The Don Picked His Mistress，I Picked ChicagoChapter 2

They freeze.

Sasha's lipstick is smeared. Luca's shirt is open. Fake money sticks to his sleeve.

When Luca sees me, the heat in his eyes vanishes.

He grabs a throw blanket and wraps it around Sasha first.

Then he moves in front of her like I am the danger.

I stare at him.

My throat feels torn open.

"You don't have anything to say to me?"

His eyes drop to the blood at the corner of my mouth.

His brows tighten.

For one second, he looks like my husband again.

Then he reaches into his suit pocket like he has done a hundred times before and takes out my ulcer meds.

He shakes two pills into his palm and holds them to my lips.

"Your stomach's bad. Why the hell are you still drinking like that? Are you trying to die?"

He is close.

Too close.

His cologne mixes with the smell of sex and whiskey.

My stomach rolls.

I shove him away and scream, "Answer me!"

The room goes quiet.

After a long moment, Luca sighs.

"Wren, we got through three months already. Why blow it up now?"

He sounds tired. Almost annoyed.

"Just act like you don't know. It's better for everyone."

He lifts the pills again.

"Take your medicine. Be good."

I look at him and laugh until tears slide down my face.

He knows my stomach is ruined.

He keeps pills for me in his pocket.

But never once does he stop the game that is killing me.

Sasha steps forward with red eyes.

"Wren, please don't be mad at Luca."

Her voice shakes like she is the victim here.

"It's my fault. I'll give everything back. All of it."

She grabs a stack of deeds and transfer papers from the table.

Her hands tremble.

The papers spill across the floor.

One lands at my feet.

The address stares up at me.

17 Bellhaven Lane.

My blood turns to ice.

That is the house I sold three months ago.

The house my mother left me.

Every window, every wall, every little detail was hers.

The day I sell it, I sit alone in the empty living room until dark before I can sign my name.

Luca holds me afterward.

"As long as we're together, anywhere can be home," he says.

Then he swears, "I'll buy it back for you. Exactly the way it was."

He did buy it back.

Not for me.

He bought it back as Sasha's prize.

I don't remember leaving the club.

One second, I am standing over the papers.

The next, I am running through the rain toward Bellhaven Lane.

I shove open the front door with shaking hands.

For one wild second, I think everything is fine.

The marble floor is the same.

The staircase is the same.

The soft gray walls my mother loved are still there.

Then I see the living room.

Our wedding photo is gone.

In its place are framed pictures of Luca and Sasha as kids.

Luca at twelve, scowling in a leather jacket.

Sasha at ten, smiling with missing teeth.

Luca at eighteen, arm around her shoulders.

Sasha at twenty, pressed against his side.

Pink slippers sit by the door.

Two cartoon couple mugs sit by the bathroom sink.

My mother's plants are gone from the sunroom.

In their place are red roses.

Rows and rows of them.

Sasha's favorite.

The house has not changed.

Only every trace of me has been erased.

"Wren, are you done losing your mind?"

Luca storms in behind me and grabs my wrist.

"She won the house. You don't get to come here and throw a fit."

I look at him as if from very far away.

"This is our home."

His face hardens.

"It's one damn house. I own half the city. Are you worried you'll have nowhere to sleep?"

Behind him, Sasha starts crying again.

"If she hates me being here, I'll leave."

She turns like she means it.

Then she bumps into the nursery door.

It swings open.

I see the framed ultrasound on the shelf.

For a second, my ears ring.

Then something inside me snaps.

"Luca Delgado," I say, each word sharp as glass. "Did you forget how our baby died?"

I point at the room.

"You let another woman's baby sleep in his nursery?"

Three months ago, Vance Holdings gets hit for the first time.

To save a project, I go begging.

Men push whiskey into my hand until I stop feeling my face.

When I wake up, our baby is gone.

That night, Luca holds me and cries until morning.

He says he is sorry.

He says he should have protected me.

Now I know.

My child and I were both pieces in his love game with Sasha.

Guilt flickers in his eyes.

He opens his mouth.

Before he can speak, Sasha grabs a fruit knife from the side table.

"Luca, if this baby is ruining you and Wren, I won't have it."

Then she drives the tip into her lower belly.

Blood spreads across her dress.

Luca's face goes white.

He catches her before she falls.

When he turns back to me, his eyes are full of hate.

"Wren, happy now?"

My chest goes still.

"If anything happens to Sasha or the baby, I swear to God, I'll make you pay."

Then he lifts Sasha and runs for the door.

I watch him leave.

No tears come.

No screams.

Only a strange, dead calm.

"Luca," I say.

He stops but does not turn.

"I want a divorce."

He gives a cold laugh.

"Don't threaten me with divorce. I don't fall for that crap."

The door slams behind him.

I sink to the floor.

The nursery is open beside me.

The house is full of another woman's roses.

I take off my wedding ring and hold it in my palm until the diamond bites my skin.

Then I whisper to the empty room, "This time, I truly don't want you anymore."