My Husband Chose the Wrong Mafia Princess novel · Chapter 16 of 16
Chapter 16: The Blue House
"Not without you," I said.
"Mara." He was breathing in short little sips. "I'm not walking back in there. Look at me."
"Then Santino carries you."
Santino was already bending down.
My father tried to wave him off.
Santino lifted him anyway.
My father muttered something rude in Italian.
Santino said something ruder back.
My father laughed.
We came back through the side door into the ballroom.
Nobody had left.
Four hundred people were standing in groups between the tables.
Broken glass still glittered on the floor.
Gianna was gone. Carlo was gone. Carlo's driver was gone.
Everyone else turned when they saw us.
Me, barefoot in a red gown with a baby on my shoulder.
Santino behind me with the don in his arms.
At the center of the head table on the stage sat my father's chair.
High-backed. Dark wood. The rose carved at the top.
The warehouse manager pulled it out.
Santino set my father down in the chair beside it.
My father pointed at his own.
I walked up the steps.
I sat down in it.
Rosa was asleep on my chest.
The ring was heavy on my finger.
Nobody clapped this time.
An old man from the front tables walked up the steps first.
He bent and kissed my hand, the one with the ring.
Then the dock families.
Then the DeMarcos from Staten Island.
Then a line of people all the way to the doors.
My father watched every one of them.
He didn't let go of my other hand the whole time.
He died nine days later, in his own bed in Short Hills, with Rosa asleep on his chest.
He was humming.
A year went by.
On a warm Saturday in March, I stood in the backyard of a blue house on West 29th Street in Bayonne.
It was the same house.
Same blue siding. Same porch. Same yellow room upstairs, facing the backyard.
I'd had it rebuilt from the foundation up.
Rosa was one year old.
She was wearing a white dress with strawberries on it, and she was trying very hard to eat a balloon.
Santino was trying very hard to stop her.
The backyard was full.
My friend and her husband. The three drivers from the yard, who drove for Albanese Logistics now.
The warehouse manager's grandchildren running in circles.
My old neighbor at the picnic table with a plate of cake and her new doorbell camera pointed right at us from across the street.
"Just in case," she'd told me.
Nobody had filmed me crying on this lawn in a year.
Nate had pleaded guilty in October.
Aggravated arson. Attempted kidnapping.
Fourteen years at Rahway.
His lawyer said he asked for Rosa's picture.
I sent one.
Just one, of the back of her head.
Gianna had taken a plea too.
Five years, suspended, because of the baby.
Carlo had sent her and his driver to live with his cousin in Fort Myers.
He told everyone she was never coming back.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–8 of My Husband Chose the Wrong Mafia Princess are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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