The Don’s Secret Wife Chapter 06

The Don’s Secret Wife Chapter 06

The name hit him like a freight train. Everything, sound, light, thought, just stopped.

The voices around him blurred, distant, like they were coming from underwater.

“Poor girl. Almost seven years with the guy and he never even put a ring on it. Just stringing her

along. Anyone with eyes could see it.”

“If he really loved her, why didn’t he marry her? Seven years? The man was hiding something from

the start.”

The other nurse frowned. “Wait, isn’t she the mistress? I thought the Mantle woman was the real

wife.”

“She’s not! The gossip sites are lying. She’s the victim in all of this!”

Joseph cut in before the nurse could finish, his voice raw and cracking. “She’s not. She was never

the mistress.”

Both nurses went white.

He didn’t explain. He was already running out the doors and across the lot, leaving Ruby on the operating table without a second thought.

He blew through every red light between there and Southside Hospital.

The area was cordoned off. On the pavement below, a dark stain, still wet, still glistening, and he

couldn’t look away.

He had the hospital’s security footage pulled.

On the screen, Ina was pinned to the floor, held down like an animal, while Ruby walked to the bed and ripped out the breathing tube. The air left Joseph’s lungs.

It was true. All of it.

He’d known. Somewhere, he’d always known Ina would never do what they accused her of.

And when it mattered most, he’d believed Ruby.

The footage kept rolling. After Ruby walked out, the enforcers came, swarming Ina, beating her

where she lay.

And then they took the shattered prosthetic and drove it into what was left of her leg.

His hands shook. His vision blurred red. He wanted to reach through the screen and kill every one of

them.

This was the woman he loved. He’d watched her play Carnegie Hall once, luminous, untouchable,

the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.

How dare they.

He watched until the end. Ina dragging herself to the window. Pulling her broken body onto the

ledge. Then letting go.

In the last frame before she fell, she was smiling. Relieved.

She chose death over one more second of breathing the same air as him.

Joseph shut his eyes. When they opened, the grief was gone. Something colder had taken its place.

Everyone who had touched her was going to answer for it.

By the time he got back to the hospital where Ruby was, they told him the baby was gone.

Joseph walked into the room. Ruby took one look at him and exploded.

“Where the hell were you? I lost our baby, Joseph! You weren’t even here. You were with her, weren’t you?”

This time, he didn’t play along.

He looked at her like she was something dead. “Careful, Ruby. Are you sure you weren’t talking

about yourself?”

Ruby went still. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“She killed our baby, Joseph! And you’re still taking her side?”

Ruby snatched the glass off the nightstand and hurled it at him. He sidestepped it without flinching,

“You know exactly what happened to the baby.” Joseph tossed a stack of photos onto the bed. “Clubbing until dawn while you were pregnant? Did you think I wouldn’t find out?”

The color left Ruby’s face. She saw the photos, her, different hotels, different men, and lifted her

chin. “So you know.”

“If I hadn’t found out, how long were you going to keep this up?”

“I don’t let things slide, Ruby. That driver you’ve been so obsessed with? He’s in a cartel mine in Colombia now.” Joseph stood over her, not bothering to sit.

Ruby jerked upright, gasping, white-knuckled through the pain tearing at her stitches, but her eyes never left his. “You had no right to touch him!”

“The day you started cheating, you signed off on this.” Joseph’s lip curled. “You played the devoted wife, and the whole time you were disrespecting me and my family’s name. You did this to him, Ruby. Not me. You.”

Ruby laughed, wild, unhinged, the sound bouncing off the hospital walls. “Oh, that’s rich. You want to play the victim now? You?”

“You want me to remind you what you did to Ina? You were a liar before I ever was!”