line.""She was Matteo's wife. She is the person he left behind, the one he worried about most.""Taking care of her is how I repay the life I o

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