The Wife Who Stopped Playing Chapter 07

The Wife Who Stopped Playing Chapter 07

The next morning, I went out and bought him the newest phone on the market.

Top of the line. All the bells and whistles. The sales guy at the Apple Store tried to upsell me on a case and a screen protector and an extended warranty, and I just handed him my black card and said

“put it all on there.”

I had a message engraved on the back: *To my husband, with love.*

I knew it was stupid. I knew I was being petty. But I wanted him to look at that phone every day and

remember who gave it to him. I wanted him to feel guilty every time he typed out a message that

wasn’t for me.

I drove to the family compound to drop it off in person.

The compound was in New Jersey, about forty minutes from the city, behind gates that would’ve

made Fort Knox jealous. Stone walls. Iron scrollwork. A long driveway lined with sycamore trees that were dropping their leaves all over the pavement. The main house was old – not fancy-old like my father’s place, but old-old, like it had been in the family for generations, like the walls had stories they weren’t telling.

The staff knew me. They always knew me. I was “Mrs. Colobo,” and I got the same respectful nods and murmured greetings as Vito himself.

He was still in a meeting when I arrived. The conference room doors were closed, with two of his guys standing outside. They exchanged a glance when they saw me. One of them spoke quietly into

his sleeve.

I decided to kill time in the ladies’ room down the hall.

Big mistake.

The bathroom was all marble and gold fixtures, the kind of place you could host a cocktail party if you didn’t care about the toilets. I was fixing my lipstick in the mirror when two of the administrative assistants came in, chattering without looking.

“Weird. Usually when she shows up, Vito clears his whole schedule. Today he just… left her

waiting.”

“Four years in. Maybe he’s finally getting bored.”

“You think?”

“Why not? You’ve seen how she talks to him. Bosses him around like he’s the help. Eventually, a

man’s gonna snap.”

A pause. The sound of a compact snapping shut.

“I heard from Luca’s assistant that he’s been on the phone with some woman a lot lately. Late

nights. Private calls.”

“For real?”

“Swear to God. Donna in accounting saw the phone records. Same number, over and over.”

My hand froze on the lipstick tube.

I waited until their voices faded down the hallway. Then I walked out of the stall, washed my hands

slowly, and looked at myself in the mirror.

She looked the same as she always did. Elena Colobo. Thirty years old. Flawless makeup. Expensive

clothes. The wife of a don.

But her eyes were different. There was something cold in them now. Something that hadn’t been there yesterday.

I dried my hands. Threw the paper towel in the trash. Walked out.

Vito was coming out of the conference room, his tie loosened, his sleeves rolled up. A group of men in dark suits filed out behind him, all of them giving me a wide berth.

“Babe!” His face lit up when he saw me – the way it always did, like I was the best part of his day. “You should’ve told me you were coming. I would’ve wrapped up earlier.”

Two of the women from the bathroom froze behind him. They saw me see them. They went pale,

then pink, then scurried off down the hall with their heads down.

“I was in the neighborhood.” I handed him the bag. “Here.”

He opened it. His whole face changed – softened, brightened, like a kid on Christmas morning.

“You got it for me? The new one? Babe. BABE. Thank you.”

He kissed me on the mouth in front of all his men. They looked away.

He dragged me back to his office, already tearing open the box, already powering up the screen.

“Look at this thing. It’s beautiful. It’s so fast.” He started taking pictures of the box – the box, not

even the phone yet – and typing furiously.

Probably already spamming it to his group chat. Probably already gloating.

A knock at the door. One of his guys wheeled in a big L-brand box on a dolly. “Boss. This just came. Same-day delivery.”

Vito’s smile flatlined.

“Uh. That’s not mine. Wrong address. Send it back.”

“Want me to return to sender?”

“No, just put it in storage. I’ll call them. I’ll figure it out.”

The guy gave him a strange look but obeyed.

As soon as the door clicked shut: “Probably my mom. She’s always sending stuff here by mistake.

You know how she is.”

His phone rang.

He paled.

Rejected the call.

It rang again immediately.

He couldn’t dodge twice. He answered and scurried to the window, turning his back to me, murmuring “uh-huh” and “okay” in this clipped, uncomfortable voice.

But I heard it.

A woman’s voice on the other end. Soft. Familiar. Like she’d called before.

I thought about the bathroom gossip. The phone records. The same number, over and over.

“So,” I said, when he hung up, “who was that?”

“Uh.” He wouldn’t meet my eyes. “Just a… business associate. A consultant. On a new project. There’s this thing tonight – a dinner thing – I really should go. Luca’ll be there. I can prove it. It won’t be late. But if you want me to stay, I’ll stay. I’ll cancel. Right now.”

He’s a terrible liar.