Kneel, Mafia Boss, Your Wife Is Gone novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: The Hill Above the Road

Thirty men kneel in her father's study, the driver says a rifle on the hill helped run her parents off the road, and at dawn her husband and Gemma stand at the villa gate.

My phone buzzed a dozen times before the black car reached the villa.

I turned it face down on my knee and didn't look.

Nico drove with one hand and watched me in the mirror.

"He's calling, isn't he?"

"A dozen times."

"A dozen." He whistled. "Five years that man never called you more than once, and now you tell him you're gone and he wears out his thumb."

"Drive, Nico."

"I'm driving. I'm only saying, as your cousin, that I'd like to frame that number."

The villa sat behind a wall at the top of Posillipo, with the whole bay spread out below it.

I had not seen it in five years.

The gate man stood at attention when he saw my face.

The housekeeper was crying on the front steps before I got out of the car.

Inside, nothing had moved.

My father's coat still hung by the door. My mother's reading glasses were folded on the hall table.

I had to stop and put my hand against the wall.

"Donna," Aurelio said behind me, gently. "The study."

My father's study smelled of cigars and old paper.

Thirty men were waiting in it, standing shoulder to shoulder, and when I walked in they all went down on one knee together.

It was loud.

I had never seen anything like it. My father had never made anyone do it in front of me.

"Get up," I said. "Please."

Nobody moved until Aurelio tapped his cane once on the floor.

They stood.

I sat down in my father's chair, because my knees were done holding me up.

"Tell me how they died," I said.

The room went quiet.

"The police say a bad curve," Aurelio said. "They say the road was wet and your father was driving too fast."

"My father never drove. Our driver drove."

"Yes."

"Where is he?"

"In the Cardarelli hospital. Two broken ribs and a bullet in the shoulder. He woke up yesterday."

I looked up.

"A bullet."

"The police have not been told," Aurelio said. "He asked for you."

I was in the hospital forty minutes later, still in my funeral dress.

The driver was awake and grey in the face.

He had worked for my father for twenty years, and he took my hand with his good one and started to cry.

"Signorina. Forgive me. I tried."

"Tell me what happened."

"A silver car came out of the tunnel behind us. It was fast. It hit our rear side, twice, and pushed us toward the edge."

"Did you see who was inside?"

"No. They had dark glass. Then I heard two shots, and the left rear tire went."

"Two shots, from the other car?"

"One came from the hill above us," he said. "A rifle. I felt it in my shoulder."

I sat very still.

"Somebody was on the hill."

"Yes."

"Somebody who knew the route. And the hour."

"Your father told no one the route," Aurelio said from the doorway. "He decided it that morning."

"Then someone close to him told them."

Nico leaned against the wall with his arms crossed. He had stopped joking.

"Someone in the house," he said.

"Or someone he spoke to that morning," I said. "Make me a list. Everyone who knew he was driving to Amalfi. Everyone he phoned."

"It will take a day."

"You have until tonight."

Aurelio inclined his head.

I turned back to the driver.

"You'll be moved out of this hospital before dawn. Nico will pick the room."

"Donna," the man whispered. "Your father spoke about you every day. He said you would come home."

I put my forehead against the back of his hand.

I didn't cry. I had no more room for it.

We drove back through Naples in the dark with the bay lit up.

My phone had stopped buzzing at last.

I turned it over.

Forty-one missed calls.

Nine messages, and I read the last one first.

Where are you? Gemma says you left the cemetery before the dinner was over. Don't do this. Come home and apologize.

Apologize.

I laughed once, a short ugly sound.

Nico glanced at me.

"What did he say?"

"He wants me to apologize."

"For what?"

"For burying my father without his permission."

Nico said a word in Neapolitan that I didn't repeat.

I slept that night in my childhood bed with my mother's rosary under the pillow.

For the first time in five years I didn't wake up rehearsing what I'd say if Dominic came home angry.

I woke up at dawn instead because someone was banging on my door.

"Donna." It was the gate man, and he sounded scared. "There is a car outside. Two people. The man says he is your husband."

I got up and pulled on my father's old grey cardigan.

Nico was already in the hall with a rifle slung over his shoulder and a cup of coffee in his other hand.

"Are you ready?" he said.

I opened the shutter and looked down at the gate.

A black Mercedes with Pennsylvania plates stood in the road.

Dominic had one hand on the roof.

Gemma stood beside him in a dark jacket, and she was looking straight up at my window.

She was not smiling anymore.

← Chapter 1 · All chapters · Chapter 3 →

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