The Don's Second Chance Bride

CHAPTER TEN: "What He Does"

ADRIANO POV

"She's been confined for six days," Marco said. "The staff are uncomfortable."

"The staff will manage," I said, without looking up from the contract on my desk.

"Gatti made a comment to her in the hallway this morning," Marco added, his voice dropping.

I looked up. "What kind of comment?"

"The enjoying-himself kind. He asked her if the east wing felt like home yet, or if she missed the view from the conference room."

I looked at him for a moment, my jaw tightening. "Tell Gatti to keep his comments to himself. She is confined. She is not entertainment. If I hear he’s bothered her again, he’ll be the one confined."

Marco nodded, but he did not leave. He shifted his weight, looking at the closed door before turning back to me. "The men are talking, Adriano. They think you’re being soft by keeping her in the house instead of the cells. They think the evidence alone should have been her death warrant."

"Let them talk," I snapped. "I don’t take orders from the gossip in the barracks. Is there something else?"

"Elena arrives tonight," he said. "You asked me to arrange it last week."

"I remember."

"The east wing is close to the main guest suite," Marco noted. He paused, waiting for me to catch the implication. "Do you want me to put Elena in the west wing instead? It might avoid... complications."

I looked at the contract. "No. Put her where we planned. I won't rearrange my house because of a prisoner."

He left without another word. I sat at my desk and looked at the contract but didn't read it. I thought about the six days she had been trapped in the east wing with no phone, no notebook, and no access. The staff had decided what she was and were treating her that way.

I had done that.

I had looked at clean evidence and made a quick decision. I told myself it was the only choice I had. I had spent six days avoiding the truth because I wasn't ready to go there.

Elena arrived at nine. She walked in with the confidence of someone who knew this world well. She greeted me with a warmth that asked for nothing, which was why I had called her.

"You look tired," she said, leaning in to brush her lips against my cheek.

"I'm fine," I said, stepping back just enough to create space.

"You look tired," she said again, nicely, as she let me take her coat. "The city is buzzing with rumors, Adriano. People are saying the Castello estate has a leak. They're saying the Don's new wife is the one holding the bucket."

"People talk too much," I replied.

We had dinner in the dining room. Elena talked about the city, the families, and business. I listened and played my part, offering short, practiced answers. It was easy and simple.

I had missed easy.

After dinner, I walked her upstairs. The east wing hallway was visible from the landing. Serena's door was closed, a sliver of light showing at the bottom. I did not look at it. I had been avoiding looking at it for six days.

In the morning, I was in the hallway at seven when her door opened. She came out in her usual clothes, jacket on and hair up, looking as polished as the day she arrived. She stopped when she saw me.

We looked at each other, the silence between us heavy and jagged.

Then she looked at the floor.

She walked past me toward the kitchen with her eyes down and her pace steady. She did not look at me again. I stood there after she passed and felt something in my chest that I hadn't felt in few years. I didn't have a name for it.

Then Elena appeared at the guest suite door in her robe. "Come back to bed," she said, her voice sleepy and soft. "The sun isn't even fully up yet, and you're already brooding in the hall."

I turned around and went, because turning around was easier than thinking about a woman who had spent seven years looking directly at everything and had just looked at the floor.

She had never looked at the floor. Not once in seven years. Not in the Meridian building with twelve armed men, not in the conference room with Gatti watching, not even when I took her things.

She had looked at the floor this morning. I had done that.

I closed the bedroom door and sat on the edge of the bed. Elena put her hand on my shoulder. "You're a thousand miles away," she whispered. "What's bothering you? Is it the girl?"

"Nothing," I said. "Go back to sleep. I have work."

I went to my study and opened the contract. I read it three times and didn't understand a word. Somewhere in the east wing, behind a closed door, the woman I put there was doing something. I didn't know what, but I was sure of it.

The part of me that had been ignoring the truth since Marco put that file on my desk was starting to wonder if I had made the worst mistake of my life. Or if someone had planned for me to make it.

I picked up my phone and called Luca.

"The timestamp irregularity you mentioned," I said when he answered. "Bring me everything you have on it. Now."

A pause. "You're looking at it again. You said the evidence was clean. You said there was nothing left to discuss."

"I don't care what I said. Bring it to me tonight. All of it."

"Understood," Luca said, his voice sounding relieved.

I looked out the window. The grounds were quiet. The guards were moving. Somewhere in the east wing, something was happening that I hadn't planned for. The dangerous part was that I didn't know whether to stop it or stay out of the way.

I put the contract in the outgoing tray and looked at nothing for a long time. Then I said quietly to the empty room, "What did you do, Serena?"