Page 15 of The Sicilian Billionaire’s Neglected Wife (A Painful Kind of Love #14)

P REVIOUS ENGAGEMENTS force me to fly back to Monaco for a couple of days, and when I return to Sicily, it’s to find out that Miguel has officially declared war, and of course all the locals are on my side.

Not.

“I’m terribly sorry, Mr. Cannizzaro.” The five-star hotel manager won’t meet my eyes as he slides my black card back across the marble counter. “We’re completely booked.”

I don’t ask him to check again or threaten to call corporate. There’s no point throwing my name around like currency because I know exactly whose name carries more weight on this island.

“How much did he pay you?”

The manager’s face doesn’t change, but his fingers tap once against the counter. Answer enough.

“The Comfort Inn by the highway has availability,” he offers, almost gently.

Of course it does.

I drive past three more hotels on my way out of the city. Each one suddenly, mysteriously full. My father’s reach has always been long, but I’d forgotten how deep his roots go in Sicilian soil.

Room 23 of the Comfort Inn smells like industrial cleaner and crushed dreams. The bedspread is the color of old mustard. There’s a water stain on the ceiling shaped like a broken heart. Fitting really, since that’s exactly what this island is doing to me.

But I don’t fight it.

Miguel Cannizzaro wants me uncomfortable? Wants me to understand what it feels like to have nothing? Fine. I’ll play his game.

For now.

****

D AY 2.

The Cartier necklace costs sixty thousand euros. Diamonds and sapphires arranged like stars, because Sienah used to trace constellations on my back after we made love, whispering the names she’d learned from her grandmother’s astronomy books.

Cassiopeia. Andromeda. Orion .

All the stories of love written in light.

I leave it on the doorstep without ringing the bell. No note. No demands. Just starlight in a blue box for the woman who taught me that some things are more beautiful when they’re not possessed.

An hour later, I watch from my car as Lynette emerges with a garbage bag. She doesn’t hesitate. Doesn’t even look inside the box. Just drops it in the bin like it’s contaminated, and the finality of that lid closing hits harder than any racing crash I’ve survived.

****

D AY 3.

Old Signora Mineza recognizes me immediately when I walk into her cafe. “Aivan.” Not Mr. Cannizzaro. Not champion. Just the name she called me when I was eight and stealing pastries from her kitchen. “Heard you’re having trouble.”

“Nothing I can’t handle.”

“Hmm.” She pours espresso without being asked, dark and bitter as her expression. “That sweet Posada girl. Always wondered when you’d break her heart.”

The accusation sits between us like spilled wine on white linen.

“She left me.”

“Smart girl.” Mineza slides the cup across scarred wood. “My husband, rest his soul, he had the same problem. Thought love was ownership. Took twenty years and a heart attack to learn better.”

“What did you tell him?”

“Nothing. Some lessons can’t be taught. Only learned.” She turns away, dismissing me. “Through pain.”

****

D AY 4.

The money transfer bounces back within minutes. Fifty thousand euros to the Posada account, refused as quickly as I sent it.

The text comes from Lynette’s phone: We are not merchandise. Neither is she.

I throw my phone at the motel wall. The screen spiders but doesn’t shatter.

Like my life. Damaged but somehow still functioning.

****

D AY 5.

I recognize Eusebio before he sees me. He’s sitting in the same cafe where Mineza served me humble pie, reading a newspaper and pretending he’s not watching the Posada house three blocks away.

My father’s eyes on the island.

“Fancy meeting you here,” I say, sliding into the chair across from him.

He doesn’t look up from his paper. “Beautiful day for surveillance.”

At least he’s honest.

“How is she?”

“Sad. Tired. Getting thinner. But strong. Stronger than anyone expected.”

Including me.

Eusebio folds the paper and sets it aside. “And you, signore? What steps have you taken lately?”

“Aside from making a fool of myself in front of the entire town, you mean?”

A slight smile cracks the older man’s face. “I cannot deny it has been...entertaining, watching you try to woo your wife. But surely you have a plan?”

“I shouldn’t even need to have a plan since Sienah is still my wife—” I stop speaking the moment I notice the way Eusebio shakes his head. “What is it?”

“You do not know, obviously.”

“Know what?”

He looks at me soberly. “Your father has been busy lately. He has requested that your wife attend to certain legal matters—”

Fuck.

I could’ve sworn Miguel hadn’t been lying when he told Olivio and me that he’s decided to surrender his life to his faith.

It’s why we had that massive cleanup so many years ago, legitimizing every business under our name and even going as far as cutting off all ties to famiglie that insisted on doing things the old-fashioned way.

Miguel and Selena were supposed to be the real deal, their faith as unwavering as their commitment to live a life without compromise.

So why, dammit? Why were they now asking my wife attend to legal matters that could only pertain to our separation?

Weren’t they supposed to be fucking against divorce?

****

I DON’T WASTE TIME telling Adriano what’s happened, and my friend comes through like he always does. The photos arrive at midnight, and my chest clenches at the sight of Sienah walking into a law office, in a dress that I still remember her telling me shyly she’s bought to match my team colors.

But now she’s wearing it for another fucking man, and I just want to commit murder.

The next photo shows her shaking hands with a man in his thirties. Tall, dark hair going silver at the temples, kind eyes behind wire-rimmed glasses. He’s handsome in that understated way that suggests character over charisma, and it’s Miguel being true to his word.

