My Mafia Husband Regretted Everything But I Left Chapter 02
I arrived at the Marchetti estate on Long Island ten minutes before dinner began.
Not because I planned to stay.
I was there to get my mother’s notebook back.
The spacious living room was filled with the core of the Marchetti family: several capos who ran different crews and territories, an aging consigliere who handled the family’s legal problems and internal disputes, and Dante’s aunt Isabella, who controlled nearly a third of the family’s legitimate holdings.
At the center of the long dining table sat two red velvet boxes, gifts Donna Marchetti had originally prepared to celebrate our wedding.
The moment I walked in, Isabella smiled.
“There she is. I was starting to think you’d really throw away the whole marriage over a hundred and eighty thousand dollars.”
“I suppose when you come from nothing, every dollar feels like a crisis.”
Sienna sat beside Donna Marchetti, pouring her an aperitif.
“Aunt Isabella, don’t be so hard on her. Anyone would panic when their mother gets sick.”
“Although Dante already promised to cover the follow-up treatment, and she still insisted he wire the money that very night, which was… a little undignified.”
Donna Marchetti frowned at me.
“How is your mother now?”
I saw Dante glance up.
He was waiting for my answer.
But Sienna reached out first and covered Donna Marchetti’s hand.
“Mrs. Marchetti, maybe it’s better not to ask.”
“Dante only just established this boundary. If you show concern now, Selene will think the tactic worked.”
Donna Marchetti closed her mouth at once.
Dante pushed a document toward my empty seat.
“Sit. Sign.”
I didn’t move.
“Where’s the notebook?”
“At the office.”
“I want it back.”
“Sienna needs it for tonight’s livestream. You can have it afterward.”
“She doesn’t have permission to publish anything from it.”
Sienna smiled.
“Selene, your mother handled ordinary neighborhood disputes at a community center. It’s not like she was documenting family secrets.”
“I’m organizing her work and helping it reach more people. I’m giving it value.”
“She never agreed to that.”
“Dante did.”
She tilted her head toward him.
Dante tapped the document with one knuckle.
“This is Cor Nova’s content-licensing agreement for the new year.”
Cor Nova was a relationship-assessment app he had funded through the Marchettis’ legitimate businesses. As for the family’s other operations—the ones that never appeared in board packets—no one at that table spoke of them.
“Sign it, and I’ll remove the restrictions on your accounts. Sienna will delete last night’s replay too.”
I opened to the first page.
The license covered not only the relationship-assessment model I had helped develop, but also more than twenty years of my mother’s mediation case files.
Term: perpetual.
Licensing fee: one dollar.
“This is theft.”
Dante’s voice cooled.
“The company has paid you a salary for three years.”
“My salary bought my working hours. It didn’t buy my mother’s entire life.”
Isabella scoffed.
“You’re about to become Mrs. Marchetti. Why are you drawing such hard lines between yours and his?”
“Dante is willing to marry you. That’s the greatest security he could possibly give you.”
I looked at him.
“Is that what you think too?”
He didn’t deny it.
“After we’re married, you’ll be a beneficiary of part of the family trust.”
“You’ll be taken care of.”
“So first you turn my property into yours, then decide how much of it you feel like giving back?”
Dante set down his wineglass.
“Selene, don’t make a normal prenup arrangement sound ugly.”
“You don’t have stable income right now, and your mother is going to need long-term rehabilitation. Who else is going to take on that burden?”
Something heavy pressed against my chest.
My mother had died terrified of becoming a burden to me.
And here he was, in front of an entire room, calling her exactly that.
The butler brought in the final soup course.
Sienna suddenly stood and draped a blue silk scarf across her lap.
I recognized it instantly.
My mother had dyed it by hand the year before.
The first time she met Donna Marchetti, she had worried that buying an expensive gift would look like she was trying too hard to impress the family. So she stayed up for three nights, using simple plant dyes to make a clean, understated blue scarf.
Donna Marchetti accepted it.
Then gave it to Sienna.
I walked over.
“Take it off.”
Sienna touched the scarf.
“Mrs. Marchetti gave it to me.”
“My mother made that.”
“You don’t ask for a gift back once you’ve given it away.”
She smiled as if I were being impossible.
“Selene, why are you trying to take everyone else’s things tonight?”
I reached for it.
Dante caught my wrist first.
His grip wasn’t hard, but it stopped me cold.
“Enough.”
“You’re going to make a scene in front of the whole family over a scarf?”
“Give it back.”
“Sienna needs it for the livestream.”
“I said give it back.”
Dante stared at me for two seconds, then suddenly pulled the scarf from Sienna’s lap.
For one ridiculous moment, I thought he was finally going to hand it to me.
Instead, he placed it back in Sienna’s hands.
“Put it on.”
Sienna lowered her head and tied it around her neck. The blue silk rested against her white dress like a piece of my mother had been peeled away and placed on someone else.
Dante released me.
“Selene. Sit down.”
“Sign the agreement, and I’ll pretend none of this happened.”
I looked at him.
“And if I don’t?”
“You’re suspended. Your access to the apartment is revoked. The restrictions on your accounts remain.”
“And the wedding?”
His expression softened slightly, as if he finally thought I was surrendering.
“That depends on how you behave.”
Even now, Dante Marchetti believed the thing I feared most was losing the chance to become his wife.
I picked up the agreement.
He offered me a fountain pen engraved with the Marchetti crest.
“That’s better.”
I didn’t take it.
Instead, I pulled a red marker from my purse and drew a thick X across every page of the contract.
Sienna’s smile faded.
Dante stared at the red marks.
“Do you know what you’re doing?”
“Yes.”
I placed the ruined document back in front of him.
“And you should know this: my mother’s notebook does not belong to you.”
Then I turned and walked out.
Dante didn’t follow.
He only spoke when I reached the foyer.
“If you haven’t apologized by nine tomorrow morning, I’ll have legal classify that notebook as company work product.”
I stopped.
Dante leaned back in his chair, completely certain of himself.
“Then you won’t even have the right to take it back.”