The Barren Wife He Buried Came Back With The Donna Crown Chapter 09
Downfall
I gave him a small smile. I didn’t say anything.
The old man kept talking. Kept turning the past over in his hands.
Back then, my father had a stable of mistresses. Not one of them could stand having a legitimate daughter around.
So they schemed together. Pushed my father into arranging a marriage between me and a man twice my age. A businessman with a history of putting his wives in the ground. Whether I ended up dead in that house didn’t matter to them. As long as I was out of the Falcone estate.
Then I ran with Luca.
My father lost his ace.
He had to hand his favorite illegitimate daughter, the one he actually doted on, to that same man instead.
She was dead in under two years.
Her younger brother lost his mind trying to avenge her. In a fight, he killed the businessman with his hands. He’s still in a federal cell.
And me? I was hiding on the coast in Atlantic City.
The exile order my father put on my head turned into the only thing keeping me alive.
For years, every time I appeared in a paper looking small and broken, cleaning up another one of Luca’s messes, my father saw it. He watched me walk the exact same road my mother walked.
Giving everything I had to a man. Getting used. Getting worn down. Trusting the wrong heart.
His late, ugly guilt about her finally outweighed his cold blood.
So he cracked.
And handed me the Family.
Nobody knew, the day Luca and I ran, I really did mean it.
I was going to leave the Falcone name behind for good.
Grow old with him. That was the plan.
It was Luca himself who pulled me out of that dream. Piece by piece.
I didn’t look at the old caporegime’s misty face anymore. I just said, quietly. “It’s done.”
My first day back at the Family, I didn’t give anyone room to breathe.
Meeting after meeting.
Books, contracts, operations. I pulled every thread out and laid it on the table.
The men inside Falcone who’d been coasting on old favors got swept out fast.
At the same time, I turned every scrap of evidence I’d pulled from Luca’s safe over to the Commission.
The Commission was very happy with what I brought them.
Within a month, they’d torn Luca’s ten years of work up by the roots.
Every man who’d smiled at his table got what he was owed.
His mistresses scattered like startled birds.
Even Cara, first thing, had the baby taken out and ran back to the Estate to strip the last of the jewelry out of the safe upstairs.
On her way out, she stumbled over Luca himself. He was on the floor of the hallway, curled up, an old ulcer flaring. He asked her for a pill.
She shoved past him and walked out.
…
And I got what was promised.
Every piece of territory the Fuselli name used to hold in Atlantic City passed clean into Falcone hands.
That little tabloid, the one that ran my story first, was suddenly the biggest name on the coast.
Luca had tried to send men to burn the offices down and kill the story.
His men didn’t get through the door. The Commission got there first. And they made it clear: that paper was untouchable.
The little rag became the largest publication in the city overnight.
The nervous girl in the cheap dress who’d stood in front of me at the party became its editor-in-chief.
When she reached me next, her voice was tight, trying to hide her excitement.
She asked if she could keep the exclusive on everything. My cleanout of Luca. The Falcone move into Atlantic City. All of it.
I said yes.
Before she hung up, she hesitated. Then she told me one more thing, quietly.
Luca had disappeared.
Not just from the city. From the whole coast.
I sat with that for a second. Then I let it go.
A rabbit has three holes.
His empire was being ripped apart. Running was the only sane play.
I figured he’d gone somewhere south. Somewhere far. Somewhere warm.
I didn’t expect him to walk into Chicago.