THE MAFIA'S FORBIDDEN WIFE

CHAPTER FOUR

Luca POV

The message was still sitting on my phone the next morning.

You used my name.

My reply under it looked colder in daylight than it had felt when I sent it.

That was a mistake.

I had almost deleted the entire thread after that. Instead I left it there, like a reminder of how close I was already cutting things. By the time I parked underground at the Romano building just after eleven, I had read both lines more times than I should have.

Marco had texted earlier asking me to pick up a fresh set of route maps from his study before the afternoon meeting with the Vitales.

A simple errand. In and out. That was what I told myself while the elevator climbed to the penthouse.

The doors opened into the same quiet I remembered from the night before, when I had walked Isabella out of the restaurant and then spent the rest of the night failing to forget the way she had looked at me. Morning light filled the living room. Soft classical music played at a low volume.

Isabella sat on the large sofa near the windows, legs folded beneath her, a book open in her lap. She wasn’t reading it. Her eyes were on the city, distant in a way that made the expensive room around her look more like a glass box than a home.

She turned when she heard me.

For a second neither of us spoke. The last words we had exchanged by text still hung between us, unspoken but present. Her expression was carefully neutral, but there was a faint tiredness around her eyes that hadn’t been there in public the night before.

“Luca,” she said. My name sounded more careful now. “Marco isn’t here.”

“I know.” I kept my voice even. “He asked me to collect the updated maps. I’ll only be a minute.”

I walked toward the study, forcing myself not to slow down as I passed her. Even so, I caught the faint trace of her perfume and the way her fingers tightened once around the book. The folder was exactly where Marco had said it would be. I picked it up, checked the contents, and came back out.

She was still on the sofa, but she had closed the book. Her hands rested in her lap, posture perfect, the same practiced stillness she wore like armor in this house.

I should have gone straight to the elevator.

Instead I stopped a few feet away, the weight of the previous night’s messages pressing harder than the folder in my hand.

“You always sit here in the mornings?” I asked.

The question came out before I could stop it. Isabella looked up at me, surprise flickering briefly across her face.

“Most days,” she said. “Marco leaves early. The house is quiet.”

Quiet. That was one word for it.

I glanced around the room—the expensive furniture, the art chosen by someone who cared more about value than taste, the perfect view of a city she rarely seemed to touch. Everything in this penthouse was beautiful. Everything in it also felt arranged, like a display that changed only when the Don decided it should.

“You don’t go out much,” I said.

It wasn’t really a question.

Isabella’s mouth curved in a small, humorless smile. “Where would I go? Everything is arranged. Drivers. Security. Schedules. Even lunch with other wives is a performance.” She paused, then added more softly, “It’s easier to stay here.”

The way she said it landed harder than I expected.

I had spent years telling myself that the Don’s wife lived a privileged life. Protected. Provided for. Elevated above the ugliness the rest of us handled. Looking at her now, in the middle of all that careful luxury, I saw something else. A woman who had been given every object and stripped of every real choice.

She was lonely.

Not the dramatic kind of lonely that made noise. The quiet kind. The kind that sat inside polished rooms and learned how to smile through it.

I felt something twist low in my chest and immediately hated it.

“You shouldn’t say things like that to me,” I said.

“Why not?”

“Because I’m not the person you say them to.”

Isabella held my gaze. There was no flirtation in her expression, only a tired honesty that somehow felt more dangerous. “Then who is?”

I didn’t have an answer that wouldn’t make this worse.

The silence stretched. Outside, a siren rose and fell somewhere far below. Inside the penthouse, the air felt too still. I became aware of how close I was standing, of the fact that if anyone walked in right now the picture would already look wrong.

I stepped back.

“I need to go,” I said. “Marco’s waiting on these.”

Isabella nodded once. She didn’t ask me to stay. She didn’t reach for her phone. She simply watched me with those dark eyes that had started to feel like a problem I couldn’t solve by ignoring.

I turned and walked to the elevator. I forced myself not to look back until the doors were already closing. When I did, she had returned her attention to the window, the book forgotten beside her again. From behind, she looked almost peaceful.

I knew better now.

The drive to the meeting gave me too much time to think. I kept seeing the same image: Isabella Romano sitting alone in that perfect living room, surrounded by things that belonged to her husband, wearing the expression of a woman who had already accepted that this was the shape of her life. It bothered me more than it should have. It bothered me that I had noticed at all.

Men in my position did not get to notice the Don’s wife was unhappy. Men in my position especially did not get to care.

The Vitale meeting took place in a private room above one of their restaurants. Sal Vitale was already there, along with his son Nico and two of their men. Marco arrived a few minutes after me. The conversation stayed focused on routes, timing, and the growing problem of the Volkovs moving product through areas we had previously controlled. I contributed when required, passed over the maps, and kept my expression blank.

Nico Vitale watched everything with sharp, restless eyes. He had the kind of temper that made rooms feel smaller. I noted it the way I noted everything else and filed it away.

Throughout the meeting, my mind kept drifting back to the penthouse without permission.

When it finally ended, Marco pulled me aside near the exit.

“You were quiet today,” he said.

“Taking everything in.”

He studied me for a second longer than necessary, then nodded. “Stay close over the next few weeks. Things with the Volkovs are going to get louder. I need people I trust.”

“I’m here.”

Marco clapped me once on the shoulder and left with his driver. I waited until his car pulled away before heading to my own.

I told myself I would go straight home. I almost managed it.

Instead I found myself driving a longer route that passed near the Romano building. I didn’t stop. I didn’t even slow down more than the traffic required. But as I moved past the tower, I glanced up toward the top floors out of pure reflex.

I couldn’t see into the penthouse from the street. I knew that. It didn’t stop the thought of her sitting on that sofa again, staring out at a city she didn’t really live in.

My phone buzzed in the console.

I waited until the next red light before checking it.

A message from an unsaved number.

You saw it, didn’t you?

No name. No explanation. But I knew her voice even in text by now.

I stared at the screen while the light stayed red. Several replies formed and died in my head. The smartest one was to ignore it completely. The second smartest was to tell her to stop.

I did neither.

I typed back.

Saw what?

The reply came almost immediately.

How empty it is.

The light turned green. Someone behind me hit their horn. I didn’t move.

Another message followed before I could respond.

You’re the only one who looks long enough to notice.

I set the phone down, forced myself to drive, and made it three blocks before I pulled over into a side street and stopped the car. My hands were steady. My pulse was not. I picked the phone up again and read the last line twice.

You’re the only one who looks long enough to notice.

I should have deleted the entire thread. I should have blocked the number. I should have reminded myself—again—exactly what Marco Romano did to men who forgot their place.

Instead I typed one sentence and sent it before I could change my mind.

That’s what makes this dangerous.

I sat there afterward with the phone in my hand, staring at the word “Delivered,” and felt the same groundless shift I had felt the night she first texted me.

A black SUV turned into the street behind me and slowed.

I watched it in the side mirror. Tinted windows. No plates I recognized immediately. It rolled past at a careful speed, and for a second I thought I saw the shape of a man in the passenger seat looking toward my car.

Then it reached the end of the street and turned out of sight.

My phone lit up once more.

A new message from her.

Then why haven’t you stopped?

I looked at the empty street where the SUV had disappeared, then back at her words, and realized I no longer had a clean answer.

Not for her.

And not for myself.