My Mafia Husband Regretted Everything But I Left Chapter 03
The next morning, my employee badge wouldn’t open the turnstiles at the office.
Rebecca at reception stood awkwardly.
“Director Sinclair… the system says you’ve been suspended.”
The curved video wall in the lobby was playing a preview for Sienna’s new course.
She wore my mother’s blue scarf. The blue leather notebook sat beside her hand.
“Today, we’re going to examine a classic example of a highly controlling woman.”
“She combines motherhood, illness, and marriage into one emotional weapon, then uses it to force compliance from her partner.”
An altered recording began playing through the speakers.
It was my ninth phone call to Dante from the hospital hallway.
“Dante, please.”
“Just authorize one card. Please. That’s all I need.”
“The doctor says we can’t wait any longer—”
The audio cut off.
Sienna looked into the camera.
“Notice that she never provides verifiable medical documentation. She only repeats that time is running out.”
“That is textbook emotional pressure.”
People in the lobby had started recognizing me.
Whispers rose from every direction.
“That’s her, right?”
“I heard today was supposed to be the day she became Mrs. Marchetti.”
“Using your own mother to force a man into marriage? That’s insane.”
A security guard approached me.
“Miss Sinclair, the Don wants you on the twenty-seventh floor.”
When the elevator doors opened, Dante was studying the livestream analytics.
Preorders for Sienna’s course had already passed fifty thousand.
In a ten-minute preview, my crying had been isolated and replayed six times.
“Turn it off.”
I walked over and killed the screen.
Dante looked up.
“Who gave you permission to walk in here and touch my things?”
“Make Sienna take down the recording.”
“We have something else to discuss first.”
He pushed two documents toward me.
The first was my suspension notice.
The second was a written statement.
It claimed I had fabricated my mother’s condition due to pre-wedding anxiety in an attempt to pressure Don Marchetti into releasing a large amount of money.
I stared at the word fabricated.
“Did you verify anything with the hospital?”
“Sienna called the nurses’ station.”
“They wouldn’t give her details about the patient.”
“So you decided I was lying?”
Dante leaned back.
“At minimum, there was no proof your mother actually needed an emergency transfer that night.”
“I sent you a photo of the critical-condition notice.”
“Images can be manipulated.”
“I gave you the attending physician’s number and told you to call him back.”
“Medical scams happen every day.”
Suddenly, I didn’t have the strength to argue anymore.
He didn’t want to believe me.
Which meant every piece of evidence I gave him would simply become part of the “performance.”
The office door opened.
Sienna walked in holding the blue leather notebook.
Pink sticky notes covered the pages.
She flipped to one at random.
“Selene, your mother wrote something really good here.”
“‘Overgiving teaches people to take.’”
“I want to use it at the end of the course. A reminder to women not to raise daughters like you.”
I reached for the notebook.
She immediately stepped back.
Dante moved between us.
“Keep your hands to yourself.”
“What did she put on my mother’s pages?”
“They’re just notes.”
“Take them off.”
Sienna gave me an apologetic look.
“The adhesive is pretty strong. It might damage the paper.”
As she spoke, she yanked one of the notes free.
The corner of the yellowed page lifted with it.
A faint tearing sound cut through the room.
My breath stopped.
That page held the last mediation case my mother had ever recorded.
At the bottom, she had written a note to me.
Selene, listen to your own heart before you let anyone else tell you how to live.
Now half of that sentence had been torn away.
I shoved Dante aside and grabbed the notebook.
Sienna stumbled backward and hit the corner of the desk.
She clutched her arm, eyes immediately filling with tears.
“Selene, I know you don’t like me.”
“But you can’t punish me just because Dante chooses to trust me.”
Dante snatched the notebook from my hands.
“Apologize.”
I stared at the torn page in his grip.
“Give it back.”
“Apologize to Sienna first.”
“I didn’t push her.”
“There are cameras in this office.”
“Then pull the footage.”
Sienna spoke softly. “Forget it. Don’t upset her more. Her mother is still in the hospital. Maybe she really is under too much stress.”
The more understanding Sienna pretended to be, the colder Dante’s expression became.
“Selene. Last time. Apologize.”
I reached into my purse and pulled out a formal notice.
“Perfect. I came to see you too.”
Dante took it.
My attorney had drafted the termination notice for Cor Nova’s intellectual-property license.
The app’s core relationship-assessment model was jointly copyrighted in my name and my mother’s.
Three years ago, I had licensed it to Dante for a symbolic one dollar.
One condition was explicit: the model could not be used to humiliate, manipulate, or publicly expose any real individual.
Sienna’s livestream the night before had triggered the termination clause in full.
Dante finished reading without a flicker of emotion.
“You’re threatening me with this?”
“The license terminates in seven days.”
“That model has been updated more than twenty times.”
“The underlying question bank and scoring logic have never changed.”
Sienna laughed.
“Selene, you don’t actually think the company collapses because you take away a few worksheets, do you?”
I looked at her coldly.
“Let’s find out.”
Dante tore the notice in half.
“One letter from a lawyer doesn’t make something true.”
“Tomorrow night, you’re attending the sponsors’ public seminar. You’ll clarify your mother’s condition in front of everyone and apologize to Sienna.”
“If you refuse, I’ll report you for stealing company data.”
Then he locked the blue leather notebook in the safe behind him.
Click.
I stared at the closed steel door.
“Dante. That belongs to my mother.”
“When you learn to take responsibility for your behavior, I’ll give it back.”
He pressed the intercom and called security.
“Escort Miss Sinclair out.”
As I stepped into the elevator, I heard Sienna ask softly from inside the office,
“Do you really think she’ll come tomorrow?”
Dante gave a quiet laugh.
“She will.”
“Her mother still needs treatment. Selene won’t last long.”