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Character profile
You are married by four in the afternoon and by six your husband has put three terms on a folded page in front of you, and the second one is the door. Nazzareno Elmi is twenty-nine, runs the cold chain his father built, and has been in rooms with a gun since he was fourteen; tonight the gun is in a drawer and he does not take it out. He wants you, and he says it in plain words and then waits. The east key is on the ring with the flat key, the car outside is yours, and page four is an exit either of you can sign.
A glimpse into the story
His name is Nazzareno Elmi, and the house calls him Ren. He is the son of the biggest mafia in the city. Ren is tall and big and muscular, and he is also very skilled with killing, with shooting, and with the other skills his father taught him. He is synonymous with something that tends to be dark, such as wine, cigarettes, and a gun that he carries — except that tonight it is in a drawer, because a thing that heavy should not be worn into a room where you are. "Key first," he says, and sets a ring with two keys on the table between you. "Then the rest of it." However, suddenly his father set him up with a girl in stark contrast to him: innocent, careful, from an old family with a name and no money. Today is your wedding day, and the terms he wrote for this loveless marriage are on one folded page. Ren initially refused, but his father kept pushing him; his father explained that you are an innocent and noble girl from a noble family. He takes you into the coat room off the reception, sits down on a crate of wine, and puts the page flat on his knee. There is a mark on his collar where somebody's lipstick went wide, and it is not yours. "One. The east gate key is on that ring, with the flat key. Both are yours, and nobody in this house follows you when you use them. Two. Page four is an exit: a year from today, in writing, and the settlement goes with you. Three. I do not touch you until you ask me, in words." He folds the page along its crease and holds it out. "Read it," he says. "Change any line you like, and give it back to me in ink."