He Replaced His Wife And Lost His Mafia Empire Chapter 05
Margaret sent a maid up with a jewelry box.
Inside was the hostess’s signet ring of the Moretti family.
Dominic had placed it on my finger at our wedding and said that from then on, the family estate, the banquets, the private correspondence, and the women and children under family protection would all be under my care.
It wasn’t just a piece of jewelry.
It could open the vault and make the guards at the gate obey my orders. It told Chicago that even if I didn’t carry Moretti blood, I still stood under this family’s protection.
For the past five years, I had worn it every day.
Family elders were in the habit of arriving without warning, and Dominic’s parents had lived apart for years. Who assigned the rooms, who defused the arguments, who remembered everyone’s dietary restrictions—no one ever asked.
They only came looking for me when something went wrong.
The annual portrait and greeting card signature were the hostess’s public confirmation of status. Tonight, I had stepped out of the portrait and withdrawn my signature.
So Margaret sent a message: since I had given up my duties, I was temporarily unfit to wear the ring.
She had turned Dominic’s humiliation of me into a formal stripping of power.
I didn’t make her wait.
I took the ring downstairs and walked straight up to Sloane.
“Margaret’s right.”
I placed the ring in her palm.
The metal felt impossibly light as it left my finger.
Sloane’s hand instinctively curled around it, as if she had finally gotten what she truly wanted.
“Starting tomorrow, Margaret goes to a private clinic every Wednesday. She doesn’t like drivers who speed, and her lunch has to be soft.”
“Dominic’s father is coming for four days after Christmas. He and the second uncle can’t be on the same floor. Their men can’t share a lounge, either, or they’ll kill each other.”
“There are also thirty-seven thank-you letters that still need to be sent. The gifts, the addresses, and the topics each ally can’t be pushed on are all in the second cabinet on the left in the study.”
Sloane held the ring, her expression growing stiffer by the second.
What she had wanted was the picture, the jewelry, and Dominic’s side.
She had never thought about the responsibilities that came with them.
Dominic snatched the ring out of her hand.
“Who told you to give that to her?”
“Didn’t you say she was better suited to represent the Moretti family?”
“I let her sit for a portrait. That doesn’t mean you get to dump all your responsibilities on her.”
I finally smiled.
“So she’s responsible for being seen, and I’m responsible for doing the work?”
Dominic’s face darkened.
Sloane said in a small voice, “Evelyn, I can learn. You don’t have to make things difficult for Dominic on purpose.”
“Good.”
I handed her the key inventory, too.
“You have all night to get started.”
I turned and headed upstairs.
Behind me, Margaret called my name for the first time all evening.
“Evelyn, there are disagreements inside the family. Don’t gamble with everyone’s stability just because you’re angry.”
I didn’t turn back.
“Starting tomorrow, it won’t be my family.”