Page 41 of The Mafioso’s Bride

“She was overwhelmed,” I say.

“You’ve checked your phone seven times since you arrived.”

I look down at the dark screen. “Six.”

His mouth curves. “Another vital distinction.”

“Do you have a point?” I ask.

“You already made it. You want her beside you while you work. At your table. In your bed. You wear her gift while threatening men who would laugh at it if they valued their teeth less.”

My fingers brush the tiny metal legs. Giada chose it for me. She spent my money on the things she wanted, and I was one of them.

Last night, she pulled me into her body and called me her husband. This morning, she removed every trace of herself from my bedroom. I may have been one of her mistakes.

Dante’s hand stays over the page. “Are you going to keep pretending?”

“About what?” I ask.

“Why you’re ready to fire every man in this building so you can go home.”

I want Giada talking beside me while I work. I want her corrections, her blunt questions, and the facts she offers when the world presses too close. I want her blue shirt among my white ones and her socks in my bed. I want her at breakfast tomorrow, whether she calls the bacon good or merely acceptable.

I want every part of my life altered by her.

“I’m happy,” I say.

Dante says nothing.

Happiness doesn’t cover all of it. I don’t merely want to return to her. I want to give her every part of me she chooses to take.

Love. The answer isn’t new. My willingness to name it is.

“I love my wife,” I say.

Dante pulls his hand away. “There you are.”

“Don’t look pleased with yourself,” I say.

“I’m pleased with her. You were insufferable before,” he says.

I turn my coffee cup a quarter inch. “Before?”

He gives me Antonio’s interrogation summary. “Go home, Luca. Giuseppe will remain a problem for the next hour.”

I put the file in my case. “Call me if Antonio gives you a location.”

“Tell your wife before you analyze the correct order of the sentences,” he says.

I close my case. “I don’t analyze sentences.”

Dante points toward the door. “You’ll prepare an agenda for the conversation.”

I leave before he becomes more entertaining. The drive home takes twenty-one minutes. I use nine of them rejecting explanations that sound like negotiations. Giada deserves plain truth. I love her. I wanted her before I had language for it. I gave her privacy because she asked for it, not because I wanted any part of her farther from me. I’m going home to tell her plainly.

Mattia waits inside the front entrance when I arrive. Two men stand near the basement corridor. Their shoes scrape against the marble when I enter.

“Where’s Giada?” I ask.