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

The elevator in the Palmer House groaned as it rose toward the eighth floor.

Enzo stood in the back corner of the brass cage, his hands buried deep in the pockets of his black cashmere overcoat. Beside him, Bianca was clutching a crocodile-skin vanity case against her chest, her knuckles white, her breath coming in ragged, shallow gasps.

"Enzo, please," she whimpered for the twentieth time since they had left Lake Forest. "Paulie said if we don't bring the cash alone, he’ll kill Luca. He’s crazy, Enzo! You know how the Tatalias are! He’s always hated you because I loved you first!"

Enzo turned his head and looked at her.

She looked so fragile. So helpless. Her big brown eyes were brimmed with tears, the perfect image of a desperate mother fighting for her child. For five years, every time she looked at him like this, Enzo had opened his wallet, his home, and his life. He had treated her son like his own blood, buying the boy ponies, private tutors, and miniature sports cars, while his own wife sat alone in medical clinics having hormones pumped into her veins.

"Luca isn't at the hotel, Bianca," Enzo said, his voice flat, devoid of all inflection.

Bianca’s eyes darted sideways. "What? Of course he is! Paulie’s men grabbed him from the schoolyard—"

"Luca is at the convent of Saint Jude in Evanston," Enzo continued, as the elevator chimed for the sixth floor. "I had Dante drop him off with the sisters an hour ago. He’s eating macaroni and cheese and watching cartoons."

Bianca froze. The color didn't just leave her face; it seemed to peel away like old wallpaper, leaving her skin a sick, chalky gray.

"You... you took my baby?" she gasped, backing against the mirrored wall of the elevator. "Enzo, what did you do?"

"I had a DNA swab taken from the inside of his cheek while he was sleeping in the car," Enzo said. The elevator chimed for the seventh floor. "The lab at Northwestern ran an expedited match against my sample from the registry. Zero percent genetic compatibility, Bianca. Zero."

"Enzo, listen to me—"

"You told me he was mine." Enzo took one step forward, cornering her against the polished brass railing. His eyes were completely hollow, like two open graves in winter. "You let me hold him in the delivery room in Milwaukee. You let me put my name on the baptismal certificate. You let me look at Carmela—my wife, the woman who gave me everything—and tell her she was barren, while you laughed with Paulie Tatalia in motel rooms on the North Side."

"It wasn't like that!" she shrieked, clawing at his chest. "Paulie threatened me! He said he’d kill us both if I didn't get your money! Enzo, I did it for us! I loved you!"

"You didn't love me," Enzo whispered, his hand reaching out, his long fingers gently touching her jawline, trailing down to the gold necklace he had bought her for her birthday. "You loved my credit lines. And now, you're going to pay for them."

The elevator doors chimed and slid open onto the eighth floor.

Enzo didn't draw his gun. He grabbed Bianca by the wrist, dragging her down the carpeted hallway toward Room 814. She kicked and screamed, her heels skidding across the floral runner, but Enzo had the strength of a dead man walking. He didn't care who heard. He didn't care who saw.

He reached Room 814, raised his heavy boot, and kicked the lock right out of the doorframe.

The door flew inward with an explosive crash.

Inside the suite, Paulie Tatalia was standing beside an open leather suitcase on the bed, holding a half-empty bottle of bourbon. When the door splintered, Paulie scrambled for the chrome-plated automatic resting on the nightstand, but he was too slow.

Enzo was across the room like a predatory cat, his Beretta clearing leather in a single fluid motion. He slammed the barrel across Paulie’s nose, shattering cartilage, sending the younger man crashing over the coffee table in a spray of blood and broken glass.

"Enzo!" Paulie gurgled, rolling onto his back, clutching his smashed face. "Wait! Don't shoot! It was her idea! The broad set it up!"

Enzo stood over him, the gun pointed squarely between Paulie’s eyes.

Behind them, Bianca scrambled toward the door, trying to run back toward the hallway, but she stopped dead in her tracks.

Standing in the shattered doorway was Leo Tatalia, flanked by four men in dark trench coats with suppressed machine pistols held at the low ready.

"Afternoon, Paulie," Leo said, his gravelly voice filling the wrecked room.

Paulie’s eyes widened with an absolute, hysterical terror that made him wet his trousers. "Uncle Leo... Uncle Leo, please! I was gonna bring the money to the club! I swear to God, Uncle Leo!"

"Shut up, you miserable dog," Leo spat, walking into the room without looking at Enzo. He turned his eyes toward Bianca, who had collapsed onto her knees near the hallway entrance, sobbing uncontrollably. "Pack the girl’s bag, Sal. We have a farm outside Kankakee where people who steal from the family can spend their retirement."

"Leo," Enzo said, his gun still trained on Paulie’s forehead. "This one is mine."

Leo stopped, turning his head to look at Enzo Moretti. There was no hatred in Leo’s eyes; there was only the cold, hard pity of an old wolf looking at a young wolf whose pack had abandoned him.

"He isn't yours, Enzo," Leo said quietly. "Carmela bought him from me an hour ago at the Drake."

Enzo’s arm dropped an inch. His brow furrowed in utter bewilderment. "Carmela?"

"She traded the Port of Indiana docks for this room," Leo explained, gesturing toward the bloodied nephew on the floor. "She said Paulie was hers to deal with. But she gave him to me as a gift. To settle the insult against the Romano name."

"Where is she?" Enzo demanded, his voice cracking, the gun trembling in his fingers. "Where is my wife?"

"She’s at the docks, Enzo," Leo said, turning his back on him and nodding to his enforcers, who grabbed Paulie by his hair and dragged him toward the service elevator. "She’s watching the Romano flags go back up over the freight terminals. But if I were you, I wouldn't go down there."

"Why?" Enzo breathed.