Chapter 1 - WHERE WERE YOU TAKING OUR LITTLE GIRL?
“You can clear the table, Emma. Vanessa will sit with the family.”
My mafia husband said it in front of twenty-three relatives—but his 83-year-old grandmother put down her fork and asked him a question he couldn't answer.
I was reaching for my husband's empty plate when his mistress touched my wrist.
“Leave that one, Emma. Luca hasn't finished.”
Vanessa Bellini wore a fitted red silk dress, her dark hair falling over one shoulder. She sat beside my husband at the head of our Chicago dining table, drinking from the crystal glasses I'd polished that afternoon.
I looked at Luca.
He was thirty-five, handsome, feared throughout Chicago, and powerful enough to make grown men lower their voices.
But apparently not brave enough to look his wife in the eye.
“Emma,” he said, “why don't you help Maria clear the dishes? Vanessa and I need to speak with the family.”
Twenty-three relatives heard him.
Not one objected.
I had been married to Luca Moretti for seven years.
Seven years of welcoming his relatives, arranging their celebrations, and waiting through the nights when his business kept him away.
I'd spent the previous winter caring for his grandmother after she fractured her hip.
Yet tonight, my husband was asking me to leave the table like hired help.
“I'm your wife,” I said quietly.
Vanessa smiled.
“Of course you are, sweetheart. Nobody's questioning that.”
Then she looked toward my husband.
“Luca, darling, weren't you going to tell everyone our wonderful news?”
My stomach tightened.
Luca's expression changed.
“Not yet.”
Vanessa lowered her glass.
“Oh. I thought tonight was the night.”
I stood there holding his plate.
“Tell us what?”
Luca rubbed his forehead.
“Emma, please. Put that down.”
But Vanessa wasn't finished.
“Some changes are difficult,” she said gently. “Especially when someone has become comfortable with a certain way of life.”
Several relatives looked away.
I understood exactly what she meant.
I was the comfortable wife.
The woman who stayed home.
The woman who knew everyone's allergies, birthdays, and favorite Sunday dinners.
Vanessa was the exciting one.
The woman who could stand beside Luca at charity galas without anyone whispering about her figure or her ordinary upbringing.
And now she was sitting in my place, explaining my marriage to me.
I set the plate down.
“Luca, are you leaving me?”
The question seemed to stop the entire room.
My husband opened his mouth.
Before he could answer, a fork struck the table.
“Enough.”
Nonna Francesca Moretti, eighty-three years old, sat at the opposite end, her silver hair pinned neatly above a black velvet collar.
She looked directly at Vanessa.
“Stand up.”
Vanessa blinked.
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me.”
Luca leaned forward.
“Grandmother, don't.”
Francesca turned toward him.
“Have you forgotten who taught you to be a man?”
He fell silent.
She rose slowly, steadying herself against the table.
“When I couldn't walk last winter, who helped me bathe?”
Nobody answered.
“Who stayed awake when the pain became unbearable?”
Her eyes found mine.
“Emma.”
My throat tightened.
“Who missed Christmas with her own mother because I was afraid to spend the night alone?”
Luca lowered his eyes.
Francesca looked at Vanessa.
“And you believe wearing an expensive dress gives you the right to dismiss that woman from her own dinner table?”
Vanessa's cheeks flushed.
“Luca invited me.”
“Yes,” Francesca said. “That is his shame. Not your excuse.”
Then she turned toward her grandson.
“Tell your wife how long you've been sleeping with this woman.”
Luca went motionless.
I couldn't breathe.
Vanessa stared at him.
“You promised you would tell her.”
The silence answered everything.
Francesca reached for my hand.
“My girl, you've spent seven years making room for everyone in this family. Tonight, somebody should make room for you.”
She guided me back to the table.
Vanessa stood abruptly.
“This is humiliating!”
Francesca didn't raise her voice.
“Then perhaps you'll remember how it feels.”
Luca finally spoke.
“Vanessa. Leave.”
But I couldn't feel grateful.
He had watched me serve dinner to his mistress.
He had allowed her to speak about replacing me.
And only when his grandmother intervened had he remembered his marriage.
Vanessa grabbed her purse.
At the doorway, she stopped.
“You think sending me away changes anything?”
Luca's face hardened.
“Don't.”
Vanessa looked straight at me.
“Emma, ask your husband why he told me to bring a suitcase for your daughter.”
My blood turned cold.
Our six-year-old daughter was asleep upstairs.
Francesca gripped the table.
“What suitcase?”
Luca stood so quickly his chair struck the floor.
“Vanessa, that's enough!”
But she kept looking at me.
“He said you wouldn't be coming with us.”
I turned toward my husband.
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“Luca… where were you planning to take our little girl without me?”
TITLE: THE BLACK ROSARY ON HER PILLOW
