Reborn as the Mafia King's Wife novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: The Note

Elena stops the ambush in the courtyard, but Matteo finds her old note giving Carlo the hour. Matteo locks her out of his room.

The open gate led from the servants' stairs to the alley.

Someone in the house had helped Carlo.

Matteo sent Ada back to the kitchen and kept me beside him.

"Your people are checking rooms," I said. "I can help."

"You can tell me what you know."

I saw the folded paper before he did.

It lay beneath the brass hinge, dry despite the rain.

I recognized my own handwriting on the outside.

My stomach dropped.

Carlo had asked for the hour of Ada's card game.

I had written it that morning in both lives.

Before I could take the paper, Matteo bent for it.

He unfolded it under the hall light.

The note gave the courtyard door and the hour.

At the bottom I had written my name.

I had thought Carlo needed proof I trusted him.

"I wrote it," I said.

Matteo lifted his eyes.

"Why?"

"Because I was going to help him."

The guard at the stairs looked away.

There was no useful version of that answer.

I could tell Matteo Carlo had promised freedom.

I could say I feared being married to him.

I could say I had confused attention with love.

None of it would change the words on the page.

"When did you decide not to?" Matteo asked.

"Tonight."

"After you brought him to my gate."

"Yes."

He handed the note to the guard.

"Keep this. Nobody burns it."

The guard went down the stairs.

Matteo opened the kitchen door for me.

Ada was pouring coffee into three cups.

"Did you catch the fool?" she asked.

"All three," Matteo said.

She pushed a cup across the table.

"Then drink that before you decide what to do with each other."

I took it because she held it out.

The coffee scalded my mouth.

Matteo stood across the table with the towel around his neck.

I remembered falling against him the day we married.

He had caught me then, too.

My sister had called it a cage with a handsome door.

I had believed her because it was easier than looking inside.

"Elena," Ada said. "Sit."

I sat in the chair nearest the door.

Matteo saw the choice, of course.

He saw everything when he was hurt.

"I'm not asking you to forgive me," I said.

"Good."

Ada set down the knife.

"Have I missed something?"

"Ask her tomorrow," Matteo said.

He came around the table and stood over my chair.

For a moment I thought he would touch me.

He only set his hand flat on the table beside my cup, close enough that I felt its heat.

"You'll stay in the east room tonight."

"Matteo."

"There's a guard outside it."

"To keep Carlo out, or me in?"

He bent until his mouth was beside my ear.

"Pick whichever one lets you sleep."

He walked out before I could answer.

Ada stared into the hall after him.

"He hasn't slept in that room since his father died."

I had taken his trust and his bed in one night.

Ada walked me to the foot of the stairs herself.

"You can go to your sister's if you want," she said.

"I don't want to."

"Then don't let either of them say you're trapped."

She had heard Gina use that word before.

I thought of all the mornings I let my sister speak for me.

"Were you ever frightened of him?" I asked.

"Of Matteo? When he was seventeen and learned to drive."

I laughed in spite of the night.

Ada gripped the rail and looked at me without smiling.

"He's angry, Elena. He's dangerous to everyone in this city but you."

I had confused those two things whenever Carlo needed me to.

Ada went back to the kitchen before I could thank her.

The east room held fresh sheets and a little lamp.

A clean robe hung on the bathroom door.

Matteo had ordered care for me while refusing to share his room.

That hurt in a way punishment might not have.

I sat down only long enough to take off my wet shoes.

Then I crossed the hall to him.

Upstairs, the light beneath his door remained on.

I went to it and raised my hand.

The lock turned from the other side.

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