My Sister Stole the Man I Was Supposed to Marry—So Fate Gave Me the City’s Scariest Mafia Boss Instead

My left shoe adhered to the floorboards of a bar that smelled of bleach and inexpensive gin.

Two hours earlier, I had found my fiancé pinning my sister against floral wallpaper he and I had selected together.

Now I was sharing a bottle of whiskey with a man whose tailored suit cost more than my life-insurance policy.

I did not know he controlled the city’s underworld.

I knew only that he listened when I asked whether he wanted to destroy a wedding.

Sweat gathered along the back of my neck.

August covered the city like a wet, heavy blanket, and the air-conditioning inside my apartment had been broken for 3 days.

I balanced 2 boxes of wedding favors against my hip while fitting the key into the deadbolt. Inside the boxes were small jars of artisan honey, expensive and ridiculous objects intended for 300 guests.

I did not expect Arthur to be home.

He was supposed to be inside his firm, recording billable hours and complaining about the managing partner over a desk salad.

I certainly did not expect Lydia.

The door opened with a weak squeak.

I dropped the keys into the ceramic bowl near the entrance.

The sound should have warned them.

“Arthur.”

I removed my flats.

My feet hurt after standing in line at the caterer.

No answer came.

The refrigerator hummed.

Then fabric moved against drywall inside the living room.

Someone inhaled sharply.

It was not a frightened sound.

I turned the corner without lowering the boxes.

Arthur and Lydia were pressed against the accent wall.

The muted sage-and-blush peony wallpaper we had argued about for 4 hours framed them like a grotesque Renaissance painting.

Arthur’s hands were tangled inside Lydia’s blond hair.

Her back rested against the plaster.

His belt was open, with its leather end hanging against his trousers.

For several seconds, my mind refused to understand the arrangement.

I stared at the brass buckle.

The surface had become slightly tarnished.

I had given it to him for his birthday 2 years earlier.

“Nora.”

Arthur jumped backward as though the wallpaper had shocked him.

He caught his foot on the Moroccan rug.

Lydia did not jump.

She calmly pulled down the hem of her silk camisole.

It belonged to me.

She frequently borrowed my possessions without asking.

The boxes grew heavier inside my arms.

The cardboard cut into my fingers.

I did not drop them.

Dropping them would create a mess, and I was always the person expected to clean it.

“The caterer needs another $1,000.”

My voice sounded as though it came from someone standing farther down the corridor.

“The payment is due tomorrow.”

“Nora, please.”

Arthur trembled.

His blue tie rested over the sofa like a dead snake.

“It is not what—”

“You did not what?”

Lydia’s vanilla-and-citrus perfume reached me.

It was cloying and artificial, making the heat inside the apartment almost impossible to breathe.

“You did not finish?”

Lydia produced a small, wet sob.

It sounded carefully calculated.

She crossed both arms over herself and made her body appear smaller.

“Nora, I am sorry.”

Her makeup was perfectly smudged.

She looked like the suffering heroine of a French film.

“It happened.”

She lowered her eyes.

“We were discussing the wedding dress.”

I looked at my sister.

Then I looked at Arthur.

He was sweating and attempting to thread the belt through its loops with shaking hands.

I did not scream or throw anything.

A hollow coldness emptied my stomach and scraped against my ribs.

Three years.

A lease bearing both our names.

A shared bank account.

Save-the-date cards already delivered to 300 mailboxes.

I crossed the living room and placed the honey jars on the coffee table.

The glass containers struck one another.

“Keep the apartment.”

My voice remained flat.

“I will send someone for my belongings on Monday.”

“Nora, wait.”

Arthur extended 1 hand.

I did not retreat.

I looked at his damaged cuticles.

He bit them when anxious.

“If you touch me, I will break your fingers.”

Arthur stopped.

I left without looking back at Lydia.

I did not slam the door.

I pulled it closed and listened to the latch settle into place.

The hallway smelled of old carpet cleaner.

I called the elevator and watched the digital numbers descend.

Five.

Four.

Three.

My chest felt bound by wire.

I wanted to cry, but my eyes felt filled with sand.

The humid air struck me when I reached the street.

A taxi waited beside the curb.

Its driver smoked through the open window.

I entered the back.

The vinyl stuck to my legs.

“Where to?”

He examined me through the mirror.

“Drive.”

I stared at a stain on the seat ahead of me.

“Take me away from this neighborhood.”

He threw the cigarette into the street and entered traffic.

Neon signs blurred across the wet pavement.

My telephone vibrated repeatedly inside my purse.

Arthur.

Lydia.

My mother.

I switched it off and returned it to the bag.

I needed alcohol and a dark room where no one knew my name.

I needed a place without floral wallpaper.

The taxi stopped in a district where most streetlights served a decorative rather than functional purpose.

Ozone and heated garbage filled the air.

I pushed through the wooden door of a bar named the Brass Nickel.

It was a dive, but not the fashionable kind occupied by college students wearing carefully selected flannel.

People entered the Brass Nickel to drink in silence and forget themselves.

The floorboards held my shoes.

Stale beer and old nicotine covered the sharper scent of inexpensive cleaning fluid.

I sat at the far end of the scarred bar.

“Whiskey.”

The bartender was a massive man with a beard resembling steel wool.

“Leave the bottle.”

He placed a low glass and a partially empty bottle of generic bourbon before me.

I poured generously and drank it without ice.

The alcohol burned into my empty stomach like battery acid.

I poured another.

Only several people occupied the bar.

Two men played pool near the rear.

The clack of billiard balls accompanied a quiet blues song from the jukebox.

Approximately 10 minutes later, the neighboring stool moved.

I continued tracing a wet ring on the bar.

“Occupied.”

“No, it is not.”

The voice was low, rough, and completely unconcerned.

I turned, prepared to confront another man who considered a woman drinking alone to be an invitation.

The words disappeared.

The stranger did not belong inside the Brass Nickel.

A dark suit followed his body with predatory precision. The wool appeared expensive, his tie was loose, and the upper button of his white shirt was open.

His face held my attention more than the clothing.

A sharp jaw.

A nose that had been broken and set again.

Eyes so dark that they resembled obsidian.

He looked exhausted, but not because he needed sleep.

He looked like a man who had not rested for 10 years.

Large hands rested against the bar. Scars crossed his knuckles, and a heavy silver watch encircled his left wrist.

He did not look at me.