The Don's Secret Wife Was Mafia Royalty novel · Chapter 15 of 32

Chapter 15: Bread from a Truck

"Then why did you let them say zero?" I whispered.

"Because I had no lab of my own. If I'd called it a lie that day, I'd have been a confused old woman and you'd have been dead."

Her breath rattled.

"We do it again. Blood, a doctor nobody owns, in my house, before all five families. They watch it drawn, they watch it sealed."

"When?"

"When I'm home. Not before. A sick woman in a hospital bed makes no rules."

Out in the hall the big man shifted on his feet.

"And my man," she said. "Where's my man?"

"Carlotta fired him on the doorstep."

Her mouth went thin.

"Tell him he's rehired. Tell him to sit outside this door with a newspaper and stare at those two until they need a toilet."

Then she pulled the mask back over her face and closed her eyes.

Out loud, for the glass, she said, "Take them. I'm tired."

The old bodyguard was in the hall chair within the hour, with the Sun-Times open on his knee.

He stared at Ruggero's men over the top of it.

I went back every day that week.

Every day the scene went the same way, for the men at the door.

She was cold. She was short. She complained.

"Your bread is too salty," she'd say, loud enough for the hall.

Then I'd lean in to fix her pillow.

"Your mother was twelve when she stole my husband's grappa and got the cook's dog drunk," she'd whisper.

I'd straighten up, choking on a laugh.

"Your hair is a disgrace," she'd say, for the hall.

"She climbed out her window at fourteen to go to the Feast on Taylor Street," she'd whisper. "She came home with a boy's phone number on her arm. I had his scooter taken away."

On the fourth day I asked her the thing I'd been carrying since I was fifteen.

← Chapter 14 · All chapters · Chapter 16 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend