AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“She told me to tell her… that you are… working… on your di—divorce.”
I shot up straight, shocked at even my own mother’s tricks.
“What did you get from this deal? Money?”
I watched her squirm in the chair, her short skirt riding up. Realisation dawned.
Leaning forward, I put my mouth on her ear and whispered, “Were you going to get me?” Her reddening skin gave her away even as she shook her head.
I stood up, a laugh bursting out of me. “What was she going to do, wrap you up like the cheap trash you are and leave you at my doorstep?”
Growling, I stepped back and kicked her chair, making the chair and the girl in it skid across the floor and crash against the wall with a loud thud, plaster falling off the wall.
“Antonio.” Roberto rushed to hold me back. I shook him off easily, looking at the trembling woman in the corner with disgust.
“What you nor my mother seem to understand is what an amazing woman my wife is. You’re fucking shit beneath her shoe.”
I needed her. This feeling in my chest that something was about to detonate would only heal when she was next to me. I was sure of it.
This was why she had left.
Fuck!
I should have told her when the case was dropped. I should have listened to fucking Marco and Angelo. It had been pretty easy. Just the threat of Yuliya’s grandparents cutting her off was more than enough for her to sign all her rights away.
But I hadn’t wanted to tell her. If I had, she would have rushed off to her studies, dropping Cora and me like a hot sack of potatoes. Instead, I came up with a different plan. What harm would it do if I held on to this bombshell for just a bit longer and we took off to India for a month?
Only I wanted more. I wasn’t happy with a month while I wanted a lifetime of waking up next to her, inhaling her smell, listening to her hum her strange songs.
I struggled to sit still in the moving car while my mind raced ahead. I wanted to fucking kill my mother, but I wanted to find my wife first. Then, at least, this pounding in my head would be gone.
The moment Armando opened the door, I felt the loss expand. I didn’t recognise the house anymore. It was just full of space. Empty. No playing Divya on the floor. Instead, I found Rosa with an agitated Cora in her arms, screaming like a banshee gone mad.
Just when I thought things couldn’t feel worse. Seeing your child in pain is so much more. Briskly, I lifted her into my arms. “So bambina, so bambina,” I whispered soothingly, even though my hands trembled, and my body jittered with sickness. I tried to hum one of those strange songs Divya hummed but came up empty. Nothing worked anymore.
I paced the floor, with Cora howling in my arms, while I tried to listen to Armando and Rosa. What bothered me was the timing. She hadn’t left straight away. That fucking woman had been on our doorstep before I left for Italy, which explained her apathetic response, but it didn’t explain why she waited almost two weeks.
I stopped short at Armando’s words.
“Come again?”
“Signora Capizzi was worried about the security system, Signor.”
“How?” I snapped, setting off Cora into another shrieking parade.
Armando winced. “She was asking if it could be hacked from outside. Who could look at the images…”
“Cazzo!”
“But I reassured her, Signor. I told her there was no way that could ever happen.”
“Fucking hell.”
They stared at me in confusion. “Did I say something wrong, Signor?”
“No,” I sighed, sitting down. My legs felt like two wooden beams left out in the rain, the strength that they once had, fading away slowly. It was my own fucking fault.
The simple lie had slipped out so easily so many weeks ago. I would have said anything to fuck her, and now I had to face the consequences.
