Page 111 of Runaway in the Mafia
There was a newfound mellowness in my heart. I’d experienced her first drunken mood. It made me want to be there for her first hangover, too.
Fuck.She’d made me into a pussy.
The maid in the kitchen scattered to the back of the house when she saw me. I followed the sound of her voice coming from the bedroom. I guessed she was too hungover to work from my office, where I’d set a cute desk for her right next to mine.Pussy.
My footsteps were soft on the spun wool runner lining the length of the hall. It softened the beat of my own heart whendread trickled in and brought my footsteps to a slow halt. Her nervous voice spilled through the cracked doorway. I stood veiled in the shadow of it. She was speaking to her family. I didn’t know how I knew it, but I did. She’d never spoken to them in my presence, and that alone made this extraordinary. Add in that her voice was strained and soft... well, bingo. I had a feeling the secret was going to be out. Hopefully, the final one.
She was on my side of the bed, back turned to me, shoulders hunched. A hand rubbing her forehead.
“He’s not home, Maa. Can you just ask Papa to call me?”
Told you. Family. My hand fell on the doorknob.
So she’s told them about me. At least that’s something.
A beat. Two beats. She shook her head. “I don’t know. Rajesh wants to ask something about business.”
My world stilled. My heart skidded to a stop. I lost my beat. Entirely.Should I even give a fuck?
No.I shook my head. I must have heard it wrong.
She was speaking again, but now it was in Hindi. I’d been learning the language. Something else I’d wanted to surprise her with. But I wasn’t advanced enough to grasp it unless she told her mother she looked gorgeous spread out on the dining table.
“No.” She shook her head again. No wonder she gets fucking headaches. “He’s really busy.”
Who? Me? Or the guy rotting six feet under?
“How is Papa? Can you give the phone to him, please?”
Whatever her mother told her, she didn’t like because she almost curled into herself. “I know. I will ask Rajesh.”
What the fuck was going on? If I hadn’t chainsawed the fucker limb by limb myself, I’d begin to think he was actually fucking alive. Agitation coiled inside me. I tapped my foot on the floor to ground it. Her shoulders stiffened, and she whipped around, the phone tightly clasped in her hand. Her eyes widened when I pushed the door open, and if the crazy one-sided conversation didn’t tell me something, her caught-in-the-headlights look definitely did.My wife is fucking lying to me.
“I’ve got to go, Maa.” She swallowed tightly. “Someone’s at the door.”
Ding. Dong. It’s your fucking husband.
“I’ll call back.” She stabbed the phone with her finger and threw it across the bed as if she wanted to get rid of the evidence.
I was so angry everything slowed down. My feet dragged like I was walking through fucking concrete. My hand was heavy, leaden with steel as it dropped to the bed, crawled across sheets where I’d fucked her the night before, and picked up her phone, guilty of her secrets. My heart thudded. Slow. Heavy. While my fingers calmly scrolled through her called numbers.
“Don’t,” she whispered.
I dragged my gaze up, and her eyes pleaded with me. “Don’t call them.”
“How long?” I didn’t recognise my voice. It thundered across the room. Roared with disbelief.
She didn’t give me an answer. It made my rage skyrocket like a high striker. “How long before you accept me as your husband and not the fucking limp dick who used to smack you around?”
“I…” Her shoulders slumped. She took a step towards me.
“Don’t.” I took a step back.
She jerked to a stop at the foot of the bed, stricken, a cracked sheet on her face. I was erupting with fury. Volatile. Unhinged.
“It’s not like that,” she said softly.
“What is it like then?”
