Chapter 4My Husband Claimed He Was Allergic to Women,Until I Saw Him With His Mistress

So it turned out that every sleepless night I spent soaking in loneliness, he had been in the next room, working out his desire for another woman.

After putting the box back beneath the bed where it belonged, I ignored the call from his courier and threw out those ridiculous raincoats and gloves.

Then, without much fuss, I moved out of the house I had lived in for five years, the one the Falcone name had built and the Falcone soldiers had watched over.

Rosa, who ran the speakeasy I held a silent stake in, sent me a message: a masked-theme wine tasting tonight, some new bottles smuggled in from the old country, and she wanted me there to taste them.

I changed into one of the dresses Lorenzo had always hated seeing me wear, boldly baring my arms and the pretty curve of my shoulder blades.

I let down the long hair I'd always had to pull up high, because he was forever worried I might brush against him.

Looking at the reborn woman in the mirror, I felt a lightness I had never known before.

The moment I stepped past the enforcer at the door, I saw Delphina arguing with a server:

"The private room on the second floor is empty anyway, so why can't I have it? That's the one I want!"

The server spotted me and dipped his head in quick greeting, then turned back to her, helpless:

"I'm sorry, that room is reserved exclusively for Miss Serafina. She's our owner's silent partner."

Delphina turned and looked me over with contempt:

"Serafina, I thought falling off that cliff might have knocked some sense into you."

"Enzo doesn't have you in his heart at all. He won't even touch you. Even if you trailed us all the way here, he can't be bothered to spare you a single glance."

I didn't so much as look at her. I quietly slipped on the queen mask:

"Every drink in the house tonight is on me."

"Go put a sign up at the door. This lady and dogs are not allowed inside."

The server caught my meaning at once and turned to signal the men who worked the floor to walk her out.

The next second, Lorenzo walked in. The low murmur of the room thinned by half; a made man near the bar straightened without seeming to know why.

"Enzo, this place bullies its customers. I got here first, but they won't give me the private room, and this so-called silent partner called me a dog and wants to throw me out."

"How much did she put in?"

Lorenzo asked the server coldly, without even a glance at me, turning the heavy signet ring on his right hand.

"Five hundred thousand……"

Ten minutes later, Nico carried in two cases, both stuffed full of laundered cash.

Lorenzo reached out and hurled the bundles at my head, one stack after another:

"That's a million dollars, to buy you out of here. Enough?"

Plenty of eyes turned toward us. Nobody spoke. In a room like this, silence was a kind of judgment.

The server couldn't stand to watch and murmured a reminder:

"Don Falcone, she isn't just a silent partner. She's your wife……"

"Hah, no wonder she's so arrogant. So she's someone Serafina knows?"

Dressed like this, Lorenzo clearly hadn't recognized me.

"Let me tell you, if Delphina has her eye on something, then even Serafina's own mother would have to get the hell out of the way!"

I turned to leave, but Lorenzo wouldn't let me off so easily. He drawled lazily:

"Did I say you could go? Is this how you run a house?"

"A million dollars still isn't enough to buy an apology to Delphina? Kneel, bark like a dog a couple of times, and I'll let you go."

I clenched my fists so hard they ached. Beneath the dress, I pressed my thumb to the rose at the small of my back, and the old scar under it held me still.

The server listened, dumbstruck. He had never seen anyone humiliated like this on the Family's floor.

He reached to lift the mask from my face.

"Don Falcone, this won't do. She really is your……"

Delphina suddenly looped her arm through Lorenzo's and shot me a disdainful glance, her smile stretching a hair too wide:

"Forget it, Enzo. As if someone like her is worth a million? Let's go get a late-night bite."

"Only a washed-up old woman nobody wants would come to a place like this in the middle of the night to cure her loneliness. I'd find that private room filthy anyway."

Only then did Lorenzo's expression soften:

"All right, whatever you say."

"Tell your owner to cast this woman out. The Falcone Family will cover the breach penalty. Otherwise this house of yours won't stay open another day."

He gave the order to the server coldly, his hand going flat on the bar top, and walked out without looking back.