Goodbye, Mr. Marchetti Chapter 08

Goodbye, Mr. Marchetti Chapter 08

She pushed a bank card into my hands. Five hundred thousand dollars.

“You’re not divorced,” she said, “but everyone knows I’m his woman. His real woman.”

“I let your brother walk free. That was me being generous.”

“You can keep the paperwork. But take the money and disappear.”

“You lost, Serena. That’s just the way it is.”

Her chin was high.

But her voice was shaking.

“If you’re looking for Vittorio,” I said, “you should call him.”

Something cracked open in her face.

“Don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing,” she snapped. “You want him back. He’s never coming back to

you. Never.”

He’s mine. He always will be.

And right then, I understood.

Vittorio’s “it’s over” had been one-sided.

Sienna didn’t want it to be over. That’s why she was here.

I looked at her, this woman trembling with anger, and felt something close to pity.

She was the one he’d left me for.

Now he was leaving her too.

The cycle never stopped.

But I had already stepped off the ride.

“I don’t care what happens between the two of you,” I said, and closed the door.

She pushed it back open.

“Don’t act so high and mighty,” she hissed. “You think he actually wants you back? He’s bored. He’ll get

tired of you again. Just like before.”

Her words were poison.

But I’d been poisoned before. I’d built up a tolerance.

“Are you done?” I asked.

She wasn’t.

“You’re nothing,” she said. “He left you for me. He left your child for me.’

My child.

That still hurt. It would always hurt.

But the only thing I felt for that baby now was relief.

He never had to see how his father ended up.

Sienna saw she wasn’t getting through to me. Her expression shifted.

“You want to know what he said?” she asked. “When you were lying in that hospital bed like a wounded

animal?”

He said you disgusted him. He said you were crazy.

A chill passed through my chest, but it didn’t go deep.

The scar tissue was already there.

I looked past her.

Vittorio was coming up the driveway.

Sienna turned, and whatever was left of her composure collapsed. She grabbed his arm.

“Vittorio,” she said. “You came for me. Let’s go home.”

He pulled his arm free.

“I thought I made myself clear the other night,” he said. “Very clear.”

“Don’t be foolish, Sienna. You know what happens to foolish people.”

She stared at him like she was seeing him for the first time.

“Vittorio,” she whispered. “After everything. After all I’ve done for you.”

He smiled, but there was nothing warm in it.

“Don’t push me,” he said. “I’ve been patient long enough. Don’t make me regret it.”

Sienna looked at him, then at me, then at him again.