The Don's Pregnant Wife Ran to His Enemy novel · Chapter 11 of 24

Chapter 11: Her Father's Voice

"Elena," my father's voice said again. "I am going to tell you who is going to kill me."

Teresa's cup rattled in its saucer.

Nobody breathed.

"If you are hearing this, I am dead," the tape went on, "and Dario has kept his word. Good man. Be kind to him."

I pressed my hand over my mouth.

"I am recording this on a Tuesday night in my study. It is nine o'clock. Your mother's clock is striking in the hall. I want you to know I am quite calm."

A pause.

His breathing was slow and tired, the way it had been the last year.

"This week I did something I was not authorized to do. I met with Raffaele Montano in a church parking lot in Joliet. Alone. We talked for an hour and a half."

My head came up.

Raf was standing at the end of the table, utterly still.

"I proposed a peace," my father said. "The Pagano and Montano families have been killing each other for eleven years over a dispute neither of them remembers. Raffaele agreed to my terms. He is a harder man than his father, but an honest one. I believe him."

Raf's hand closed on the back of the chair.

"I took the terms to Sandro the next morning."

The tape hissed.

"He was courteous. He thanked me. He said he would think about it. And last night he called me to his office and told me the peace was dead."

My father's voice dropped.

"He said, Pietro, I have thought about it. A war keeps my captains obedient and my money moving. A peace makes me an ordinary man. And you, old friend, are the only one who would make it."

The kitchen was silent.

"He did not threaten me. He did not have to. I have sat at that desk for twenty years and I know what is in a man's face when he has decided."

My father stopped.

When he spoke again, it was lower.

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