The Mafia Don Fooled Me for 8 Years, I Became a Major’s Wife 8 Days Later Chapter 06

The Mafia Don Fooled Me for 8 Years, I Became a Major’s Wife 8 Days Later Chapter 06

He went still. Lily’s debit card?

Five hundred thousand dollars. Everything she had. She’d heard his family was in trouble, and without a word, she’d slipped her entire life savings into his pocket.

For the De Luca family, half a million was nothing. A rounding error.

But after his brother’s death, after his father’s stroke, everyone had turned on him. Threats, betrayals, vultures circling the family fortune. Even Aurora’s agreement to marry him had come with a price tag.

Lily was the only one who’d given without asking for anything back.

He watched her disappear down the road, and something clenched behind his ribs.

He moved toward her before his mind caught up. Then he looked at Aurora, and his feet stayed where they were.

He’d already humiliated Aurora once by going to see Lily on their wedding night. His friends were all there tonight. He couldn’t do it to her again.

[Zara, I bought a villa and put it in Lily’s name.]

[Take her there. Don’t let her go back to that apartment.]

The next two weeks buried him.

His father still hadn’t woken up. His uncles had already started circling, picking sides, making moves, tearing at the family from the inside.

—

The Bianchi alliance was the only thing keeping him standing.

The moment he had a free day, he drove straight to the villa.

He’d ignored her for two weeks. On the way, he stopped for her favorite butter cookies and a bouquet of roses.

He pushed open the door. The place was untouched. She had never even moved in.

Something cold settled in his stomach.

He called Lily. Every call went straight to a message saying the number was no longer in service.

He exhaled through his teeth. Of course. She was still punishing him.

He got back in the car and drove to the Old Wharf.

Standing outside the building where he’d spent five years with Lily, something tight wound through his chest.

It had started as a joke. Sophomore year, Lily had pitied him, the De Luca heir, because he couldn’t afford lunch. He’d thought it was funny. So he kept the act going.

But one lie needed a hundred more to hold it together.

When she’d followed him to Havenport after graduation, no questions, no hesitation, telling her the truth became impossible.

So he’d paid Zara five million to keep his secret.

He’d always believed love meant giving someone whatever cost you the most.

—

Rich people’s currency was time. Poor people’s was money.

So he’d given Lily every hour he could spare.

When his world had collapsed, his brother dead, his father unconscious, he’d found that debit card in his pocket. He still didn’t have words for what he’d felt.

Half a million wouldn’t save the De Luca empire.

But it meant everything.

Aurora had burned through Lily’s entire savings on a custom designer bag without a second thought.

The PIN was his birthday.

Once the card was empty, she’d slipped it back into his jacket like it was nothing.

Same pocket. Same card. Cleaned out.

Aurora must have known about the money. Which meant Zara had told her. Zara had sold Lily out, again, to climb one rung higher.

He’d deal with Zara later.

The elevator was out of service. He took the stairs.

Twenty-three flights. By the time he reached her floor, his shirt was soaked through.

Lily had one weakness: she could never resist him when he played helpless.

“Baby, I’m sorry. These last two weeks have been insane.”

—

“I brought your favorite butter cookies. Come on, open up.”

He leaned against the door, knocking softly, putting on his best remorseful-boyfriend act.

Nothing. No footsteps, no muffled voice telling him to go away. Just silence.

“Hey, your girlfriend moved out like two weeks ago. You didn’t know?”

A neighbor heading out had stopped in the hallway, giving him an odd look.

The air went out of him.

His hands shook as he fumbled the key into the lock.

The apartment was stripped clean. Nothing left but the bare bed frame.

Five years of her: every curtain she’d hung, every shelf she’d arranged, every small thing that had made this place theirs. Gone.

The box of cookies slipped from his hand and dropped to the floor.

He didn’t pick them up. He walked in like a man moving through water.

Five years came rushing back.

The day they’d moved in, he’d looked around the tiny room and wanted to complain. But Lily’s face had been lit up like it was Christmas morning.

“We have a home, Damon. Our own home in Havenport!”

—

She’d believed every word of the future they were building.

She’d taken over the rent without being asked so he could save for the wedding faster.

Five thousand a month was pocket change to him. For her, it was more than half her paycheck, earned through overtime shifts that kept her out until midnight.

She’d hunt for yellow clearance tags at the discount grocery store, then cram herself onto a packed subway for the morning commute.

She’d counted every dollar like it mattered because for her, it did. But the second he’d mentioned needing a nice shirt for work, she’d swiped her card without blinking. Over a thousand dollars, gone.

Her shoes. Three years old, the toes scuffed colorless. She’d filled them in with a black marker rather than spend the money on a new pair.

All the things he’d trained himself not to see were all he could see now.

She’d given him everything she had. And he’d lied to her for eight years.

The guilt hit him so hard he couldn’t breathe.