Chapter 7 - Six Months of Betrayal
My stomach plummeted.
Vanessa went ghostly pale. “That’s absurd! She’s a liar!”
Luca didn't look away from me. “Emily?”
I thought about the dark whisper. The intimate hand on Adrian’s wrist. The sheer panic in Vanessa’s eyes when she saw me approaching with the appetizer tray.
“Yes, sir,” I said, my voice echoing in the silent room.
“What did she say?” Luca asked.
My voice trembled, but I didn't back down. “She told him not to do something here. She said... 'Not here. She'll see.'”
Vanessa laughed sharply, a high, panicked sound. “So now we are relying on the half-heard delusions of the hired help?!”
But Adrian wasn't laughing. He was staring directly at me. His face had gone completely, horribly white.
Allison noticed his reaction. She slowly turned her head toward her husband. “Adrian.”
He looked down at his lap.
“Look at me,” Allison begged, her voice cracking with a decade and a half of love and pain. “Please. Just once tonight, Adrian... tell me the truth.”
For several agonizing seconds, nobody moved. The entire mafia hierarchy sitting at the table held their breath.
Then, Adrian spoke.
“I'm sorry.”
Allison closed her eyes. A tear slipped down her cheek. Two words. Seventeen years of marriage, completely destroyed in two words.
The whole room finally understood. Allison hadn't been crazy. She hadn't been hysterical.
Luca stared at his best friend, his eyes burning with a dark, lethal betrayal. “How long, Adrian?”
Adrian swallowed hard, unable to look his boss in the eye. “Six months.”
Vanessa covered her mouth with her hand, realizing she was completely trapped. Allison pressed one trembling hand against her chest, literally gasping for air.
Six months. I watched this poor woman try to breathe normally. I watched her straighten her shoulders. I watched her refuse to give thirty strangers the sick satisfaction of seeing her fall apart.
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Then, Allison looked at Vanessa.
👉 What will the devastated wife say to the woman who stole her husband?
