The Don’s 89-Point Wife Chapter 05
When Adriano returned to the estate, the first thing he saw was the document on the study desk.
He didn’t turn on the lights.
He went straight to the last page.
“At least you listened.”
Then he saw the title.
He stopped.
It wasn’t the authorization.
It was a divorce petition.
Half the walk-in closet in the master bedroom was empty.
My books, my clothes, my four passports.
All gone.
Adriano called me.
Only a cold busy tone answered.
Isabella stood behind him and said softly, “Elena probably just wants to scare you. Go calm her down.”
“She won’t leave.”
Adriano sounded like he was trying to convince himself.
“She has no job. No income of her own. Where could she go?”
He opened the bedroom door and saw the box on the nightstand.
My wedding ring was on top.
Beneath it was the ultrasound photo.
Adriano held the picture for a long time without speaking.
“What’s this?”
Isabella’s face changed.
“It looks like… an ultrasound.”
“She was pregnant?”
His voice turned hoarse.
“Why didn’t she tell me?”
Isabella avoided his eyes.
“At the banquet, I think she wanted to. But then you said she wasn’t fit to be a mother. Maybe she got scared.”
Adriano snapped his head up.
“You knew?”
“I only guessed.”
The phone on the nightstand suddenly rang.
The lawyer’s voice was calm.
“Don Marchetti, Signora Bellandi has revoked your proxy voting rights. From today, every major family vote requires her personal signature.”
“Put her on the phone.”
“Signora has already left the country. Our firm will handle all matters on her behalf.”
“When is she coming back?”
The lawyer paused.
“She has no plans to return.”
Adriano ended the call.
Only then did he notice a hospital document at the bottom of the box.
The diagnosis read:
Pregnancy loss.
The date was yesterday.
He stared at the words, his fingers slowly tightening.
“Did she call me yesterday?”
“Adriano, don’t do this. She didn’t tell you at the time. Maybe she hadn’t even decided whether she wanted the baby.”
He turned to Isabella, his gaze cold as the barrel of a gun.
“She asked me if I could stay.”
Yesterday afternoon, I had clutched his sleeve, my face white as snow.
He had told me not to compete for attention.
Adriano grabbed his car keys.
Isabella hurried after him.
“Where are you going?”
“The hospital.”
“It’s already happened. What good will going now do?”
He stopped.
A few seconds later, he shoved Isabella away.
“At the preview, did you deliberately remove the dedication from her mother?”
“No. It was an editing mistake.”
“And this message?”
He held up his phone.
The chat I’d left open on his computer was still on the screen.
A wife is only a position. I’m the exception.
The color drained from Isabella’s face.
“I just wanted her to stop targeting me.”
“You knew she was pregnant, and you still provoked her?”
“Adriano, weren’t you the one who said she was emotionally unstable?”
Adriano stared at her for a long time.
Isabella reached for his arm.
“We grew up together. You’re not going to blame me over a baby she already lost, are you?”
He peeled her fingers away one by one.
“Get out of my house.”
“What?”
“Get out of every Marchetti property.”
Just then, his assistant called.
“Don, the family council has issued an emergency notice. Because Signora withdrew her voting rights, the merger with the Colombo family cannot pass.”
“Also, Herr Bauer in Zurich wants to suspend cooperation.”
“Why?”
“They specifically requested Signora Bellandi as project lead. They said if the Marchetti family can’t respect the real negotiator, there’s no reason to continue working together.”
Late that night, Don Salvatore Marchetti summoned his son to the estate’s oak-paneled study.
The old man said only one thing.
“Your grandfather married a woman who couldn’t read, and she stayed until she was eighty-two. You married a woman who speaks four languages, and she left in three months.”
“This is the price of arrogance.”