The man is everything I’m not, and by the time I see the third photo, I’m not just ready to kill. I know who it is I’m going to fucking beat to death, too.

This time, the asshole is holding my wife’s elbow as he guides her around a puddle. The fourth photo shows him still in physical contact with Sienah as he helps her climb up to his Mercedes SUV.

I look at all the photos again, and this time I notice something worse.

It’s the way he’s looking at my wife like she’s precious.

And that he’s only biding his time until he can give her the words I could never give her.

FUCK!

I study the photos until my eyes burn. Zoom in until the pixels dissolve into meaningless dots. But I can’t unsee what’s there: my wife, allowing another man to treat her the way I never learned to.

Four photos.

One replacement husband.

Ten years of marriage reduced to a business transaction I’m already losing.

****

T HE BATHROOM MIRROR shows me a stranger.

Hollow cheeks. Three days of stubble. Eyes like burnt-out headlights. This is what Aivan Cannizzaro looks like when he finally understands the difference between losing a race and losing everything.

My knees hit the cracked linoleum before I realize I’m falling.

I haven’t prayed since I was five, kneeling beside my mother’s hospital bed while machines beeped their electronic last rites. Prayer failed me then, when I needed it most. Failed to bring her back. Failed to fill the hole her death carved in my chest.

But Sienah prays.

Every night for ten years, I pretended to sleep while she whispered to this Father she doesn’t ever lose faith in, asking Him again and again to keep me safe on the track. Heal my burdens. Soften my heart.

And... fuck.

The more I remember all the things my wife has done for her, the more I’m starting to realize just how much I’ve taken her for granted. How much I’ve fucked up. And how, since I’ve completely left nothing to lose...

“I don’t...” My voice cracks against bathroom tiles that have absorbed worse confessions. “I don’t even know if You’re real.”

The words echo in the silence.

“But she believes in You. Talks to You like You actually care about broken things. About people who destroy everything they touch.”

My hands fist against cold linoleum.

“She thinks You can fix anything. Anyone. Even someone like me.” The laugh that escapes sounds like breaking glass. “So if You’re listening...”

What do I even ask for? Forgiveness? Another chance? The ability to rewrite ten years of emotional negligence?

“Please...help me not be this anymore. Whatever this is. This thing that takes love and turns it into ownership. That takes devotion and calls it duty.”

I wait for hours, but I don’t hear anything that constitutes like a miracle.

Morning comes, my eyes are bloodshot, but there’s just radio silence.

And yet...for the first time in so many years, the silence doesn’t feel empty.

It feels like space for something new to grow.

****

D AY 6.

I don’t go to her street.

Instead, I find myself at the market where Signora Chavez struggles with bags that look heavier than she is. She’s remarkably spry for her years, but also extremely conservative in how she wouldn’t even consider attending church if she’s not wearing her Sunday best.

“Let me help you,” I say in Sicilian, reaching for her bags.

She squints up at me, recognition dawning. Without the Armani armor, I’m just another man on the street.

“Little Aivan?” Her voice carries forty years of watching me grow up. “My goodness, what ever has happened? You look very, very troubled.”

“Life,” I say, taking the groceries, to which the older woman only rolls her eyes.

“Bah! Life happens to everyone, but most people don’t look like they’ve been dragged behind a truck.” She studies my face with eyes that have seen everything. “Come. You need coffee.”

Her apartment smells like breakfast and the good old days, its walls adorned with framed family photos and diplomas. She invites me to sit in her tiny kitchen while rain begins to fall outside, and I do as she says.

In our world, the utmost respect is given to little old Sicilian women who remember when you were knee-high to a grasshopper.

“You have been the talk of our little town lately. Have you gotten into a fight with your wife?”

“We’ve never—”

Signora Chavez cuts me off with a sage nod. “ Ah .”

If it were anyone but her, I would have bristled at the wealth of innuendo she’s managed to inject in that single syllable, and that’s me being nice.

“That’s why she left you then.”

I can’t help stiffening. “ Scusa?”

“A couple that never fights is the first sign of trouble, giuvini. It means there is no communication, no real trust.”

Ah, I am almost tempted to say back. If this is Signora Chavez thinking she’s being helpful instead of simply rubbing salt on a viciously bleeding wound, then I do not want to know how she is when she’s not being nice.

“But all is not lost.”

She says this reluctantly though, so that doesn’t exactly give me much hope.

“You can still do something about it, if you know who to ask.”

I should have known. Really should have known. Signora Chavez used to be like all the grandmothers of our town. Went to church faithfully every Sunday, prayed the rosary every morning, and went back to doing crime for the rest of the week simply because it was the life they were born to.

Everything changed, however, when my own father came to know God.

Since then, he and Serena have not stopped talking about him, and faith spread throughout our little town like an epidemic.

It terrified me the first time, to be honest, hearing a once-hardened gangster like my father speaking boldly of his faith.

And yet...

“God doesn’t allow divorce,” I hear myself say. “So why is it that my father is arranging the end of my marriage?”

“God also says that we must take care of ourselves because our bodies, and that includes our hearts, are His temple. Don’t you think there is more than one way for a marriage to end without divorce?”

Signora Chavez gets up to pack me a paper bag full of freshly baked bread, just like she used to do in the years Olivio and I hadn’t a mother to look after us.

“Take it with you before you go. All bones and heartbreak do not look good on you, Aivan. And if you insist on working things out on your own, without His help, well...I hear there’s this very nice, very handsome lawyer Sienah has been meeting lately? ”