Page 58 of Runaway in the Mafia (The shadows of Cosa Nostra Chronicles #3)

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

VITALE

T wo hours after I left home, I found myself walking back through the front door. Not because I didn’t have shit to do and tension to cool off. But because I’d driven back home in automatic gear. When I should have driven to my warehouse.

But since I was already there, I figured I might as well walk in. Check in on my wife. Make sure she took the Tachipirina I’d left next to her nightstand.

There was a newfound mellowness in my heart. I’d experienced her first drunken mood. It made me want to be there for her first hangover, too.

Fuck. She’d made me into a pussy.

The maid in the kitchen scattered to the back of the house when she saw me. I followed the sound of her voice coming from the bedroom. I guessed she was too hungover to work from my office, where I’d set a cute desk for her right next to mine. Pussy.

My footsteps were soft on the spun wool runner lining the length of the hall.

It softened the beat of my own heart when dread trickled in and brought my footsteps to a slow halt.

Her nervous voice spilled through the cracked doorway.

I stood veiled in the shadow of it. She was speaking to her family.

I didn’t know how I knew it, but I did. She’d never spoken to them in my presence, and that alone made this extraordinary.

Add in that her voice was strained and soft.

.. well, bingo. I had a feeling the secret was going to be out. Hopefully, the final one.

She was on my side of the bed, back turned to me, shoulders hunched. A hand rubbing her forehead.

“He’s not home, Maa. Can you just ask Pāpā to call me?”

Told you. Family. My hand fell on the doorknob.

So she’s told them about me. At least that’s something.

A beat. Two beats. She shook her head. “I don’t know. Rajesh wants to ask something about business.”

My world stilled. My heart skidded to a stop. I lost my beat. Entirely. Should I even give a fuck?

No. I shook my head. I must have heard it wrong.

She was speaking again, but now it was in Hindi. I’d been learning the language. Something else I’d wanted to surprise her with. But I wasn’t advanced enough to grasp it unless she told her mother she looked gorgeous spread out on the dining table.

“No.” She shook her head again. No wonder she gets fucking headaches. “He’s really busy.”

Who? Me? Or the guy rotting six feet under?

“How is Pāpā? Can you give the phone to him, please?”

Whatever her mother told her, she didn’t like because she almost curled into herself. “I know. I will ask Rajesh.”

What the fuck was going on? If I hadn’t chainsawed the fucker limb by limb myself, I’d begin to think he was actually fucking alive.

Agitation coiled inside me. I tapped my foot on the floor to ground it.

Her shoulders stiffened, and she whipped around, the phone tightly clasped in her hand.

Her eyes widened when I pushed the door open, and if the crazy one- sided conversation didn’t tell me something, her caught-in-the-headlights look definitely did. My wife is fucking lying to me.

“I’ve got to go, Maa.” She swallowed tightly. “Someone’s at the door.”

Ding. Dong. It’s your fucking husband.

“I’ll call back.” She stabbed the phone with her finger and threw it across the bed as if she wanted to get rid of the evidence.

I was so angry everything slowed down. My feet dragged like I was walking through fucking concrete.

My hand was heavy, leaden with steel as it dropped to the bed, crawled across sheets where I’d fucked her the night before, and picked up her phone, guilty of her secrets.

My heart thudded. Slow. Heavy. While my fingers calmly scrolled through her called numbers.

“Don’t,” she whispered.

I dragged my gaze up, and her eyes pleaded with me. “Don’t call them.”

“How long?” I didn’t recognise my voice. It thundered across the room. Roared with disbelief.

She didn’t give me an answer. It made my rage skyrocket like a high striker. “How long before you accept me as your husband and not the fucking limp dick who used to smack you around?”

“I…” Her shoulders slumped. She took a step towards me.

“Don’t.” I took a step back.

She jerked to a stop at the foot of the bed, stricken, a cracked sheet on her face. I was erupting with fury. Volatile. Unhinged.

“It’s not like that,” she said softly.

“What is it like then?”

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

My vision went red, and the last time that happened, Carlo ended up dead. I backtracked towards the cupboard. Away from her. She was an idiot and took a few steps towards me.

“Stay the fuck where you are, Ahana, and answer the damn question.” I dropped her phone and stormed towards the nightstand.

“What am I? Not good enough? Not rich enough? Don’t I fuck you enough to oblivion?

Should I do it more? Is that it?” My breath rattled in my chest. “Because I can. Because you’re a fucking addiction.

You’re inside me, and I can’t squeeze you out. ”

She was silent. Probably thinking I’d lost my shit. I had. She’d done it again. Made me lose my fucking marbles. I ran my hand angrily through my hair. My fingers jingled like they had a shock wave attached to them. My hands groped for the nearest thing to ground me.

“I thought I was my father. I thought I’d be addicted to anything with a pussy.

Turns out I’m addicted only to my wife, but she’s still thinking about her fucking ex.

” A hollow, painful laugh crawled out of my throat.

“Dead ex. Abusive ex.” I found myself torn.

