The Don's Forsaken Wife

Chapter 2

I didn't remember getting home. But I must have, because the doorman looked at my face—torn clothes, bandages on my cheek—and didn't believe I was Claudia Rossetti. He called Vittorio.

When I heard his voice, I snatched the phone and hurled it against the wall.

I left with nothing. No purse. No phone. Just the clothes on my back.

I'd spent every dollar on a one-way ticket to Kotor. Half a million. Because someone told me Vittorio was trapped there, caught in a firefight. I didn't think. I just went.

My phone buzzed. It was my mother.

"I just heard you went to Kotor. Dear God. Are you both okay?"

I swallowed the lump in my throat. "We're fine, Ma."

"Thank God you're okay. Three months pregnant and you flew into a war zone? Have you lost your mind?"

I hung up. My hand drifted to my belly. Vittorio didn't know. He'd left for "business" the day I found out.

I went to that war zone thinking—if we die, we die together. The three of us.

Now the pain came in waves.

A pair of arms wrapped around me. The familiar smell of tobacco. Vittorio.

"Where have you been? What happened to you?"

His eyes were full of concern. As if he hadn't just ignored me in that elevator.

I forced a smile. "Fell down once. Then again when I tried to get up." Like this marriage. Every time I trusted him, I fell again.

"That must have been expensive to fly back on short notice."

He flinched. Then lifted me like I weighed nothing. "Worth it. My wife was waiting."

He knelt and started cleaning my wounds. His brows furrowed. "I'm sorry, Claudia. I shouldn't have left you alone."

His phone rang. He stepped away, answered, and came back with a guilty look. "I have to go out. Wait for me."

I said nothing. Watched him put on his coat. How many nights had I sat by the door, waiting? How many meals reheated?

Something inside me snapped.

I stood and pushed him. "Go. And don't come back."

He tried to kiss me. I turned my head.

He sighed. "I'll make it up to you tonight."

Then he was gone.

I collapsed onto the bed from exhaustion. But the nightmares came. Bombs. Fire. Screaming.

I woke up staring at our wedding photo on the wall. After the first affair, Mara had pressed her wet palms against that same photo, leaving four greasy prints. I smashed everything in the house. Vittorio got on his knees. Said our second wedding was a rebirth. Begged me to keep the picture.

Those vows echoed in my ears. I still didn't understand: why hurt me again?

Later that night, my phone buzzed. It was Enzo: "Are you okay?"

I didn't reply. But I remembered.

I grabbed my phone and searched for Mara's social media. She was an "influencer" now. Never showed her face. Just videos of her holding a man's hand.

I clicked through them all. That hand—long fingers, a thin scar on the pinky.

I knew that scar. Vittorio got it when we were eighteen. A thug tried to grab me. Vittorio stepped in and took a broken bottle to his hand.

"It's okay," he'd said, wincing. "Even if I'm scarred, you're stuck with me."

I found the contact number in Mara's profile. I called.

A cold voice answered. "Who is this?"