My Mafia Husband Forced Me to Bleed for His Pregnant Mistress novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: The Sunday Lunch

Cosima walks across the lawn in front of all the families with her bruised arm and tells them what Rocco did. Nardo's old car gets her through the gate, and Ugo's SUV is on her bumper.

The next day I learned where the guard stood.

One man sat on a folding chair outside the guesthouse door with a rifle across his knees.

A second walked the pool deck every ten minutes.

I tried the window.

It had been painted shut years ago, and nobody had ever thought to paint it open.

My left arm was purple from wrist to elbow, with a round yellow bruise under the gauze.

I looked at it for a long time.

Then I took the gauze off, because I wanted to see everything he had done.

By Sunday noon I had a plan, and it had one witness.

Nardo Gallo knocked on the guesthouse door at twelve, with his cane and a tray of food.

"Bernardo," the guard said. "Nobody goes in."

"I've carried this girl's soup since she was twenty-two years old," Nardo said. "You can shoot me or you can open the door."

The guard opened the door.

Nardo set the tray on the bed and sat beside me.

He did not say he was sorry.

He put a ring of keys in my palm and closed my fingers over it.

"The old Lincoln in the pool house garage. The tank is full."

"Nardo, they'll kill you."

"I'm sixty-four. Let them be busy."

His hand was shaking on mine.

"The families are on the lawn for the Sunday lunch," he said. "All five. Every capo, every wife, every man who votes on what Rocco is allowed to do."

"I know. I can hear the forks."

"Then walk past them," Nardo said. "In front of all of them. He won't lay a hand on you with the whole table watching."

"And if he does?"

"Then they'll see that too."

He stood up and called out to the guard that the soup was cold.

I ate half of it so my hands would stop shaking.

Then I put my shoes on.

The guard was holding the door for Nardo's cane when I walked out behind him.

"Mrs. Lucarelli, you can't..."

"Stop me," I said.

He looked at the lawn, and the lawn looked back at him.

He did not stop me.

There were four long tables under white umbrellas, and sixty people sitting at them.

I knew every face, because I had planned every one of these lunches for nine years.

Rocco sat at the head of the middle table with Fabiola at his right hand.

She had my napkin ring in front of her.

She had my chair.

Conversation stopped table by table as I came across the grass.

I held my left arm out in front of me with the sleeve pushed to my shoulder.

The bruise went from my wrist to the crook of my elbow, and it was the color of a plum.

"Good afternoon," I said.

Nobody answered.

"On Friday night my husband had me held down on my own dining table," I said. "Ugo Mancuso pinned my arm. The doctor drew two pints of blood. They're for the woman sitting in my chair."

Fabiola put her fork down.

"Twelve of the people in this garden watched it," I said. "Not one of you stopped it."

A capo near the end of the table looked at his plate.

I turned to the oldest of the wives, a woman with white hair who had sent me a christening gift for a baby I never had.

"Ma'am, you were in the foyer," I said. "Tell me I'm lying."

She opened her mouth.

Rocco's chair scraped back.

"My wife is unwell," he said.

His voice stayed calm.

"She lost a lot of blood on Friday, and it's gone to her head. She doesn't know what she's saying."

"I know exactly what I'm saying."

"Ugo," Rocco said. "Take her back to the guesthouse. Gently."

Ugo got up from the third table.

He had a bandage on his hand where I had bitten him.

He came across the grass slowly, because sixty people were watching him come.

"Put your hand on me," I said. "Do it in front of them."

Ugo stopped two steps away.

He looked at Rocco, and Rocco looked at him.

"You're the only woman here who brought me a gift when I was a bride," I said to her. "Look at my arm, ma'am, and tell your husband what you'd do if it were your daughter."

The white-haired woman stood up and walked out from behind her husband's chair.

She stopped beside me and did not say a word.

It was the first time anyone at that table had moved to stand next to me.

Rocco's face did not change, but a muscle at his jaw jumped.

"The Lucarelli family does not discuss its private matters on a lawn," he said.

"You made it a lawn," I said. "You did it in the foyer."

I turned and walked away across the grass toward the pool house.

Nobody came after me.

Behind me I heard Fabiola say, high and bright, "Rocco, she's embarrassing you."

I heard him answer her, very quietly.

"She's going to regret that."

The old Lincoln started on the second try.

I put it in gear and drove down the long drive past the roses.

The iron gate swung open, because Nardo had made sure the guard at the gate had gone to lunch.

I pushed the gas to the floor.

In my mirror, a black SUV came out of the trees behind the house.

Ugo was at the wheel, and he was on my bumper before I reached the road.

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