I Vanished with the Don's True Heir novel · Chapter 1 of 32
Chapter 1: The Honey Jar
At Sunday dinner Livio reads Ginevra's paternity report and denies his unborn child in front of thirty people; Caterina pours the tea over it, collapses, learns at the hospital that the tea was drugged, and pulls out her IV when Achille's man sits outside her door.
My husband set a cup of chamomile in front of me and said, "Drink. You look tired."
Then his goddaughter stood up and told thirty people she was carrying his child.
"I'm pregnant," Ginevra said. "Three months. It's Livio's."
She put one hand on her stomach and the other on a folded sheet of paper.
Nobody at the Sunday table moved.
I had half a cup of tea in me and five months of baby under my dress.
I laughed, because it was so stupid.
Nobody laughed with me.
Livio was standing behind my chair. I felt his hand leave my shoulder.
"Sit down, Ginevra," he said.
"I won't." Her eyes were wet and shining. "I've kept quiet for three months. I'm done being quiet. This family deserves to know who the true heir is."
She walked the paper down the long table, past the capos and their wives, past the aunts and the cousins and the priest.
She held it out to Livio.
"And they deserve to know that one isn't yours."
She looked at my stomach when she said it.
Livio didn't take the paper.
Achille took it for him.
His cousin had been sitting at Livio's right hand all night, cutting his veal into neat little squares. He wiped his fingers on his napkin first.
"Prenatal paternity," Achille read. He frowned like it hurt him. "Cherry Hill clinic. Mother, Caterina Falcone. Probability of paternity, ninety-nine point nine percent."
He looked up.
"It names his driver."
Somebody's fork hit a plate.
At the end of the table, the driver went white and stood up so fast his chair fell over.
"That's a lie. Don Livio, I never..."
"Sit," Livio said.
The driver sat.
I turned in my chair to look at my husband.
"Livio. That paper is garbage. I've never been alone in a room with that man."
He held his hand out to Achille.
Achille gave him the paper.
Livio read it.
It took a long time. Long enough for me to notice the clock in the hall, and the rain on the windows, and Ginevra's gold dress catching the candlelight.
Then he folded it once and looked at me.
"That isn't my child," he said.
He said it in front of thirty people.
He said it in the voice he used when a man owed him money.
I stood up.
My legs were shaking but my voice wasn't.
"Then test it. Tonight. Take me to any hospital in this city and draw my blood in front of you."
"I've seen enough."
"You've seen a piece of paper from a clinic in New Jersey."
"I said I've seen enough, Caterina."
Ginevra made a little sound.
Two years.
Two years of him coming into my kitchen at Falcone's at midnight to steal bread off the cooling rack.
Two years of him making me this tea every single night, because it was the only thing he remembered his mother making.
Orsola Falcone, buried when he was six. Honey, never sugar.
And he'd seen enough.
I picked up the cup.
I poured what was left of the chamomile over the paternity report in his hand.
It soaked through and dripped on his shoes.
Then I took off my wedding ring and set it on top of the wet paper.
"Here," I said. "Now you've seen enough."
Achille's wife gasped.
Livio didn't even look down.
I turned to walk out of that dining room, and the floor tipped.
The pain came low and hard.
I grabbed the back of the chair.
The second one bent me in half.
"Caterina." That was Livio. Closer now.
I looked down.
There was blood on the seat of my chair.
There was blood on my dress.
Somebody screamed. I think it was one of the wives.
I don't remember the car.
I remember the hospital lights going by over my head, one after another, and a nurse saying, "Stay with me, honey, stay with me."
I remember the cold gel on my stomach.
And then the sound.
A fast little gallop through the speaker.
"There she is," the doctor said. "Heartbeat's there. Strong, too."
I cried so hard I couldn't breathe.
The doctor waited. Then she pulled her stool closer and lowered her voice.
"Mrs. Falcone. Your bloodwork came back. There was misoprostol in your system."
"I don't know what that is."
"It's a drug that causes a miscarriage." She held my eyes. "You didn't take anything tonight?"
"I had dinner." My mouth was dry. "I had tea."
"Who made the tea?"
I didn't answer.
I didn't have to.
The only hands on that cup had been my husband's.
The curtain beside my bed didn't reach the wall.
Through the gap I could see the hallway, and Livio in it, still in his suit with my tea on his shoes.
He had his phone to his ear.
"Achille," he said. "Keep it quiet. I don't want to hear about it."
He hung up and walked away down the hall.
He didn't come in.
He didn't ask the nurse if the baby was alive.
The doctor squeezed my hand and left to find me a room upstairs.
I lay there with my palm flat on my stomach, feeling for her.
A man in a black coat came down the hallway and pulled a plastic chair up outside my curtain.
I knew him.
He drove for Achille.
He sat down, crossed his arms and settled in.
I looked at the tube taped into the back of my hand.
Then I peeled off the tape, set my teeth and pulled the IV out.
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