Mafia Don’s Little Silent Wife Chapter 08

Mafia Don’s Little Silent Wife Chapter 08

I endured it for three days.

During those three days, I acted completely normal.

I spoke when necessary and let her bring me tea, but I stopped muttering nonsense around her.

Bianca seemed to notice something.

There was a faint trace of testing in the way she looked at me, but she didn’t ask.

Of course, she wasn’t supposed to be able to talk.

On the fourth day, I waited until Vincent left and dismissed all the estate staff.

Only the two of us remained in the house.

In the living room, she sat on the couch folding a paper crane, her movements slow.

I walked over and stood across from her.

She looked up at me, her gaze calm and clear, exactly the same as the first day we met.

Without saying a word, I pulled out my phone and played a sharp, high-frequency whine—a piercing tone designed to cause physical discomfort.

The moment the sound cut through the air, Bianca’s pupils contracted.

It was incredibly fast.

Then she lowered her head and kept folding her paper.

But that split-second reaction was more than enough.

I turned off the phone, and the living room fell dead silent again.

She kept folding, and I kept watching.

“Bianca.”

She didn’t look up.

“I know you can hear me.”

Her hands froze.

The paper crane was only half-finished, its wings unexpanded, pinched tightly between her fingertips.

Silence stretched out, long and heavy.

Then she lifted her head.

For the first time, an emotion I had never seen before appeared in her eyes.

It wasn’t fear; it was a kind of honesty, almost like relief.

She opened her mouth, her voice soft and slightly raspy, likely because she hadn’t spoken normally for so long.

“When did you start suspecting?”

Her voice.

It was the first time I heard her speak to me in a full sentence.

No sign language, no mouthing words.

An actual voice.

Clear and crisp, like stepping on thin ice on a winter morning.

I stared at her for a few seconds.

“How long?” I asked.

She bit her lip.

“From the very beginning.”

“You could hear everything all along?”

She paused.

“Not every sound is crystal clear. I did have severe hearing loss as a child. I had surgery and speech therapy later, which helped me recover part of my hearing.”

“In quiet places, I can catch most conversations. If it’s too far or too noisy, I need to read lips.”

“Why did the Romano family keep claiming you were deaf?”

She let out a faint, dry laugh.

“Because it was convenient. A quiet, broken, compliant daughter is the least likely to cause trouble for them.”

The hum of the air conditioner in the living room suddenly sounded exceptionally loud.

I took a deep breath, slowly knelt in front of her, and brought myself to eye level.

“So for the past seven months, every word I said in front of you, you heard it all?”

She looked into my eyes. “Yes.”

“Every single line?”

“Yes.”

I felt the blood rush straight to my head.

It wasn’t anger; it was an indescribable, burning heat, like being stripped entirely bare.

Even my most embarrassing thoughts had been completely exposed to her.

I stood up, turned around, walked two steps, and stopped.

“Why?” I turned back to face her. “Why keep up the act?”

She lowered her head, her fingers crushing the half-folded paper crane out of shape.

“Because I was terrified.”

“Of what?”

“Of you,” she said.

“My sister fled the wedding, and the Romano family pushed me out as a shield. I didn’t know who you were or what would happen inside the Moretti estate.”

“A deaf woman has no threat and no value; she isn’t worth wasting effort to eliminate.”

“Playing deaf was the only way I could think of to keep myself safe.”

She paused.

“By the time I realized, it was too late. More and more secrets, more and more things you wouldn’t say to anyone else.”

“The more I heard, the more terrified I became of exposing the truth.”

She looked up, the rims of her eyes red, though no tears fell.

“Because I didn’t know what you would do once you found out.”

“I didn’t know if you would silence me permanently.”

That sentence pierced straight into my chest like a needle.

I opened my mouth, wanting to ask Do I look like that kind of monster?

But then I replayed it in my mind.

In her eyes, I absolutely was.

I was the acting Don of the Moretti family, a man who carried people out of private clubs sideways and didn’t blink when threatening to erase the Costa family from the district.

Why should she trust that I wouldn’t hurt her?

She hadn’t faked it for seven months to play me.

She was genuinely afraid I would kill her.

I sank onto the couch opposite her, the coffee table separating us.

A long silence filled the room.

“So every time I muttered that nonsense, you were cursing me out in your mind.”

She kept quiet.

“And those signs you made, the ones you claimed meant ‘amazing’—they actually meant…”

“You arrogant idiot,” she said, her voice barely a whisper.

I froze for a second.

Then, something erupted from my chest.

I couldn’t tell if it was frustration or something else entirely, but a laugh broke out.

I laughed over and even louder, unable to stop.

“Good for you. Calling me an idiot for seven months straight.”

She shrank her shoulders slightly.

But the corners of her mouth—I saw it clearly—were twitching, unable to hide her smile.