30 Days Before Divorce: Mafia Don’s Regret Can’t Win Me Back Chapter 03

30 Days Before Divorce: Mafia Don’s Regret Can’t Win Me Back Chapter 03

Day five. Andrea came back.

He stood in the doorway of the master bedroom, staring at the open suitcases on the floor. He didn’t step inside.

“You’re really moving out?”

“Yes.”

“Where are you going?”

“Staying with a friend.”

He leaned against the doorframe, like he was waiting for something.

I kept packing. I put the half-read book from the nightstand into the suitcase.

Then, out of nowhere, he tested the waters. “Chiara, do you feel like I treated you unfairly?”

I slowly straightened and looked at him. “Andrea, you’re the one who asked for the divorce.”

He had nothing to say to that.

After a long silence, he started, “My mother said some things recently…”

“What Madre Bruno said doesn’t matter.” I zipped the suitcase shut. “In the Camorra family, the one who makes the decisions is you.”

He opened his mouth. But nothing came out.

He turned and walked away.

The door closed softly behind him. So softly, as if he were afraid of shattering what little remained of our marriage.

Day seven.

I called a moving truck to the estate gate. Two suitcases and a bag of books didn’t even fill the trunk.

The driver loaded everything, then looked back at me.

“Ma’am, you’re moving alone? You don’t need someone else to help?”

“No. This is all of it.”

As the car pulled away, I glanced one last time in the rearview mirror.

The light in the estate’s study was off.

He hadn’t come home again.

Elena picked me up and drove me to the new apartment.

Two bedrooms, one bath. About seven hundred square feet. In the quiet, peaceful western side of Vomero.

She’d found it three months ago. Fully furnished.

“The landlord is this sweet old lady. When she heard you’d be living alone, she threw in a microwave.”

Elena talked as she dragged my suitcases inside, then stopped after a few steps to check on me.

“How are you feeling? Tired? Want to lie down?” Her eyes dropped to my belly.

Once I took off my coat, even the loose sweater couldn’t hide the swell anymore.

“I’m fine.” I lowered myself slowly onto the couch, one hand bracing my aching lower back.

Thirty-two weeks. My body felt heavier by the day. A few steps and I was already short of breath.

Elena pulled a stack of documents from her bag and set them on the coffee table.

“Business license, bank account, tax registration. All done.”

She flipped open one of the folders and pointed at the page.

“AURA Consulting Group. Legal representative: Chiara Russo. Registered capital: five hundred thousand.”

Five hundred thousand.

Every cent I’d saved over the past three years. Andrea had no idea this money existed.

He assumed the Donna of the Camorra family would naturally burn through whatever assets and resources the family provided on daily expenses.

But for three years, I’d been depositing eight thousand dollars every month into an account he didn’t know about.

Eight thousand times thirty-six months. Two hundred eighty-eight thousand. Add in the consulting work I’d taken on the side, and it came to exactly five hundred thousand.

I did all of that work at night.

After Andrea fell asleep, I’d go downstairs to the dining room, open my laptop, and analyze accounts for other families, revise partnership drafts, calculate shipping route profits.

One night, he came out for water and saw the dining room light on.

“Still up?”

I’d suppressed my panic. “Couldn’t sleep. Watching a show.”

He nodded and went back to the study.

He didn’t even walk close enough to see my screen.

Elena sat down beside me on the couch and rested her head on my shoulder. “Chiara, you’re finally free.”

I didn’t answer.

Outside the window, the lights of Vomero stretched into the distance. Not as dazzling as Caserta, but quiet.

The baby turned over inside me.

I thought, this might be the first night in three years I don’t have to pretend to be happy.