STUCK WITH THE MAFIA BOSS.

Stabbed twice

(Days earlier)

I pulled the knife slowing from her protruding belly, and wiped the splashed blood from my face. No atom of remorse in me. I knew it was worth it.

One of those nerve-calming thoughts I usually had.

Sex, that was all I asked for.

Not love, not forgiveness, not even his heart just the simplest form of connection. But the moment the words left my lips, Adam's eyes burned with disgust. He spat on the floor, as if my request had dirtied the air between us. For a second, I thought he might hit me again. I managed to leave the room before he lifted another finger.

It took me two years two long, humiliating years to gather the courage to ask my own husband to make love to me. That's how broken I had become.

When I passed the maid in the hallway, she wore that sly smile again. The same smile she'd been flashing since the day I suspected what was going on between them. Mockery, quiet and cruel, dancing in her young eyes.

Her name was Emila.

The girl I had hired myself, two years ago, to take care of our son. My late only child.

My son's death tore something out of me something I don't think I'll ever get back. But it did more than that. It gave Adam an excuse to despise me. And it gave Emila a place in my home.

I still believe she had a hand in his death. I can't prove it, but every mother has a sixth sense about such things. Something about that night never sat right. The window left open despite the rain, the medicine misplaced, the silence before I found him. But Adam refused to even consider it. He called me insane for accusing "his"precious Emila.

Yes, his mistress.

It started off quietly. They thought I didn't notice the way they'd whisper in the kitchen, or how she'd linger when he came home late. Then it grew bold. They'd wait until I'd gone to bed before they'd make love in the guest room, the walls betraying me with every creak.

Soon, I got used to it the betrayal, the shame, the laughter through thin walls. Like background noise to a life I no longer owned.

About me? I was stuck.

Adam was my only surviving grace or so I thought. I married him for love, not money. But love became my biggest mistake.

My father left me a thriving company before he died, and Adam charming, brilliant promised to take care of everything while I healed. In my foolishness, I signed it all over to him. The house, the business, the accounts. I thought marriage meant partnership. It meant ownership but not mine.

Since then, I'd lived like a guest in my own home. Adam stopped me from working, from thinking, from living. He said it was for my own good. That grief had made me unstable. Maybe it had. But not enough to deserve this.

He couldn't stand me. The sound of my voice irritated him, my tears angered him, my silence disgusted him. I swear, if I ever told him I wanted to leave, he'd smile. If I vanished without a trace, he'd celebrate.

Still, I tried, Lord, I tried.

I cooked, I prayed, I begged. I wore perfume he once said he liked. I tried to become the woman he used to hold in his arms, before Emila arrived. But he was long gone, lost in her youth and the thrill of something forbidden.

I was thirty-two, and my life had become a ghost story. No child, no income, no love. Just emptiness in a mansion that used to be mine.

One evening, I sat by the window watching the rain fall on the driveway. The house was quiet, except for laughter echoing from the kitchen Adam's laughter. His laughter had become foreign to me. It no longer carried warmth, only contempt.

I heard her giggle that girlish, irritating giggle that used to make me smile when she first came to us. I closed my eyes, praying for peace, but the sound grew louder, closer. Then, as if fate wanted to mock me one last time, I heard her voice say it.

"I'm pregnant."

The words were small, barely above a whisper, but they struck me harder than any slap ever could.

I froze. My heart thudded painfully, and my breath caught in my throat. Pregnant.

I moved quietly toward the door, my hand trembling as I pushed it open just enough to see.

There she was standing in the center of my kitchen, hands over her stomach, tears of joy streaming down her cheeks. And Adam my husband lifted her off the ground, spinning her in delight.

They looked radiant. Like two lovers in a movie, bathed in golden light. My husband's hands rested on her waist, the same hands that once swore to protect me.

In that moment, something inside me died completely.

They were about to build a family in my house, with my husband, with the wealth my father left me. Everything that was mine now belonged to them.

I stumbled back from the door, pressing my hand to my mouth to keep myself from screaming. I wanted to destroy something. To shatter every glass, to set fire to the walls, to watch it all burn. But all I did was fall to the floor and cry. Quietly, so they wouldn't hear.

The next morning they both rushed out probably for a doctor's appointment. Adam's goodbye kiss when ever he was going to work had turned to an old story.

This was my chance, he usually left his private library opened the one he had ban me from going to.

I reached for the library I was right. Opened.

I walked in opened the drawer at least I could find some documents and also send enough money to myself before I fled.

Lo and behold! as I went through some files, I noticed some changes, Emilia had become the new owner of my own father's company, including all beneficiaries and account details in her name.