My Mafia Husband Gave Her Couture—And Me Her Scraps Chapter 09
The day Sienna staged her next public breakdown, she did it from her own hospital room.
She had the door left wide open, propped a phone on a stand at the foot of her bed, and announced that she wanted to say something honest to everyone who’d come to see her.
She’d worn no makeup. Her lips were a frightening white.
“I’ll admit I’ve done wrong. But Elena isn’t as innocent as everyone thinks.”
“She’s been in league with Declan for a long time. She wants to destroy the Morettis. She wants to destroy me.”
She wept until she was gasping for air.
“I only loved the wrong man. I never should have loved Dante.”
More and more people crowded into the room. Someone was filming the whole thing.
Ten minutes later, Dante appeared in the doorway.
He had no idea there was a second phone.
Sienna, wanting a full performance, had set up two—one tucked in the corner of the room.
She’d forgotten to switch it off.
Dante stood at the door, something in his hand.
“The Paris residency. Why did you lie to me?”
Sienna’s face changed.
The room fell dead silent.
Dante threw what he was holding onto the bed.
“Elena didn’t steal your spot. Your mother wasn’t dying, either.”
“You walked away from the residency because you’d already signed with that overseas gallery on the side, and you didn’t like their conditions.”
“When the gallery reneged on the deal, you came back and told me Elena had ruined your life.”
Sienna lunged for the phone at the foot of the bed.
Declan’s people had already secured the footage from the corner.
She fumbled, her voice climbing to a scream.
“Fine. I lied to you. So what?”
“Dante—can you honestly stand there and say you didn’t know? Not even a little?”
The blood drained from Dante’s face.
Sienna laughed through her tears.
“You saw the emails. You saw the proof Elena put in front of you.”
“But the moment I cried, you stopped digging.”
“Because you liked that I needed you. You hated the way Elena stood in front of you so clear-eyed.”
The room was a tomb.
The phone in the corner caught every word.
Dante looked at her, his voice ragged in a way I’d never heard from him.
“I had my doubts.”
Sienna laughed harder.
“Right. You just always believed Elena wouldn’t leave.”
She was tipping over the edge now, pouring out everything.
“Same as the lake. You heard exactly what she said. And all you told her was don’t get anyone killed.”
“And now you want to play the heartbroken lover?”
Dante stood there like he’d been run through.
None of that was something I could have said myself.
If I’d said it, he would only have heard resentment.
It took Sienna saying it for him, at last, to understand.
Someone finally snatched the phone away.
Too late.
Before dawn, the footage had made its round through the East Coast circles.
Every gallery collaboration Sienna had lined up collapsed. The venues she’d been using to launder money were seized.
The Moretti goods at Red Hook were still stacked in the warehouse.
Several small houses that had been running under Moretti’s protection turned their heads toward the Sullivans.
Margherita called me herself.
Her voice, for the first time, had lost its perch.
“Elena. This has gone somewhere that helps no one.”
“I can have Sienna return the emerald. I can strike her from Moretti’s protection roster.”
“Come back. The East River docks—we can talk terms again.”
I sat in the room Declan had cleared for me, the divorce papers and the pact-dissolution confirmation laid out in front of me.
“Signora Moretti. I find the whole house filthy.”
Her breath sharpened.
“Elena. Don’t forget—the Morettis aren’t a place you walk into and out of as you please.”
I signed my name.
“Then I won’t walk in ever again.”
Almost the same moment, Dante pushed the door open.
His eyes were savagely red. The emerald brooch was clutched in his hand.
He saw the pen come down and stopped mid-step.
“Elena.”
I held the papers out.
“Take them to the Morettis.”
Dante’s voice cracked.
“Could you… not sign?”
I looked at him.
“Too late.”
He took a step forward. He was almost pleading.
“Yell at me. Hit me. Anything but this quiet.”
I smiled a little.
“Dante. When it hurts enough, you go quiet.”
The last light in his eyes finally broke.