My Husband Left Me Dying for Her. I Made Him Regret It novel · Chapter 3 of 32

Chapter 3: The Name on the Slide

Mirella finds Arianna's name on her life's work, tells the family the baby is gone, walks out, and finds her savings frozen.

"What did you tell her?"

"Nothing, hon. We don't give that out." The nurse unwrapped the cuff. "She asked twice. Very sweet about it."

I knew exactly one woman in that family who was sweet on purpose.

They discharged me Sunday at ten.

I left in borrowed scrubs, the dog socks and Aaron Mathers's raincoat, which still smelled like rain and his car.

I took a car service up Todt Hill.

The gate was open again. The guards were back.

One of them looked at my scrubs and grinned at the other one.

Sunday lunch was still going in the big room. It always ran until four.

Six capos sat on the sofas with their jackets off.

Their wives sat at the long table over plates of veal going cold.

The TV over the fireplace was on, but it wasn't the game.

It was a slide.

CASTELLUCCI HOLDINGS: THE SEPARATION PLAN.

Prepared and presented by Arianna Rocca.

It was my plan, three years of nights.

I built that wall so four hundred people could keep their paychecks if the family ever fell.

Her name was on it in gold letters.

Arianna stood under the screen with a little clicker in her hand, practicing her smile.

She saw me in the doorway and her face lit up with real joy.

"Mirella! You came back!"

Ottavia sat in the armchair by the fire.

She didn't look at me. She reached for Arianna's hand instead.

"Come here, cara."

Arianna knelt by the chair.

Ottavia twisted a heavy gold ring off her own finger.

It was the family signet, the one her husband had worn, and his father before him.

She slid it onto Arianna's finger.

"I've thought of you as my daughter since you were six," she said. "If only you'd never gone to Milan."

She looked at me when she said Milan.

The wives went very still over their plates.

Silvio came in from the terrace with a cigar.

He saw my scrubs, the stitches, the bandaged feet in the dog socks.

"There she is." He spread his arms. "See? Scrapes. I told you."

"Nobody called an ambulance, Silvio."

"I told Arianna to call one."

Arianna put her hand on her chest.

"Oh, no. Did I forget?" She turned the new ring on her finger. "It was my birthday. Everything was so busy."

Somebody on the sofa laughed.

I walked to the fireplace and looked up at the slide.

"Take her name off it," I said. "Or put mine on next to it. I don't care which."

"It's for the family," Silvio said. "Arianna needs a seat on the board. The plan helps her get it."

"It's my plan."

"It's my money. My companies. My accountants, my banks, my access." He tapped ash into Ottavia's crystal dish. "You built it in my house, on my name. Without me you're nothing."

The capos watched me over their espresso cups.

Ottavia folded her hands.

"And the baby?" she said, very gently. "If there was one."

The whole room waited.

Arianna waited hardest. Her eyes were bright and fixed on my stomach.

She said she was family.

I thought about the hooves on the wood floor.

I thought about this baby growing up in this room.

Learning to smile at men like these. Kneeling by that chair for a ring.

"It's gone," I said. "I lost it on your road."

Nobody spoke.

Silvio's face moved. For one second I thought I saw something real in it.

Then he shrugged.

"Maybe it's for the best. It wasn't the right time." He put his cigar back in his mouth. "We'll try again when things calm down."

Arianna touched his arm. "Poor thing."

Ottavia crossed herself and said, "God decides."

"We won't try anything," I said. "I came for my laptop."

I went upstairs.

My office was the small room at the end of the hall.

The laptop was where I'd left it, plugged in under the window.

I wound the cord around my hand.

Silvio was in the doorway when I turned around.

"That's family property."

"I bought it with my salary. Look at the receipt in the drawer."

"What's on it?"

"Spreadsheets. You've never opened one in your life."

He laughed. He really did think it was funny.

He stepped aside.

"Walk out, then. You'll be back by Christmas. Where else are you going to go?"

I carried the laptop down the stairs.

The capos had come out into the hall to watch. Six of them, lined up by the coats.

I walked past every one of them.

The second one from the door was Delfina's husband. He was the only one looking at the floor.

I didn't take the suitcase. I didn't take my father's watch.

I didn't want to carry one more thing out of that house in front of them.

The car service dropped me in Bensonhurst at six.

I had my laptop, Aaron's raincoat and eleven dollars in the pocket of the scrubs.

I stood at the ATM outside my bank on 86th Street with the elevated train rattling over my head.

I put in my card. I asked for two hundred dollars.

The machine thought about it.

Then the screen went blue.

TRANSACTION DECLINED. ACCOUNT RESTRICTED.

I opened the bank app on my phone with cold fingers.

My savings. Five years of my own salary, every check I'd ever cashed for keeping their books.

A red banner sat across the top of the balance.

HOLD PLACED AT REQUEST OF CASTELLUCCI HOLDINGS. REASON: FAMILY FUNDS.

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