Rocco looked at me with that same mocking sneer. "Stop glaring at me like you want to eat me alive. If you've got your own money, you're free to pay the bill and walk out."
"Ha! What money? She couldn't pay this bill if her life depended on it!"
"Those dishes, the uncorked bottles of wine alone. The total would make her choke."
"She's been living off the Ricci family's dime this whole time. Take him away and she's nothing."
To make my humiliation complete, Rocco stood up with a smile, swept a cold gaze across the room, and spoke loud enough for every table to hear.
"Anyone who dares help Bianca Moretti out of this situation becomes my enemy. And an enemy of the Ricci Family."
Everyone in the city knew what the Ricci name carried. Protection, muscle, routes through half the waterfront. Nobody would risk crossing Rocco on his own ground.
A few associates I was on good terms with had started to rise from their seats, ready to step in. One even had his hand on the back of his chair, halfway to standing.
But the moment Rocco's words landed, they sat back down, quick and quiet, terrified he might notice they'd even flinched. The room went still the way rooms go still when a gun is mentioned at a dinner table.
"See that? Mr. Ricci means business."
"Loves his little hostess more than his own wife!"
"Right? I figured they were blood-bound, that he was just blowing off steam. But this is real."
"After a threat like that, who's going to stick their neck out for Bianca?"
I lost all composure. I marched over and grabbed Rocco's arm, demanding answers.
"Rocco, you're really doing this? Humiliating me in front of everyone for that conniving little tramp?"
He sneered and backhanded me across the face.
The crack echoed through the dining room. Silverware stopped clinking. Somewhere behind me a glass was set down with surgical care.
"Yes."
I turned back to look at him, unable to believe what had just happened.
Three years of marriage. Three years the world had called us the perfect couple. He was the one who'd pursued me when I first came to the city, courting me through intermediaries, sending men with flowers to my door as if he were negotiating a treaty instead of a date.
At our wedding, he'd stood at the altar and sworn he would be faithful to me for the rest of his life, that he would love me with everything he had until the day he died. He'd said it in front of his father, in front of the capos, in front of God.
And now? Three years. That was all it took for every vow, every beautiful memory, to be ground to dust under his heel.
People always said it: a woman who married into a Family on her looks alone had no real dignity. The moment a younger, prettier woman caught his eye, the fairy tale was over. The designer clothes, the luxury lifestyle, the title of Mrs. Ricci. All of it, revoked.
But Rocco had no idea. When I married into the Ricci Family, I wasn't after their money. I married him because I loved him.
He looked at my bloodshot eyes, then pulled out a handkerchief and turned away, wiping the hand he'd struck me with, as though I'd dirtied it.
"You knew how much I care about that girl. And still you had to push it."
"Bianca, if you can't pay this bill, I will have the manager strip the clothes off your back and walk you out of this club with nothing on."
The room erupted. Laughter, whistles, dozens of eyes pinning me in place, every one of them gleaming with mockery and something worse. The bodyguards along the walls didn't move. Not one of them shifted toward me. They already had their orders.
"Mr. Ricci's really something else. Willing to let his own wife be paraded out naked for the sake of his new flame."
"Can you blame him?"
"She won't be his wife much longer. After tonight, Bianca Moretti's a nobody."
"Shh, shh, quit talking. Let's just watch the show."
The older men in the crowd leaned back in their chairs, watching me with the lazy amusement of men who'd seen worse and enjoyed it. Capos, silent partners, men who owed the Ricci name favors and feared calling those favors due.
"Tsk, tsk. I'm curious to see what she's hiding under that dress. Ha!"
My face burned with humiliation.
Rocco had taken my cards before we left the house, told me to relax, that tonight was on him.
All I had left was the couture dress on my body. Not a cent to pay the bill.
And my phone was dead. That was when I understood. Every last detail of this had been planned. The dead phone, the confiscated cards, the public venue, the witnesses. Not a lover's cruelty. An operation.
"Getting late, Bianca. The restaurant's waiting for you to settle up so they can close."
