My Mafia Husband Gave Her Couture—And Me Her Scraps Chapter 06
At one in the morning, someone printed black-and-white photographs of me onto memorial cards.
Not online—that would have been merciful.
The cards were delivered to the porters’ lodges of half a dozen old East Coast households, each with a single line beneath the image:
Those who steal another’s future never escape the reckoning.
By dawn, the phrase was making its rounds through the circles.
Some called me ruthless.
Some said I’d broken Dante and Sienna apart.
Others dug up the old business of the Paris art residency, claiming I’d used the Blackwood name to elbow out someone with real talent.
Sienna had spent seven years cultivating the European art scene.
Between the Moretti name and a face that always looked incapable of harm, she had long since gathered a following willing to ache on her behalf.
The Morettis didn’t say a word.
But the familiar faces in the art world, the mouths that owed the Morettis favors—every last one of them steered wide of Moretti and aimed the mud squarely at me.
It was Dante’s method, distilled.
He never had to open his mouth.
There was always someone who knew whose hand to put the knife in.
Rosa’s eyes went red with fury.
“Madam, do you want us to shut it down? We have people who can push back.”
I looked at the card someone had faxed over and shook my head.
“No.”
“Let her talk.”
The next day, Sienna held a small gathering at her own gallery—an appreciation, she called it.
A room full of art-world faces, and a few old families who’d come to watch the show.
She stood under the lights, pale, her voice catching.
Someone lifted a phone and filmed her.
“I never wanted to hurt Elena. The Paris residency—I let all of that go a long time ago. I just never imagined she could hate me this much, after all these years.”
Every person in the room went soft with pity.
The footage moved through the circles fast.
At the height of her weeping, Dante called me.
I put him on speaker.
His voice was rough.
“Elena. Rein it in—the chatter in the circles. I’ll make Sienna stop too.”
I laughed.
“She’s lying, and you want me to rein it in?”
Silence on his end.
“That business back then—you still owe her an explanation.”
Everyone in the study went still.
Rosa, holding a newly delivered port ledger, froze mid-page.
I watched the sky lighten outside the window.
“Dante. I explained the residency. More than once.”
He said, “You were too worked up back then to be believed.”
At last I understood.
He hadn’t forgotten.
He’d simply filed every explanation I’d ever given him under guilt.
I hung up.
Ten minutes later, I had Rosa deliver something to the porters’ lodges of those same old houses.
Not a document.
A recording.
The day of the Paris residency interviews, in the airport’s VIP lounge, Sienna clinking glasses with a friend.
“That program’s a cage. You go, you take orders from the mentor. Not for me.”
“Dante’s laying a better road for me anyway.”
Overnight, the wind in the circles turned.
The warmth of Sienna’s gallery appearance hadn’t even faded when the smile went stiff on her face.
She tried to bury the recording.
Too late. It had already changed hands through half a dozen households by then.
Dante sent a message:
Where did the recording come from?
I replied:
The places you never wanted to look.
The screen was quiet for a long time.
Then:
Elena, I didn’t know.
I stared at that line, and I remembered.
Standing in the doorway of his study, holding out the emails for him to read.
He hadn’t even opened them.
He’d said:
Stop using this to smear Sienna.
He had been given every chance to know.
Every time, he chose to shut his eyes.
By noon, Sienna had her people spreading the word that the recording was a fake.
By afternoon, the head of the Paris residency program stepped forward personally to confirm it: Sienna had walked away from her final interview of her own accord.
By evening, the Moretti goods impounded at Red Hook were still sitting in the warehouse.
Several smaller houses that had been shipping under Moretti’s protection began quietly reaching out to the Sullivans.
The East Coast Families’ Council sent word: the Morettis had forty-eight hours to sort out the matter of the ceremony’s “old rite” and the blood pact dispute.
Dante appeared outside the Blackwood estate.
He didn’t come in.
He just stood in the snow, chain-smoking one cigarette after another.
Rosa asked me:
“Madam. Do you want the guards to send him away?”
I glanced out.
Snow was settling on his shoulders. In his hand he was clutching the old bracelet.
Once, I had waited like that too.
For him to come home for dinner.
For him to remember an anniversary.
For him to stop, just once, outside the door of my hospital room.
He never turned back.
I drew the blinds.
“It’s cold. Have the guards bring him a cup of hot water.”
Rosa blinked.
I added:
“A paper cup will do.”