I Faked an Affair on My Mafia Husband ,Now He Won’t Let Me Go Chapter 04

I Faked an Affair on My Mafia Husband ,Now He Won’t Let Me Go Chapter 04

I shut the phone off.

Got my head straight.

Changes…

What changes does someone have when they’re cheating?

I started working out.

Every morning, forty minutes of strength, fifteen minutes of cardio.

Two days later, my housekeeper told me, apologetically, that the gym was broken.

I said fine—I’ll use whatever works.

She said everything was broken. The lock on the gym door too. Couldn’t open it.

So I rolled out a yoga mat in the living room.

Lorenzo had been working from home a lot lately, and of course, he was parked on the couch.

He stared at his laptop. “Why’d you suddenly start exercising?”

Gift-wrapped for me. I looked away. “I’m not thin enough.”

The fitness influencer on TV bent over, touched her toes, started stretching.

I followed along.

Lorenzo’s throat moved. His voice came out rough. “You’re thin enough.”

I was out of breath. “I want abs. That’s pretty.”

Lorenzo: “Who told you that?”

I hesitated. I should’ve just ripped the band-aid off right then.

This was what I’d been working toward.

But I caught myself—like I was actually having an affair and trying to hide it.

I told myself it was because the mood was too good. Too different.

Lorenzo and me—it was always rushed, always distant. Him working. Me enduring him working.

We’d never just sat together like this. Doing our own things, but still talking every now and then. Like an actual married couple.

I was still trying to figure out my own feelings when Lorenzo dropped it. Fast and soft.

“Forget it. Never mind.”

He just… let it go. The chance to find the truth, right there, and he waved it away.

And in that moment, I had this weird feeling.

Like we were both pretending not to see the fragile, paper-thin red thread tied around our wrists.

Then I went to the bedroom to change clothes—and saw the messages Lorenzo had sent.

While he’d been sitting there calm as a cat on the couch, at some point when my back was turned, his fingers had flown across his phone.

“You animal. I’m going to kill you.”

—

The TV broke too. All channels worked except the fitness ones.

My housekeeper gave me the bad news apologetically.

And at 8 a.m. sharp every day, they vacuumed the whole house. No more working out in the living room.

I took a deep breath.

Then I started baking.

My housekeeper asked what I was doing. I smiled sweetly. “It makes me happy, watching someone eat something I made with my own hands.”

Lorenzo stood at the top of the stairs, cold-faced, watching me move around the kitchen island.

The burnt cookies—I ate myself.

Gave two good ones to my curious housekeeper.

The rest I wrapped up in little paper bags with ribbons tied on them.

That’ll do it, I thought. Baking for him. Proof I’m serious about someone else.

I went to get dressed. “De Luca, I have a seminar to go to.”

Lorenzo was leaning against the island, staring blankly at the empty baking tray.

He looked up at me.

Is this it? Is this when he explodes? Asks for a divorce?

My heart was in my throat.

But he just raised an eyebrow and gave me this nasty, cocky little smirk.

“Sure. Go ahead.”

Then he left.

I walked over and looked.

The cookies I’d left on the table were gone.

Even the burnt ones I’d left for later. Gone.

Lorenzo!

I was going to share those with my professor and lab mates. He threw them all away?!

I was too exhausted to even be angry.

I texted furiously from the burner: “Your wife says you’ve been losing your temper at home a lot lately. She’s scared. She cries every night and says she misses me.”

“Why won’t you just get a divorce, man? What’s the point of dragging this out? Is winning really that important to you?”

“She doesn’t owe you anything. You two got married for money and power, not love. You already got what you wanted from her. So why won’t you let her go?”

Lorenzo: “She cried?”

I stared at the screen. Of all things… that’s what you latch onto? The point is divorce.

Lorenzo: “Do you live on Long Island too?”

Cold sweat.

How did he figure that out?

Before I could deny it: “I’m getting close to finding you, you filthy, disgusting mongrel.”

I shut the phone off, drenched in cold sweat.

My time’s running out.

I couldn’t just keep poking at him like this. I had to make a real move.

I pulled my self-drafted separation agreement out of my bag. My hands were shaking.

Then I put on the shortest skirt I owned, my highest heels, did my makeup, sprayed my perfume—and pushed the door open.

“I’m going out.”

Lorenzo just looked at me.

It felt like the first real, long look we’d had in days.

The living room lights caught his face, shadows pooling under his cheekbones.

He looked thinner. Red-rimmed eyes.

Burning the candle at both ends—alert, clear-eyed, pale, and beautiful all at once.

How long had he been sitting there?

“Where are you going?” he asked quietly.

“A friend’s house.”

“Which friend.” His eyes dragged down to my too-short skirt. His expression went dark.

“You don’t know them.”

He smiled. Smiled until his eyes crinkled. Then shook his head. “Tell me. Then I will.”

“De Luca, our marriage was a transaction. You promised when we got married—we wouldn’t interfere in each other’s personal lives—”