I shook off his hand and walked toward my bedroom like a dead woman walking.
He didn't follow. Behind me, I heard Catarina coaxing him: "Tomasso, go check on her, please. I'd hate for her to be upset because of me."
"Let her cool down. She loves me too much to stay angry. She'll come around."
Each word landed like a stone. Every step I took felt like dragging my feet through wet concrete.
And the last five years with Tomasso began replaying in my mind, scene by scene, like a film I couldn't pause.
I'd met him seven years ago.
His syndicate had barely taken shape. A handful of soldiers, a single social club on the south side, and a name that meant nothing to anyone who mattered. I hid the fact that I was the sole blood-heir of the Valente dynasty and quietly opened every door my family's name could open. Alliances brokered through intermediaries so he'd never trace them back to me. Territorial disputes that resolved themselves overnight because a single phone call from the Valente compound reached the right capo at the right time. Protection from the Feds that he assumed was luck or the work of his own consigliere. From a man with nothing to his name to one of the most feared Dons on the Eastern Seaboard, and he never knew that the invisible architecture holding it all together was mine.
After we married, he treated me like I was the center of his universe.
When I got sick, he sat at my bedside and refused to leave. He posted a soldier outside the door and canceled a sit-down with the Calabrese family because my fever wouldn't break.
When I was hungry, he cooked for me himself, making the oatmeal I loved, the kind that was easy on my stomach. The Don of the Rossetti Family, sleeves rolled to the elbow, standing over a stove in the estate kitchen while his underboss waited in the hall.
Every time we went out, he held my hand and never let go. His men walked three paces behind, and he kept me on the inside of the sidewalk, away from the street, the way old-world men protect what belongs to them.
Every anniversary, every birthday, he showed up on time with a gift and a smile.
Then Catarina moved in, and everything changed.
She was his blood-sworn brother's widow. That was the reason. Fausto Volpe had taken a bullet for Tomasso during the Calabrese turf war, and the old code was clear: a Don protects his fallen brother's family. Catarina had no one else, no family name to shelter her, no territory, no protection. So he brought her into our home under the sacred code of hospitality.
At first it was just small courtesies. Checking in on her. Making sure she was comfortable. Then came the late-night calls. Her legs were swollen. Her feet were numb. She needed him. Again and again, she pulled him out of our bed in the middle of the night, and each time I heard his footsteps recede down the corridor of the estate, the silence he left behind grew heavier.
On our wedding anniversary, he left me sitting alone at the restaurant and rushed to the hospital to sit with her through a prenatal checkup. I sat there for forty minutes. The candles burned down to nothing. The waiter stopped asking if I wanted to order.
I got jealous. Of course I did. But every time, Tomasso would take my hands and say with absolute conviction: "Her husband saved my life once. His wife and child, how can I just abandon them? Giovanna, you're the kindest person I know. You understand, don't you?"
And when he said it, his right palm would press against mine, and I could feel the raised scar there, the blood-oath mark from the rite of fratellanza he'd sworn with Fausto. He invoked that scar like scripture. Like it made everything holy.
Because I loved him, I trusted him. I trusted us. I trusted what we'd built.
Until I saw him in bed with her.
Then I knew exactly how wrong I'd been.
If he wanted to warm another woman's body, he could have her. I was done.
When morning came, I wiped the dried tears from my face and made two phone calls.
The first was to the hospital. "I need to schedule a procedure. As soon as possible."
The second was to my mother. "Mamma, Tomasso cheated on me. I'm filing for divorce and coming to you. Papà has been wanting to hand the Family over to me, right? I'll be there soon."
Her voice didn't waver. Not a tremor. Not a breath out of place. Isabella Valente had survived three decades as a Don's wife, and she received the news of her daughter's betrayal the way she received all threats: with absolute stillness before the storm.
"I told you from the start. You two come from different worlds. The Rossettis were never our equals. Marrying him was never going to end well. Come home to Monaco. As for the baby, if you want to keep it, keep it. The Valente family could use an heir."
I hung up and tore the check in my hands clean in half.
Fifty billion dollars. My father had wired it to me through three shell companies and a bank in Zurich. It was supposed to fund Tomasso's expansion into the shipping corridors along the northern coast, the deal that would have made the Rossetti syndicate untouchable.
He would never see a cent of it now.
I dug out our marriage certificate, the document that had bound the Valente name to the Rossetti bloodline, and was about to call the family's consigliere when my phone buzzed twice. A message appeared in the group chat Tomasso's inner circle had created to welcome me years ago, back when they still treated me like the Don's wife.
Congrats, sis! The big day's finally here!
Congrats, congrats! It's been a long road! We're heading to the hospital right now to celebrate with you and Tomasso.
I frowned, about to ask if they'd sent this to the wrong person, when a third message appeared.
You idiot, wrong group! This is the FIRST wife's group. The little missus is in the other one! Delete it, quick!
All three messages vanished in seconds.
My fingers tightened around the phone until my knuckles went white.
A dull ache spread through my chest. Then a sharper one twisted low in my belly.
It had never occurred to me that there was another group. A second one. One I wasn't in. A parallel world running beneath the surface of my marriage, hidden the way this life hides everything, behind closed doors and careful silence.
Every time Tomasso's associates saw me, they kissed my hand and called me the Don's wife. Warm. Respectful. Familiar. They sat at my table during Sunday dinners. They brought gifts to the estate on holidays. They looked me in the eye and smiled.
And the whole time, behind my back, they'd already given Catarina a title of her own.
