Chapter 6: The Claim

Everyone at the table waited for a useful lie.

I could have said I saw the man's sleeve move.

They would have let me keep that answer.

Ada's hand remained warm around my waist.

I looked at her before I looked at Matteo.

"I lived this night before," I said.

Somebody at the far end of the table laughed once.

I didn't turn to see who.

"The man reached you before I moved. You never got up from this table."

Ada took her arm from my waist.

"In a dream?"

"It wasn't a dream to me."

Matteo came around the table.

"Elena, you don't need to do this here."

"I do. Last time I kept quiet in this room."

I faced the people who had looked through me for two years.

"I gave Carlo the gate. I gave him the hour."

Gina rose with a gasp she did not earn.

"She's confessing," she said.

"I am," I answered. "To the part I did."

Matteo stood at my side, close enough to intervene.

He didn't touch me.

I wanted his hand more than I deserved it.

"Why would you do that?" Ada asked.

"I thought leaving Matteo would make everything simple."

"Did Carlo tell you that?"

"Yes. I chose to believe him."

Ada picked up the knife the waiter had dropped.

She set it in the middle of the table.

"Simple," she said. "Look what he brought for me."

I swallowed.

Keep reading free with an account. Start Reborn as the Mafia King's Wife from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.