Page 82 of Brutal Husband

“Who said anything about your husband?”

The detectives’ eyes bore into me. The lady doth protest too much? Did I just put my foot in it by declaring that my husband is innocent?

I laugh nervously, my stomach rolling. I want to be sick again. “Sorry, I’m being defensive. Nero and Luca are twins, so sometimes my husband is blamed for things that Luca does. I’m very protective of my husband, and his brother is trouble.”

“We’re aware,” drawls one of the detectives. “Luca Lombardi has quite the criminal record. Human trafficking. Accessory to rape and child sex offences.”

My stomach turns, knowing I shared a house with a man like that. That I submitted to his body.

“If we could speak with your husband, we could rule him out as a suspect. It was in their shared office we found the missing girl’s hair clip.”

One of the detectives is smiling at me, and the other has narrowed, suspicious eyes. I feel like they’re playing a game of good cop, bad cop.

“I will tell Nero that you wish to speak with him as soon as I hear from him.”

The detectives depart, leaving me with even more distress and confusion. I’ve been wishing for Nero to come home, but if he does, will the police arrest him? I don’t know what to hope for anymore. My heart is in a tangle.

Worrying and feeling miserable is what landed me in trouble while Luca was emotionally torturing me. I don’t want to fall back into any disastrous habits, so to keep my mind occupied, I focus on the baby. I cook nutritious meals for myself and eat as much as I can stomach. I read books on pregnancy, childbirth, and infants. I decide on which room to use as a nursery and start to organize it. My heart aches for Nero every second of every day, but I have to keep moving forward.

I find myself missing Nero stalking me. Whenever I go out to the store or to get gas, I hope to feel his eyes on me, but I’m always alone. Devastatingly alone.

One afternoon, I take a long walk, as I’ve read that gentle exercise is good for expectant mothers, and I’ve been cooped up too long. I walk along a street with a florist, a café, a bookshop, and a newly opened baby and children’s store with a crib and pretty blankets and toys in the window. Everything looks sosweet and inviting that I stop to stare for a long time before going in.

Browsing among the items, I wish more than ever that Nero was here with me, but then I’m flooded with guilt when I remember that him coming home could put him in danger.

Instead, I fantasize that he’s waiting at home for me as I buy a baby blanket.

“My husband is going to love this,” I tell the clerk, and she smiles at me as she passes me my purchase.

Outside, I walk home as slowly as possible. I won’t wish for Nero’s return, but I can pretend he never left me between here and my front door. Just for a little while.

As I pass Annie’s house, she pulls into her driveway and gets out of her car. I greet her with a smile, but it fades away when I see the way she’s looking at me. There’s an expression in her eyes like she doesn’t like me, trust me, or want to see me. She knows about the hair clip and that it was found in my husband’s shared office.

Instead of saying anything to me, Annie looks at the shopping bag on my shoulder, emblazoned with the name of the boutique baby store.

“You’re pregnant?” Annie asks.

Why did I have to go into that baby store today? I nod, feeling like I’m rubbing salt into Annie’s raw wounds.

“Your husband home and a baby on the way. Things were so sad for you, but haven’t you landed on your feet?” Without giving me a chance to reply, she asks, “What was my daughter’s hair clip doing in your husband’s office?”

I wish the ground would open up beneath me and swallow me whole.

“I don’t know,” I whisper.

“Where’s Nero? I want to ask him myself.” Her angry eyes flash over my house.

“Nero’s…gone. I don’t know where he is.”

“How convenient,” Annie retorts. “And his brother, Luca? I didn’t even know he had a brother. You never mentioned him. The police are looking for both of them, but especially Luca.” Her voice rises in pitch and her knuckles are white as she clenches her fists. “Did you know Luca Lombardi is wanted in several states, and he has a list of outstanding warrants for crimes so vile that it made me sick to hear about them? Against women. Against children like my Harriet. Was he ever here?”

“Sometimes he was here,” I confess. I don’t know what else to say. I wish I could throw myself at Annie’s feet and explain everything, but it’s a tale too crazy to be believed, and I don’t have any proof that Nero had nothing to do with any of this. Luca needed to become Nero and marry me so he could have a clean slate without the police looking for him. He needed a new, respectable identity. Knowing that I was part of that respectability turns my stomach.

“So where’s your husband now?” Annie asks, two angry spots of color burning in her cheeks. “Run off to help his brother?”

Hearing Nero accused of protecting Luca is too painful. “I swear on my life that Nero would never…”

But Annie doesn’t want to hear it. She turns away and heads for her front door.

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