My Mafia Husband Regretted Everything But I Left Chapter 04
Before the sponsors’ seminar began, I got a call from the funeral home.
“Miss Sinclair, the arrangements for Anna Sinclair’s ashes have been completed.”
“Would you like us to deliver the urn, her portrait, and her personal belongings to you this evening?”
I looked at the address card in my hand.
“Bring them to Ceralto Center, Hall B.”
“I’ll be there before nine.”
After I hung up, Ezra Vance handed me a small white fabric flower.
He had worked with my mother for years at the community legal-aid center, and now he was representing me in the licensing dispute.
“You’re really going in?” he asked.
“He still has the notebook.”
“Dante invited the media.”
“Good.”
I pinned the white flower to the lapel of my black coat.
“The termination notice needs a public record of service anyway.”
Nearly three hundred people filled the event hall.
Sienna stood under the spotlight. Behind her, the giant screen read:
LOVE IS NOT INDULGENCE—BOUNDARIES BEFORE MARRIAGE
Dante sat in the front row.
The moment he saw me, his gaze dropped first to my black clothes, then to the white flower pinned to my chest.
“Change.”
I stopped in front of him.
“What?”
“This is our pre-wedding seminar. You shouldn’t be dressed like that.”
“I’m not here for your pre-wedding seminar.”
Dante stood and lowered his voice.
“Selene, I’ve given you more than enough room to save face.”
“Sienna agreed not to pursue what happened when you shoved her. Go onstage, clear things up, and we can move the marriage-license appointment to next week.”
“Don’t bother.”
“Enough. Everyone knows how long you’ve been preparing to marry me.”
Ezra stepped forward and handed him a document.
“Don Marchetti. Formal service of the notice terminating the intellectual-property license.”
Dante glanced at him.
“Who are you?”
“Miss Sinclair’s attorney.”
Dante’s expression hardened.
“This is a family matter. I don’t need an outsider involved.”
“The moment you handed Miss Sinclair’s private emergency call to a livestream host, it stopped being a family matter.”
Up onstage, Sienna noticed us.
She raised the wireless microphone with a smile.
“Well, it looks like tonight’s real-life case study has decided to join us.”
A camera swung toward me.
My face appeared on the giant screen.
Sienna extended a hand, her smile edged with challenge.
“Selene, come on up.”
“Avoidance doesn’t solve anything.”
Every eye in the room turned toward me.
Dante made no attempt to stop her.
“Go up there and explain yourself.”
I stayed where I was.
So Sienna came down from the stage instead.
The moment she saw the white flower on my lapel, something flickered in her expression.
“Selene, your mother is still in the hospital. Wearing that is a little… morbid, don’t you think?”
Someone in the audience laughed.
Dante reached toward the flower as if he meant to remove it himself.
I stepped away.
“Don’t touch it.”
His hand stopped in midair.
“How long are you going to keep performing like this?”
I looked at him.
“You refused to release the money for her transfer.”
“You personally restricted my accounts.”
“And you were the one who gave her the recording of me begging for help.”
Sienna cut in immediately.
“Selene, we already checked.”
“Your mother had a history of hypertension. That doesn’t mean she was automatically dying that night.”
“You took the worst possible outcome and presented it as a certainty to force Dante to move money immediately. That is emotional coercion.”
“Who told you nothing happened to her?”
Sienna sighed.
“See? You’re doing it again. Manufacturing fear.”
Dante pulled me toward the side of the stage.
“Twelve sponsors are here tonight.”
“Go up there and say your mother’s condition has stabilized. Admit that you exaggerated the situation.”
“Do that, and I’ll remove every restriction on your accounts immediately. I’ll cover her treatment and transfer costs in full.”
I stared at him.
“Now?”
“Yes.”
“How much?”
“Five hundred thousand dollars. Enough to put her in the best rehabilitation center in the state.”
I laughed.
So he had always had the money.
He had simply wanted me to kneel first.
“Too late.”
Dante thought I was still bargaining. His brows drew together.
“Selene, don’t push your luck.”
“It’s not about the amount.”
“Then what is it about?”
Before I could answer, Sienna walked over holding the blue leather notebook.
“Use this.”
“Selene cares more than anything about her mother’s approval.”
She opened to the torn page and held it toward the camera.
“These are Anna Sinclair’s own words—”
“‘Overgiving teaches people to take.’”
“Unfortunately, her daughter never learned the lesson.”
Applause broke out across the room.
I stepped forward to take the notebook back.
Dante lifted it out of my reach.
“Go onstage and correct the record.”
“Give it back.”
“Correct the record first.”
“Dante. That is the last thing my mother left me.”
“She is lying in a hospital bed. What do you mean, the last thing she left you?”
His patience finally snapped.
He reached out and ripped the white flower from my lapel.
The tiny pin scraped across my collarbone, leaving a thin red line.
The flower fell to the carpet.
The toe of his black dress shoe came down over one edge of it.
“There is a limit to how far you can go using an older woman’s life and death for attention.”
For one second, the room went silent.
Then the livestream comments began flying past the screen.
That woman is terrifying.
She’s seriously pretending her own mother is dying just to force him into marriage?
Don’t give in, Don Marchetti.
Sienna looked down at the flower beneath Dante’s shoe.
“Selene, if you sincerely apologize, I’m sure your mother would be happy to hear about it from the hospital.”
I bent down and picked up the flower.
The stitching had split under Dante’s shoe. Fine white stuffing showed through the torn fabric.
The funeral home had given matching ones to immediate family members.
The other flower was still pinned over the left side of my mother’s chest.
The rear doors of the hall suddenly opened.
Two funeral-home employees in dark uniforms entered, pushing a black transport case.
One of them carried my mother’s framed portrait.
In the photograph, she wore that faded blue blouse and gave the camera the same slightly awkward smile she always had.
The senior employee looked around the room.
“Excuse me. Which of you is Miss Selene Sinclair?”
I raised my hand.
“I am.”
He came over quickly and handed me the paperwork for the ashes.
“Anna Sinclair’s ashes, portrait, and personal belongings are all here. We just need you to verify everything.”
Dante’s hand was still half raised.
He stared at the portrait.
Every trace of color drained from his face.
The employee glanced back at his file.
“Anna Sinclair passed away at 11:47 last night after resuscitation efforts were unsuccessful. The hospital also sent over its emergency-contact log. It needs to be delivered to the secondary contact listed in her chart.”
He looked around.
“Is Dante Marchetti here?”