The Don’s Secret Wife Chapter 04

The Don’s Secret Wife Chapter 04

My head was pounding, vision tunneling. I half-crawled, half-dragged myself back to my dad’s room.

He was still intubated. On the TV mounted above his bed, I was on my knees, begging.

The footage had made the evening news. Every anchor, every comment section called me shameless.

My chest seized. I yanked the plug from the TV.

The door clicked shut behind me. I turned. It was Ruby.

Every trace of the sweet, helpless wife was gone. “You think kneeling makes us even? You went after my husband, you stupid bitch.”

“Your whole family’s rotten. Every last one of you deserves what’s coming.”

Ruby smiled, slow and deliberate, and before I could scream, she reached over and ripped the breathing tube from my father’s throat.

“No!”

I lunged at her, but her bodyguards pinned me down before I could even reach the bed.

My father’s head rolled to the side. His thin body went still.

He died.

Mom saw everything. She threw herself at Ruby, screaming, but Ruby shoved her back hard.

The back of her skull cracked against the sharp edge of the wall. She dropped, and the blood came fast.

“Mom!”

The sound that tore out of me didn’t sound human. I clawed across the floor toward her, what was left of my leg painting a streak of blood behind me.

Ruby walked out without looking back. I cradled my mother’s head in my lap and screamed until nothing came out.

I screamed for help. Not a single nurse, not a single doctor. Joseph’s men had blocked them all.

There was nothing left to lose. I pulled out my phone, that battered old brick, and called a major news tip line. My voice was barely a rasp.

“I’ve been with Joseph for seven years. His wife is the other woman, not me.”

The call was intercepted immediately. Joseph stormed in minutes later. “The media in this city answers to me. Have you lost your mind? Pull that story right now, or I’ll have your father’s body dumped on the curb!”

I couldn’t feel my own face anymore. “Ruby killed him. My dad is dead.”

Joseph’s eyes drifted toward the bed, toward my father’s body. For a second, something uncertain crossed his face.

Ruby’s voice came from behind him, small and trembling. “Baby, I’m pregnant. You really think I could hurt someone? I just came to check on her, and she started making up these horrible lies about me!”

He didn’t even step fully into the room to check. He’d already made up his mind.

That cold, empty laugh again. “You really dragged your own parents into this stunt to fake a tragedy, just to manipulate me? You’re going to wish you hadn’t, Ina.”

The second they were gone, his enforcers stepped in. They grabbed me by the hair and slammed me into the floor.

“A one-legged cripple thinks she can take on a Mantle? That’s cute.”

“Let’s see how much fight you’ve got when there’s nothing left to break.”

They snapped the prosthetic clean off and drove the jagged end into what was left of my leg.

Pain swallowed everything. They didn’t stop until they’d gotten bored.

By then, Joseph’s statement was running on every channel.

[I have never met Miss Carter. An investigation has revealed she suffered severe psychological trauma in her youth, and her claims are the product of delusion.]

The photos they released showed me with torn clothes and bruises covering my body.

Every one of those marks came from the night his enemies got their hands on me because I wouldn’t give him up. He’d knelt beside my hospital bed and sworn he’d take care of me forever.

Now he was using them to prove I was crazy.

I pulled myself to the window and forced the latch open. It took everything I had to drag my body onto the ledge.

Wind roared past me. My phone lit up. Joseph.

[It’s just to get the press off our backs. Don’t hold it against me.]

[I ordered you the best prosthetic from Switzerland. It’s at the villa on Long Island. Bring your parents. You’ll be comfortable there.]

I didn’t reply.

I closed my eyes and let go.

Joseph, if I could do it all again, I’d walk past you and never look back.

Joseph was buckling Ruby’s seatbelt when something caught his eye, a figure, broken and small, falling from the hospital’s upper floors.

Screams erupted from the sidewalk.

“That woman, she jumped! Oh my God, look at the blood—was she pregnant?! Someone call 911!”