Bianca always kept her movements buried, the way the Family buried everything that mattered. I was only ever the one who took the fall for her. How would I have any idea where she was?
I forced past the pain and said it straight. "She's a grown woman with two working legs. You think I can keep tabs on where she goes? I'm not her mother."
It wasn't the answer he wanted, and Salvatore's eyes turned vicious in an instant.
He let go of my hair and slapped me across the face, hard enough that my head rang.
Anger flared in me.
But so did anticipation.
This was already enough to make him angry?
A far bigger rage was still waiting for him.
Seeing the stubbornness in my eyes, Salvatore patted my cheek, slow and deliberate, one tap after another. The two soldiers behind him stood like furniture, faces empty, hands loose at their sides. "You think because you've got a hard mouth, there's nothing I can do to you?"
He dug my phone out of my pocket, powered it on, held it up to my face to unlock it, then started scrolling through my contacts.
When he found my emergency contact, a cold smile curled at the corner of his mouth.
He placed the call.
"Honey, what is it?"
It was my husband, Marco Greco, his voice gentle as always.
I started to speak, but one of the soldiers clamped a hand over my mouth, choking off any sound.
"You're Adriana Conti's husband, right?" Salvatore said, his tone flat and laced with contempt.
"Who is this?" A strange man's voice coming through my phone made Marco's pitch jump. He was clearly on edge.
Salvatore looked straight at me, taunting.
"I'm Adriana's ex. Don't worry, though. I'm married now. I've got no interest in her."
Marco was silent for two seconds. "Then why are you calling me from her phone?"
"No reason. I just thought you should know a few things about that lovely wife of yours."
"This woman's personal life is a mess. The whole time we were together she was sneaking off behind my back, chasing other men."
"It made me sick. So I broke it off."
"For years she's lived off my wife like a leech. Borrowed our family's villa to cheat in, got hooked on gambling, and ran up debts she made my wife clear out of the Family's own coffers to pay."
"You probably don't even know this. Your wife was out there being some man's mistress and got beaten by his wife."
"Last week she went under the knife for restoration surgery and had my wife sit with her through it. A married woman, going to get herself fixed up down there. Saving her so-called 'first time' for some lover she's got on the side, you think?"
"Marrying a woman this filthy. Don't you find it humiliating?"
"A man who lives like you really is pathetic. Wearing this many horns every single day must be exhausting. If I were you, I'd have died of shame a long time ago."
Salvatore unloaded all of it, grinding me into the dirt with the calm of a man reciting a debt ledger.
On the other end, Marco went quiet, and stayed quiet.
Marco and I had always been happy since we married.
He was decent and kind, gentle and attentive with me.
In all our time married, no matter how badly we fought, he never tired of soothing me, talking me down softly and reasonably.
But this time, it seemed Salvatore had angered him past the point of speaking at all.
Salvatore hung up and looked at me, smug. "Well? Still won't tell me where Bianca is?"
The soldier took his hand off my mouth.
"You broke into my home. You're holding me here, you hit me, you're spreading lies. All of that is against the law."
I glared at Salvatore, wanting nothing more than to tear this fool apart.
Seeing me still defiant only made him angrier. "The law?" A short laugh, no warmth in it. "Then let me show you what really breaking the law looks like."
He gave the order to the rest of his men with a single tilt of his head.
"Trash the place."
At once they tore through my apartment like they'd lost their minds.
The home that had been clean and tidy was rubble within minutes.
Not one thing left whole.
I bit out, "Salvatore, you think you can do whatever you want and never answer for it? You're really not afraid of the law?"
He sneered, his whole face dripping with disdain.
"The law goes after gold-digging trash like you. How much have you bled out of Bianca these past few years? You don't even know the number, do you? Every single thing in your home was bought with Bianca's money. I'm smashing my own things. What's the problem?"
Every word came out ringing and self-righteous.
As if he weren't committing a crime, but handing out a punishment to someone who deserved it.
I checked the time. Less than half an hour until Bianca's miscarriage.
The show was about to begin.
I held the anger down and spoke to him, almost amused. "Or you could wait a little longer. Your wife's going to call you any minute now."
Seeing me still unbothered drove him wild. "Still running your mouth? Fine. Today I'll ruin you completely."
"Take her downstairs!"
The soldiers dragged me to the entrance of the building, out past the doormen who looked anywhere but at me.
The whole spectacle quickly drew the eyes of everyone passing by.
When Salvatore saw the crowd growing, he made a point of announcing my "crimes" loudly, right there in front of everyone, the way a man does when he owns the street and knows it.
In no time, the people around me were all pointing and muttering.
"This is going too far. A grown woman her age, bleeding her pregnant cousin dry. That's just hurting people, plain and simple. Her cousin must be a saint to keep putting up with her. If it were me, I'd have kicked her to the curb ages ago."
"This is your classic bloodsucking relative. Resents you when you're poor, terrified of you when you're rich, lazy and greedy herself, only knows how to take from the people around her. My wife got dragged into debt by a cousin just like this. She's still on pills over it."
"Women like this are vampires. They latch onto one person after another. Whoever they touch is finished."
"And she's filthy on top of it. Married, and still chasing pretty men and playing the mistress. Living in the same building as a woman like her. What rotten luck."
They cursed until spit flew, every one of them treating me like the worst kind of criminal.
Salvatore looked down his nose at me, goading. "Well? Still want to keep that mouth running?"
He thought he had my throat in his hand, and was just waiting for me to break.
I let out a cold laugh, full of scorn. "The most feared Don in the territory, and this is all you've got? A handful of people on one block. So what if they curse me to pieces? I'll just move and it'll all blow over. You should bring in the ones who run their mouths to the whole underworld, put it on every screen in the city. That's how you actually ruin someone, drag their name through the mud for good."
His face darkened. He rolled the cufflink at his wrist once between thumb and finger, slow. "Fine," he said through his teeth. "I'll give you what you want."
And he made another call.
The anticipation in me only grew.
Go ahead.
The bigger you make this, the better.
Let the whole world know the scandal sitting inside the most powerful Family in the territory.