“Am I that bad, mia ammaliatrice? That I don’t even win over him? ”

“No,” she gasped.

“Then what the fuck is it?” I whirled and swung my arm towards the mirror.

The lamp in my hand crashed against it. Thudded to the dressing table before toppling onto the floor.

The noise of shattering glass and the steel lamp rolling on the wooden floor splintered through the room.

With it, any plans to come back to what it was before, broken. Damaged. It was all fucking destroyed.

“How do I win you in this?” I asked quietly. “How do I get you?” Her eyes pooled with tears. “Because I want you. All of you.”

“You already have me.”

I told myself I’d have her and be done with it.

Just a fuck and a goodbye. Turned out I was wrong.

I wanted everything. Her fucks. Her dreams. Her desires.

I wanted to go to sleep with my dick inside her and wake up to find my mouth between her thighs.

I wanted to hold her head when she had those headaches and be the one to give her the relief for a hangover.

But the worst part was that I wanted her to want me like I wanted her.

I smiled sadly. “It doesn’t look like that from where I stand, mia ammaliatrice .”

“It’s just…” Her breath hitched. Her fingers found her locket and squeezed. “My family doesn’t know about you.”

I am her fucking secret.

“And here I was, making sure the entire world knew you were mine,” I said, my tone laced with bitterness.

Her guilty gaze skittered away from mine. “They think I’m still married to Rajesh.”

“And why would they think that?” I paced forward, vibrating a breath away from hers. “Fucking why?”

“Because I didn’t tell them, okay? Because I’m a coward. I’m terrified. You don’t understand. You’re Italian. I’m Indian.”

I cocked my brow, and she gave me an angry glare.

“We don’t divorce,” she yelled. “We don’t walk out of a marriage.

We don’t bring insult to our families.” She laughed.

“You couldn’t understand. They’ll disown me!

And I don’t even care about that. My father will stand by me.

But he’s sick, and I cannot give him this stress.

I simply cannot.” She drew in a painful breath.

“I will not have his death on my hands.”

“So you’ll pretend to be married to a dead man?”

She dropped her head. I didn’t allow her to take the easy way out. Putting my fingers on her chin, I tipped it up. “Look at me when you fucking break this marriage.”

“Let’s just not tell them,” she pleaded. “Just for a little while.”

“Yeah? A little while?”

She nodded eagerly.

I swallowed tightly, and it felt like sand had crawled into my windpipes. I didn’t think I’d ever experienced this strange feeling before. I guessed this was what heartbreak must feel like. “I disagree, mia ammaliatrice. You are mine as much as I am yours. And I am for sure not hiding you.”

I took a step back and grated the words out. “Pack your bags.”

Her eyes were big, tear-filled. Desperate. “What? Why?”

I laughed. She had to ask? “I’m taking you to Mamma.”

I turned away, and she grabbed my arm. Pulled me back. “No, Vitale.”

Why does she have to make everything so fucking hard? I gently unclasped her hand from mine and walked to the door. She was sobbing. I didn’t have the courage to look. The sound already ripped at my heart.

“You choose,” I told her through my clenched teeth. “I’ll be out in my car. If you’re not there in ten minutes, I’m moving out. If you are, then I’ll take you to Mamma.”

Eight minutes later, she quietly slipped into my car.

I couldn’t get myself to look at her. But couldn’t stop myself from asking, either.

“Is this why you didn’t want me fucking you raw?

I’ve been thinking you wanted to run your business.

Thought I was supporting your professional needs.

Didn’t realise it was so you could pretend you were still fucking the limp dick.

” Her lack of an answer drummed loudly in my ears.

With a heavy sigh, I leaned forward and started the car.

“It would be difficult, of course, to explain a mixed child.” I shook my head.

“To think I thought I knew my fucking wife.”

I drove blindly. Used my sixth sense rather than my eyesight. A thousand times I’d taken this route. This was the only time that would cling to my nightmares.

The second the motor strummed to a stop, her voice seeped into my heart. “I thought I was yours,” she whispered quietly.

I laughed, the hollowness of it sinking deep into my chest. “You were never mine to begin with. I was an idiot to think you ever were.”

She turned to me, a speech ready to burst out of her sweet lips. Could tell already from her stance from the corner of my eye. “Please let me come back with you.” She clutched my hand. “I don’t want to be without you.”

I sighed. Didn’t she know? I couldn’t survive without her. Wouldn’t last a day. But I needed her mind, body, and soul. A worse agony than an absent wife was one present in form but too far buried in her soul to ever be yours.

I turned, laced my fingers along her hand, and tucked her hair behind her ear. Her eyes were red-rimmed. Haunted. The love she had for her pāpā, I wanted that. The type of love that she would sacrifice everything for him.

I touched her chin softly because I couldn’t help myself. Couldn’t keep myself from being close to her. Trying to wrap around her and hope she’d forget everyone and embrace me.

“I can’t. I want all of you or nothing.”

I would never stand in her way with her family. The choice was always hers. Never mine to make. Never mine.