"My mafia boss husband gave my dead mother’s sapphire necklace to his mistress—until our housekeeper exposed his terrifying secret." / Chapter 2 / 7

Chapter 2 - The Fall of the MaskI slowly turned around to face my husband of seventeen years.

The man who had held my hand while I buried my mother. The man who had wept beside my hospital bed when we lost our unborn child. The man who had promised to protect everything I loved.

He hadn't just cheated on me with his communications director. He had systematically stripped away my mother's memory, piece by piece, handing her sapphire necklace and her ancestral home to his mistress like cheap corporate bonuses.

Dorian took a slow, hesitant step toward me, his hands raised in a rare, groveling gesture of surrender.

"Audra... listen to me," Dorian rasped out, his baritone cracking into raw, desperate fragments. "The Beacon Hill property... it was a business maneuver. Blythe needed a secure residence in Boston for the secondary signal routing during the Moretti merger! It was temporary! I was going to transfer it back!"

"You gave her my mother's house, Dorian," I spoke. My voice wasn't loud. It was flat, quiet, and laced with an absolute, unshakeable mortality that made him step back. "You gave her my mother's necklace. And you let her lie in my bed."

"I made a mistake!" Dorian roared, stepping closer, his fingers reaching out to grab my upper arm. "I'm a man, Audra! I got careless! But I built this empire for us! Everything in this city belongs to you!"

I looked down at his broad hand gripping my coat, then raised my eyes to meet his with a cold, absolute disdain that burned deeper than any blade.

"Nothing in this city belongs to me anymore, Dorian," I said softly, reaching into my handbag, pulling out the velvet box containing the sapphire necklace, and slapping it hard against his broad chest. "And neither do I."

I turned on my heel, picked up my suitcase with my left hand, pushed open the grand oak double doors of the estate, and stepped out into the pouring rain.