Chapter 3 – THE BRACELET ON THE MISTRESS’S WRIST

I stared down at the driveway, my blood turning to ice.

Eight men carrying semi-automatic weapons fanned out across my manicured lawn. Olivia stood in the center, looking up at the house with a triumphant, wicked smile. Little Lily stood beside her, clutching a stuffed rabbit, looking confused and frightened by the loud crash of the gates.

I dropped the curtain and spun back to Marco.

He was lying on the ivory rug, his breathing shallow, his hands pressing weakly against the gunshot wound in his side.

“Marco,” I whispered frantically, dropping to my knees beside him. “They’re here. Olivia breached the gates.”

Marco’s dark eyes fluttered open. “Vincent… call Vincent.”

Vincent was Marco’s Underboss. His right-hand man for twenty years.

I grabbed Marco’s phone from his coat pocket. His screen was cracked, smeared with blood, but I managed to dial Vincent’s private number.

It rang once. Twice. Then went straight to voicemail.

“He’s not answering,” I panicked.

Marco groaned, closing his eyes in defeat. “Olivia must have jammed the local cell towers, or… or Vincent is already dead.”

A loud, heavy pounding echoed from the front doors downstairs.

“Catherine!” Olivia’s voice drifted up the grand staircase. “Don’t be rude! Open the door before my men break the glass!”

Thirty-one years of being a mafia boss’s wife had taught me many things. It had taught me how to host a dinner for murderers. It had taught me how to wash blood out of expensive suits. And above all, it had taught me that showing fear was a death sentence.

I looked at my hands. They were covered in my husband’s blood.

I wiped them on my slacks, stood up, and looked Marco in the eye.

“Stay quiet,” I commanded him, my voice dropping an octave. “Do not make a sound.”

I left the yellow room, locked the door behind me, and slipped the key into my pocket.

I walked down the grand mahogany staircase. My spine was perfectly straight. My chin was high. I was not a victim. I was the Lady of this house.

I reached the front doors and unlocked the deadbolt.

I pulled the heavy oak doors open.

Olivia stood on my porch, her cream-colored coat pristine, a smug smile playing on her lips. Behind her, two massive men stepped forward, raising their weapons.

I didn’t even blink at the guns.

“Wipe your feet,” I said coldly, looking directly into Olivia’s eyes. “I just had the marble polished yesterday.”

Olivia’s smile faltered for a fraction of a second. She hadn’t expected me to be calm. She expected hysterics.

She recovered quickly, stepping past me into the grand foyer.

“Where is Marco?” she demanded, looking around the massive, chandelier-lit space.

“He’s not here,” I lied smoothly. “He dropped me off and went to the city to handle the mess you made at the restaurant.”

Olivia narrowed her eyes. “My men shot him, Catherine. Don’t play games with me. Search the house!” she barked at her guards.

“No one is searching my house,” I snapped, my voice echoing off the marble walls.

I stepped directly into the path of the largest guard. He froze, intimidated despite the gun in his hands. You don’t survive three decades in the Chicago syndicate without learning how to project absolute authority.

“You are trespassing,” I told Olivia. “And when Marco’s capos find out you breached his private residence, your men won’t make it back to New York alive.”

Olivia laughed, a sharp, grating sound.

“Marco’s capos answer to whoever holds the power. And right now, Catherine, you hold nothing. Your husband is bleeding out somewhere, and you are just an old, barren woman standing in my way.”

The insult was designed to break me. To remind me of my empty womb.

But my eyes didn’t drop to the floor. They dropped to Olivia’s wrist.

As she gestured around the foyer, her coat sleeve pulled back, revealing a thick, intricate diamond and sapphire bracelet clinging to her skin.

My breath caught.

It was my mother’s bracelet.

The one Marco had inherited when she passed away. The one that was supposed to be kept in the secure vault in Marco’s private study downstairs.

I stared at the sparkling sapphires.

“Where did you get that?” I whispered.

Olivia noticed my gaze. She lifted her wrist, admiring the diamonds with a wicked smirk.

“Marco gave it to me,” she lied, her eyes gleaming with malice. “He said it belonged on the wrist of the woman who actually gave him a child.”

I knew Marco had made terrible mistakes. But I also knew Marco Bellini. He kept his father’s photo in his wallet. He revered family history. He would never, ever give my dead mother’s jewelry to a mistress.

Which meant Olivia hadn’t been given the bracelet.

She had stolen it.

And the only way she could have stolen it from the biometric safe in Marco’s study was if someone inside my house had opened the vault for her.

Someone with Marco’s fingerprints.

Suddenly, a tiny voice broke the tension.

“Pretty lady?”

I looked down.

Little Lily had wandered into the foyer, dropping her stuffed rabbit on the floor. She was looking at me with large, frightened dark eyes.

Olivia sneered. “Lily, don’t speak to her. She’s leaving.”

Lily ignored her mother. She walked right up to me and tugged on the hem of my blouse.

“Are you mad at my Daddy?” the little girl asked softly.

My heart broke into a thousand pieces. I looked down at the child who was the living proof of my husband’s betrayal, and I felt absolutely no hatred toward her. Only a fierce, terrifying instinct to protect her from the monster standing behind her.

I knelt down, bringing myself to Lily’s eye level.

“No, sweetheart,” I said gently, tucking a stray curl behind her ear. “I’m not mad at your Daddy.”

Lily leaned in close to my ear.

And in a voice so quiet Olivia couldn’t hear, she whispered a secret that changed everything.

“Daddy told me to give you a message,” Lily whispered.

I froze. “What message, honey?”

Lily looked back at Olivia, terrified, then whispered to me:

“He said, ‘Tell Catherine the Chef is poisoning the soup.’”

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