Chapter 9: The Clinic

Gaetano's planning something for you. Go straight home by four. Don't call him, it's a surprise.

Under it was my answer.

Really?? He's never planned anything in his life. Thank you, Saverio. Changing my flight now.

And under that, his.

Good girl. Four o'clock. Not a minute later.

I read it four times.

Not a minute later.

Gaetano hadn't been planning anything.

Gaetano had been in our bed with my best friend.

And Saverio had known what time to send me through the door.

I put my hand over my mouth.

I didn't make a sound.

I'd had three years of learning not to make a sound in this house.

I wanted to photograph the screen.

I had no other phone.

So I sat there on the floor of his study and made myself think.

A text could be explained.

He'd say Gaetano told him about a surprise.

He'd say he was trying to be kind.

I needed what came before it.

I stood up and went back to the desk.

The second drawer on the right held his bank folders.

He'd never hidden them from me.

He'd never thought he had to.

The car import company was a thin blue folder near the back.

I'd seen it a hundred times.

I'd never opened it.

Inside were statements, one page for every month, going back years.

Most lines were car shipments from Genoa.

But on the first of every month there was one transfer that wasn't.

Two thousand eight hundred euros.

The same account every time.

The name next to it was I. Mancuso.

I turned the pages back.

Back past last year. Past the year before.

Past my divorce. Past the funeral.

Keep reading free with an account. Start My Fiancé Confessed to Cheating from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.