Married to the Mafia

Chapter 1

DAISY

Quick! Pop quiz.

What do you get when you put a clueless waitress, a dead bride, and half of the FBI’s most wanted in a room?

The answer is fucked. I am well and truly fucked…

and not in the fun way. If it were in the fun way, like, say…

I was about to get railed by several hunky firefighters and then fed a slice of my favorite carrot cake before they paid all my bills and called me their queen, then I’d totally be rubbing it in my roommate’s face when I got home and informed her that we were now well taken care of and didn’t need to work at shitty, low-paying temp jobs anymore.

Unfortunately, that’s not what’s happening here.

Several eyes land on where I stand in the doorway, clad in my somewhat stained black-and-white waitress uniform. For a moment, I think, this is it. The end. Goodbye. Sayonara. Auf Wiedersehen. Au revoir. Or, in Samuel L. Jackson–speak, “See ya later, motherfuckers!”

When no one makes a move toward me or even acknowledges my stumbling upon a roomful of men surrounding a pretty woman laid out on the floor in a pool of blood, looking like she’s impersonating one of those bear throw rugs minus the gaping mouth and fur, I wonder if perhaps I’ve somehow turned invisible.

Weirder things have happened in movies.

Unfortunately, this is no movie. This is my life, and as if being a broke waitress sharing a shitty loft with her best friend and trying to pay off her hundreds of thousands of dollars in student loans wasn’t bad enough luck, this takes the cake.

The wedding cake. Because yeah, I’m supposed to be out there in the reception hall setting up for when the happy couple comes out after saying their vows, not standing here, as an accidental witness to a crime.

No happy couple here. I look back to the woman on the floor. Just a dead bride.

Okay, maybe her luck is worse than mine. My only hope is that it stays that way.

“Grab her and shut the damn door.”

That one phrase is enough to let me know that I am not, in fact, invisible.

Rough hands encircle my upper arm and drag me further into the room.

The door slams closed behind me; the lock flipping into place is a deafening sound.

I stumble forward on shaky legs and slam into the man’s side.

I narrowly miss stepping in the bloody circle spreading outward beneath the woman’s body.

“I don’t think she’s coming back from that,” I mumble, and shake my head in disappointment.

By some miracle, neither the man at my side nor his comrades offer any sort of remark on my inappropriate comment.

“What the fuck are we going to do, boss?” the man holding me asks. “Isa’s supposed to walk down that aisle in twenty minutes.”

Isa, I’m guessing, is the woman’s name. I stare down at her limp body.

She’s pretty—even if she no longer has a heartbeat.

Thankfully, her eyes aren’t open, and I can look at her face without being creeped out by the dead-animal look in her eyes.

Is it weird that I’m not screaming my head off?

Maybe. But I was never particularly squeamish, not even when they brought in cadavers for dissection during my college anatomy class.

I just think of this lady like one of those cadavers.

She just… unknowingly donated herself to act as a prop in what I’m sure is an extremely elaborate and drawn-out way for me to find out I’m about to be killed myself.

Honestly, if college—and specifically, student loans—have taught me anything, it’s that death is the only way out of paying those back.

So, while dying might suck… at least I won’t be in debt anymore.

Bright side? Hello, it’s me, Daisy.

I’m ushered closer to the dead lady as the guy holding me moves toward his “boss” and inadvertently steps on her skirt.

I cast him a particularly nasty look. I know I’m standing here trying to think of the poor woman as a scientific cadaver so I don’t start screaming bloody murder, but that is so disrespectful.

Even if he doesn’t care about the woman, he doesn’t need to step on what’s probably a multi-thousand-dollar wedding gown.

Hell, just looking at it makes me think it’s probably worth more than a year of rent on my shitty loft.

There’s intricate beading across the bust and down over her front, creating a faux corset.

Her makeup—whatever brand of cosmetics she’s wearing—must be worth a pretty penny, too, because that shit has stayed despite the obvious bullet holes in her chest as well as her forehead.

What a waste.

“The wedding must go on,” the older man—the one the first had referred to as his “boss”—states. Not sure how that’s going to happen when the bride is quite obviously closer to the grim reaper than her actual groom. “Giulio must be married today. He will not be happy about this.”

“You think he’ll care?” the third guy says, not sounding convinced. “He didn’t even know Isa.”

I whip my head around and gape at the man. The groom didn’t even know the bride? What the hell was this, an arranged marriage?

