Reborn as the Mafia King's Wife novel · Chapter 2 of 24
Chapter 2: The Gate
Elena names Carlo as the intruder and takes Matteo to the hidden gate. The guard finds a second gate opened from inside.
Matteo did not ask me why I knew.
He took my hand and walked through the side gate.
The guard followed with the umbrella we were no longer using.
Carlo's car remained at the curb, its lights off.
At the end of the stone path, I stopped.
The smaller gate into the courtyard stood open by an inch.
I had locked it myself that afternoon.
In my first life I blamed a careless guard.
Now I saw the scratch around the lock.
"Somebody came in before us," I said.
Matteo pushed the gate with one finger.
It swung across the wet stones.
The guard raised his weapon and moved toward the kitchen door.
I remembered three men in the courtyard, not four.
I also remembered Ada screaming upstairs.
"Your aunt," I said.
Matteo turned so quickly I nearly ran into him.
"What about her?"
"Get her downstairs. Keep her where we can see her."
He looked at me for a beat.
Then he spoke to the guard.
The guard crossed the courtyard and vanished into the house.
Matteo took me behind the low stone wall beside the garden.
Rainwater ran down my neck.
"You need to tell me what Carlo gave you."
"He didn't give me anything."
"He came for a key. You brought one."
"I was going to give it to him."
His jaw tightened, but he let me finish.
"Then I remembered what he'd do with it."
I had no words for waking after a gunshot.
I had enough words for the men behind the kitchen.
"Three," I said. "One has a blue cap."
A shadow moved above the basement steps.
The man who came up wore a blue cap.
Matteo pressed me gently behind him.
The guard appeared at the kitchen door with Ada beside him.
She wore slippers and a wool coat over her nightdress.
"I was asleep," she complained.
The man in the blue cap ran.
He crossed the stones toward us with something dark in his hand.
Matteo caught his wrist against the wall.
The object clattered into the rosemary bed.
It was a small radio.
The guard came at a run.
I went to Ada, who was standing in the doorway.
"Inside," I told her.
"My house, dear. I know the way."
She caught my shaking fingers and brought me with her.
Two more men emerged near the garage.
The guard shouted.
Matteo's people came from the front of the house.
No one fired.
For a moment the courtyard was only running feet and rain.
Then it was over.
Ada put a towel around my shoulders in the kitchen.
"Elena, you're blue."
"It's the dress."
She looked at my face.
"It isn't the dress."
Matteo came in with water dripping from his hair.
He set the radio on the table.
"They were going to signal somebody outside."
"Carlo's still there," I said.
The guard looked through the front window.
"No car."
Carlo had seen enough to know I had changed the night.
Ada touched the towel at my shoulder.
"Why was my nephew outside in the rain?"
Matteo gave her the bent key.
"My wife brought me home."
I wanted that to sound less like a sentence handed down.
I wanted him to be glad I was here.
Instead he looked past me toward the courtyard.
Ada made the guard sit at the table before he could return outside.
"Your hand is bleeding," she told him.
He looked down at a narrow cut across his palm.
He had not noticed it during the struggle.
She wrapped it in a dish towel and sent for a clean bandage.
Matteo took the radio apart on the table, piece by piece.
A thin wire ran from its back to the signal button.
"They expected someone to answer," he said.
"Carlo," I replied.
"He drove away when I came out."
"He won't stay away."
Ada looked up at us from the bandage.
"Then you'd better tell me what he wants."
I could not tell her that in my first life she died at her own supper table four nights later.
I could tell her not to sleep with her door unlocked.
She folded the towel and stared at my wet dress.
"You came here to help them," she said quietly.
I held the edge of the chair.
"I did. I changed my mind before they got inside."
"That is a very narrow bit of luck," she said.
"I know."
She did not call it forgiveness, and I did not ask her to.
The guard called from the hall.
"There's another gate open. This one was opened from inside."
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