Page 131 of Bad Bishop
Seedy neighborhood?
Unspoken feelings?
All pesky female delicacies I shouldn’t worry myself with as long as he kept me lavishly clothed and safe.
My phone vibrated in my pocket with a message. I pulled it out.
Tiernan: Found a great audiologist. He specializes in cochlear implants. We are seeing him Tuesday.
Tuesday was three days from now.
It was his way of pacifying me, and it didn’t work at all. I had a belly full of baby he refused to acknowledge and a husband who was going to fly off to Vegas in a few days to engage in semiautomatic weapon carnage. Not to mention he was taking two of mybrothers, my own flesh and blood, with him. My lack of hearing was the least of my problems right now.
Tangled in a web of my own thoughts, I pushed the door open, my boots landing on something smooth and slippery. I raised my foot and frowned down at it.
An envelope.
An envelope addressed tome.
To: Raffaella Ferrante
My name was handwritten in cursive. My pulse quickened, and I bent down to retrieve it, my swollen belly making it almost impossible to do so.
I put the curry chips on the table, examining the simple white letter between my fingers.
I’d never received any mail here. All my medical and occupational therapy correspondence arrived at my parents’ house. And I never receivedpersonalmail, period. This didn’t look like a bill.
And there was another thing that made the back of my throat burn with bile.
Ferrante.
I wasn’t a Ferrante anymore. I was a Callaghan. It seemed deliberate and wicked. A way to remind me my marriage was one of convenience, not love.
I broke the seal, retrieving the letter inside it.
Raffaella,
I know your dirty secret. The one you and your husband are trying to hide from the world.
I know about your bastard child.
If you want your marriage to survive and your secret to remain this way, meet me at a place of my choosing next week.
Bring 150K in cash.
Come alone.
Wait for further instructions for location, and DON’T tell your husband.
If you don’t do as I say, you and the baby will die.
My back hit the wall, and I sucked in a breath, my lungs burning with panic.
Whoever wrote this had intimate knowledge of our lives.
Very few people knew about what happened to me the night of Luca’s wedding. And up until a second ago, I thought all of them were allies.
Who could know this? Who could be privy to this kind of information?
