The Hundredth Time I Left My Mafia Husband

Every year, on the anniversary of the blood-alliance that bound me to him, Salvatore Gallo brought another woman into the compound under the pretext of letting me train her.

At the dinner marking our tenth year, the woman he walked in on his arm was a hostess from one of the Family's speakeasies, poured into a Playboy bunny costume.

"She's got nothing to wear, so give her your wedding dress and the jewelry I gave you last time. As for shoes, I think the pair on your feet will do."

"Oh, and she's young. She doesn't understand much. You'll have to put in the effort to teach her. Especially in bed."

Every made man at that table was waiting to watch me humiliate myself. I lived up to their expectations once more and said I wanted to sever the pact.

Salvatore chuckled, looking at me with that familiar contempt and mockery.

"Adriana Bellini, haven't you said you wanted out every single time? I'm sicker of hearing it than I am of your moaning in bed."

"If you really want out, I'll hand you a hundred million to walk."

The whole room erupted again, their laughter thick with the certainty that I was playing coy, that a fallen Bellini didn't know her place.

They didn't know this was the hundredth time I'd said it, and the only time I truly meant it.

——

Every eye in the room came to rest on me. Even the hostess who had just arrived covered her mouth and giggled behind her rings.

"Alright, place your bets. I say she folds before she reaches the door."

"A million she doesn't leave!"

"I'll match thirty."

The wager over whether I'd break the pact had become a tradition on every anniversary, the way some Families toasted a saint.

Plenty of them hated me when they lost. None of them liked me much when they won.

I chuckled and shook my head, cursing myself for being useless. Ten years since I first decided to leave Salvatore.

"I bet she walks."

A low voice came from somewhere in the crowd, and the men around it murmured for him to think twice, not to throw good money after a lost cause. I looked toward it but couldn't make out the figure through the smoke.

"Salvatore, I'll send the papers to your office. Remember to sign them when they arrive."

I had said the word hundreds of times. This was the first time I'd spoken of papers, of something on paper a man could hold and be bound by.

Salvatore straightened. The unlit cigarette he'd been rolling between two fingers stilled, then slipped from his hand to the floor.

I pretended not to see it. I crouched, slid off my heels, and set them down gently by the girl's feet.

Her name was Gina Russo. Early twenties, and very beautiful.

"These might pinch at first. You get used to them if you wear them enough."

"As for the dress and the jewelry Salvatore mentioned, I'll have Zia Rosaria bring them up to you."

"Before you, there were nine others he brought under this roof. If there's anything you don't understand, ask them. They keep the third floor. Your room's the last one on the right."

In ten years of this marriage, the women Salvatore had installed in the house could have filled a throne room of their own.

Tall, short, soft, sharp, the wide-eyed and the worldly, the cold and the bright. He'd collected them all.

Word on the street was he wanted to play the old emperor, gather twelve beauties beneath one roof like tribute.

A shame, then, that I'd never had the fortune to be counted among them.

I brushed the dust that wasn't there from the shoes, rose, and started barefoot toward the door.

I never made it. Before I could cross the threshold, a hard grip closed around me from behind and dragged me back.

"Adriana. If you're leaving, leave clean. Every single thing on your body was bought with Gallo money."

My bare feet felt as though they'd been pressed to ice, and even my breathing trembled.

"You want me to strip?"

Salvatore raised an eyebrow. His eyes seemed to cut straight through me.

"When your bloodline fell, didn't your mother strip you bare and lay you on my bed to seal the alliance? You leave the way you came."

"Or do you regret it? That's fine. Kneel and put her shoes on for her, and I'll forgive you."

Behind him, the men laughed so hard they rocked back in their chairs.