My Mafia Husband Chose His Mistress’s Son While I Lost Our Baby—So I Took Off My Ring...

The Palm Court at the Drake Hotel was quiet at one o’clock on a Thursday afternoon.

Harp music drifted over the potted palms and the silver tea services. Outside the floor-to-ceiling windows, Michigan Avenue was choked with black limousines and slush-covered taxis, but inside, Chicago’s old money spoke in whispers over watercress sandwiches.

I sat at a corner table with my back to the wall, wearing a tailored black wool suit with high lapels that concealed the bruises on my neck. My hair was swept up into a severe, elegant chignon, secured with my mother’s pearl-tipped pins.

Uncle Silvio sat opposite me, his cane resting against the table leg, sipping an espresso with three drops of anisette.

At precisely one-fifteen, the maitre d' led two men through the archway.

Leo Tatalia was sixty-five years old, with skin like cured leather, wearing a double-breasted charcoal overcoat that had probably cost more than Dante made in six months. Beside him was his younger brother, Sal, whose eyes swept the room with the practiced paranoia of a man who survived three car bombings in the nineties.

Leo stopped three feet from our table. He looked at Silvio, bowed his head with genuine respect, and then turned his cold gray eyes onto me.

"Mrs. Moretti," he said, his voice like gravel grinding under a boot.

"Romano, Leo," I corrected him, gesturing toward the empty chairs. "Please sit. The tea is very good here."

Leo sat down, placing his leather gloves on the white tablecloth. Sal remained standing behind his brother's chair until Silvio gave him a look that made the younger man take a seat two tables away.

"I didn't expect you to be walking today, Carmela," Leo said honestly, leaning forward, resting his forearms on the linen. "My boys told me the hit was... definitive."

"Your boys hit a pregnant woman twice on West Archer Avenue," I said, pouring hot water into a porcelain cup with a hand that didn't tremble by a fraction of a millimeter. "They killed my fourteen-week-old son."

Leo didn't flinch, but his eyes hardened into flat slate. "We were told the car was carrying Dante and three million dollars of laundered cash from the Cicero depot. We were told you were in Palm Beach."

"Told by whom, Leo?"

"You know by whom," he replied. "The Rossi girl. She’s had my nephew Paulie by the short hairs since they were teenagers in Palermo. She told Paulie that if we took out the car, Enzo would think the Luccheses did it, declare war on New York, and leave the West Side shipping routes completely unguarded."

"And you believed her?" Silvio spoke up, his tone dripping with disdain. "Since when does Leo Tatalia take strategic advice from a two-bit parlor girl?"

"When she brings the keys to the Moretti safe with her," Leo said, tapping the table. "She gave us the transport schedules. She gave us the judge’s bank accounts. She handed us Enzo on a silver platter. Why would I say no?"

"Because the platter wasn't Enzo’s," I said, pushing a thick blue ledger across the table toward him.

Leo looked down at the ledger. He didn't open it immediately. "What is this?"

"That is the master lease for the deep-water docks at the Port of Indiana," I said. "And the rail freight rights through the Gary junctions. As of nine o'clock this morning, they belong exclusively to the Romano Foundation. Enzo Moretti doesn't own a single inch of rail between Chicago and Detroit."

Leo’s eyebrows climbed toward his hairline. He opened the ledger, his blunt fingers turning the pages, reading the corporate seals and the notarized signatures.

"Enzo signed this?" Leo asked, amazed.

"Enzo signs whatever I put in front of him when he thinks he can buy back his pride," I replied. "Now, here is my proposition, Leo. You want the Cicero distribution corridor. I want Paulie Tatalia."

Leo went perfectly still. The harp music seemed to stop behind us.

"Paulie is my brother’s only boy, Carmela," Leo said quietly.

"Paulie is a dog who used my husband’s weakness to murder my child," I said, leaning forward until I could smell the stale tobacco on Leo’s skin. "And he is currently sitting in a private suite at the Palmer House waiting for Bianca to bring him five million dollars of Moretti money so they can board a private jet to Zurich."

Leo blinked. "What five million?"

"The money Bianca took from the Lake Forest trust account at ten this morning," I said, a cold smile touching the corners of my mouth. "Except that wasn't Enzo’s money, Leo. Enzo’s accounts were frozen. Bianca took that cash from the Tatalia escrow fund that Paulie deposited into the Cicero union bank three days ago. She told the branch manager she was Paulie’s power of attorney."

Leo’s jaw locked. A dark, terrifying vein began to throb along his left temple. "She stole from *us*?"

"She stole from everyone, Leo," I said, picking up my teacup. "She’s a woman who thinks men are just ATMs with guns. And right now, Enzo is driving her to the Palmer House because she convinced him that Paulie is holding Luca hostage."

Leo pushed his chair back with a scrape that made the elderly ladies at the next table look over in alarm.

"Sal!" Leo barked toward the next table.

The younger brother stood up instantly.

"Where is Paulie?" Leo asked me, his eyes burning with an old-school mafia fury that made his knuckles turn white.

"Room 814," I said. "Take your men, Leo. Clean your family’s house. But leave Enzo to me."

Leo stared at me for three long seconds. Then he reached out, took my right hand, and pressed the knuckles to his lips in the ancient Sicilian gesture of absolute submission to an allied boss.

"Salvatore would have been proud of you today, Carmela," he whispered. "The Cicero corridor is yours. For ten years. No tribute."