Page 83 of Mafia Boss's Fake Wife

I feel like a bloody worm.

But, I’m also… hurting.

I don’t know if it’s the fact that I’ve just left everything for so long, or if learning about my mother broke me. But I feel, literally, broken. Every time I move, something inside my chest seems to tweak. Every time I take a breath, it hurts.

I literally think that I’ve been broken by this.

My mothersold me.

The whole reason that I exist, on this planet, is that she made a deal with a literal devil. William MacAntyre, as she said, was an evil man.

And she not only made a deal with him, but when it was time to pay up, she did.

I wasn’t born out of love, or even some kind of mistake. I was very much planned.

The plan, however, was to create me so that I could be some kind of asset of my father’s. Like my brothers.

God almighty, are there other children out there like me? Creations that my father paid for, but he never came to collect?

I could ask my mother but…

I won’t.

I don’t know if I’ll ever talk to her again. I don’t know if I will want to. Knowing that she willingly followed everything my father did, that she not only played right into his hands, but developed plans with him?

It’s more than I can bear.

I am not a mistake. I’m not even a love-child, or something stupid like that. I’m no happy accident, and my mother wasn’t taken from me.

I was a cultivated plant.

And she sold me willingly.

The thoughts make the spot in my chest ache again. I’m past crying, it would seem, because while I feel the urge to, there are no tears that come out of my eyes.

Just emptiness.

Sorrow.

That’s what this feels like.

Sorrow, and loss, and a complete and total change in the world as I knew it.

The sound of footsteps in the hall draws my attention. I don’t listen to them, not really. It’s just very quiet in here. I can hear Marco shuffling around the house, so I know when he’s working in the computer room or when he’s making food.

I just don’t care anymore.

Marco knocks, as always, to open the door.

As always, I do nothing.

I wait for him to put the plate on the dresser, the soft clink of the porcelain on wood my sign to wait until the door snicks shut before I get up to try whatever pasta dish he’s decided to craft today.

But there isn’t one.

I turn over, blinking at the bright light of the door. “Marco?” I ask, my voice hoarse.

“Good morning.”

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