Reborn I Refused The Mafia Husband Who Buried Me Alive Chapter 03
He Came Back Too
I read the agreement twice. It doesn’t say I’m Adrian’s second wife.
No modern Commission would put something that stupid in writing.
The agreement binds me to the DeLuca alliance.
My father has already signed.
The DeLucas have signed.
And Adrian just surrendered a shipping corridor worth millions to make sure no one backs out.
My father looks at me.
“This is bigger than what you want, Elena.”
Of course it is.
Everything is always bigger than what I want.
After everyone else leaves, Adrian closes the study door.
“Don’t look at me like that.”
“How should I look at a man who just traded territory to buy control of my life?”
“I’m trying to protect what belongs to us.”
“There is no us.”
“Isabella will be the wife everyone sees.”
There it is.
“And me?”
“You’ll be protected. You’ll have your own house, your own accounts, your own staff. Anything you want.”
Anything except freedom.
“She gets the name. You get the life.”
For one second, I can’t breathe.
In my first life, everything worked the same way.
When expensive medication came in from Europe, Isabella got it.
When Adrian’s people brought rare gifts back from overseas, Isabella chose first.
When I asked to train with the DeLuca security team, Adrian refused.
“Isabella can’t do things like that. You know how she’d feel watching you.”
I spent thirty years making myself smaller so my sister would never feel inadequate.
Then she had me buried alive anyway.
I look at Adrian.
Something has been bothering me since he arrived.
The Adrian I knew at nineteen wanted Isabella.
He would never have sacrificed DeLuca territory just to keep me.
Unless this isn’t the Adrian I knew at nineteen.
I need proof.
There is one thing he can’t fake.
Years into our marriage, when we were living near the Canadian border, Adrian disappeared during an ambush.
He survived for weeks in an abandoned hunting cabin before his men found him.
The infection nearly killed him.
Afterward, one particular antibiotic always triggered a severe reaction.
It didn’t start until after the ambush.
The nineteen-year-old Adrian has never taken it.
He shouldn’t know its name.
I walk to the bar and pour him a glass of water.
“You look terrible.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’ve barely slept.”
I take a bottle from the cabinet.
“Take this. It’s cephalexin.”
“Get that away from me.”
“Why? You’ve never taken it before.”
“Last time it nearly killed me.”
He realizes too late.
I slowly turn toward him.
“You came back too.”