“Giulio La Rosa is just like any other man in our organization,” the older man snarls.

“He cannot be trusted with anything more until he marries—having a wife means having ties. Family means everything to Don Luciani. Giulio knows that. Regardless of whether he knew Isa or not, he’ll be quite displeased with this interruption. ”

Yup, definitely an arranged marriage. A mobster’s marriage. Fuck. Me. I should not be here. Why oh why did I let Michelle convince me to take her stupid shift? Oh, right, because of my equally stupid student loans—damn government-mandated payments.

I slowly tug at my arm, hoping the movement will escape the notice of the man standing next to me and that he’ll forget that I’m even here. The sharp responding squeeze followed by black eyes snapping down to me confirms that he hasn’t, in fact, forgotten my presence.

Double damn.

“What about her?” he says, jerking my arm as if to punctuate which “her” he’s referring to—as if I could be mistaken for the dead woman.

“Her?”

My eyes widen with what I’m hoping reflects “innocent and totally trustworthy young lady who would in no way betray the confidence of several mobsters about an obvious murder.” If they notice my look, they don’t comment. Instead, the three men in the room suddenly switch to a new language.

“Dobbiamo ucciderla.”

The man at my side gestures down at the dead bride. “E che mi dici del corpo di Isa?”

“Gli addetti alle pulizie possono gestirlo.”

“Girl,” the elder man snaps, turning to me, “what is your name?”

Think, Daisy, think! I dive deep into my brain as I look back at him.

I wonder if I can pretend not to understand.

Maybe if they think I’m just a dumb girl, they’ll let me go.

So, I could just… “Erm… no habla inglés?” I say quickly.

“Como se llamo?” I wince at the butchering of the language.

My high school Spanish teacher, Mr. Rodriguez, would be horrified.

The stare I’m met with has less life in it than a dead fish. “Did you just try to speak Spanish to a bunch of Italian men?” the man holding me questions. “Completely wrong, I might add.”

“No?” That singular word doesn’t even sound sure to my own ears. Had it been incorrect? Well, damn. Guess the jig is up. So, when in doubt, just gaslight. If men can do it and get away with it, then so can I.

I straighten my spine and lift my chin, eyeing the man who’s glowering down at me with a mixture of irritation and confusion.

“I mean,” I say, clearing my throat, “no, I definitely didn’t speak Spanish to a bunch of Italian men.

” Incorrectly. Yeah, okay, maybe I hadn’t gotten the best grade in Spanish 101.

“You just said ‘no habla inglés,’” the man with a steel grip on my arm mocks, and if the slight cough in his voice is anything to go by, he’s trying his best not to laugh. How can he laugh when there’s a dead woman on the floor… staining what I’m sure is a very expensive rug?

“Are you sure?” I ask. “I don’t remember talking at all.” Gaslight! Gaslight! Gaslight! I scream in the back of my head.

“You’re talking right now.”

An internal gasp of outrage that is both me and not me sounds. Oh shit. Mean Daisy, a.k.a. my inner psycho, a bitch I’ve tried to keep on the leash for the last twenty-three years, comes roaring to life. Tell him to fuck off! she yells. Then kick his teeth in.

Ignoring her, because her suggestions only ever end with more problems for me, I reach into the furthest recesses of my mind and pull out the oldest trick that I have in my box of coping mechanisms. Ha, I think to myself.

I knew I’d need them someday. I mentally find the one I’m looking for and dust it off. When in doubt: Deny. Deny. Deny.

I arch my brow at the man and give him a pathetic little smile—the same kind of smile I give to Mr. Benny, the homeless guy who lives behind my apartment building whenever he tries to tell me about the aliens that are sure to arrive any day now.

“Am I?” I ask the man before insisting, “I don’t recall. ”

The men turn to each other, their expressions mirroring one another in that “we know better than this small, dumb woman” look I’ve seen too often. I’ve been to college. I know those looks quite well and I know what they mean. They mean I’m not fooling anyone, no matter how awesome my bravado is.

Okay, time for a new approach.

“Listen,” I try, forcing a lighter tone as I wince both inwardly and outwardly.

I peer around at the three men who appear to be closing in on me, “let’s look at it this way.

I didn’t see anything—I’m not a witness to anything.

I’m just a waitress. I won’t tell anyone what happened. You can trust me.”