Too Late To Love Your Drowned Wife

Siena POV

A heavy knock echoed through the penthouse.

Leonardo cursed under his breath. He rose, giving the lapels of his tailored suit jacket a sharp, definitive tug.

Francesca stayed on the sofa, crossing her long legs and making a slow, deliberate show of smoothing the wrinkles from her silk dress.

Leonardo opened the heavy oak door.

Three men in dark gray jumpsuits stood in the hallway. They were the syndicate's discreet maintenance crew, the unseen hands that handled the messes the police were never allowed to see.

The head of the crew took his hat off, his knuckles white where he wrung the brim, his gaze fixed on the floor in front of the Don's expensive shoes.

"Sorry to interrupt, Boss," the man said. "We are checking all the units in Building 10. There is a serious issue with the water supply."

Leonardo crossed his arms. "Fix it quietly. Why are you bothering me?"

The man swallowed hard. "It is a biological contamination, Boss. The filters are clogged. We need to check the rooftop tank. Did any of the men lose a dog? A large pet?"

Francesca let out a bright, melodic laugh from the living room.

"We lost a person," she called out. "A living, breathing person."

The three maintenance men froze, their faces becoming slack and pale. They stared at the floor. In our world, hearing a joke like that meant you might not live to see tomorrow.

Leonardo shot a warning glare over his shoulder before turning back to the men.

"Get to the roof," Leonardo ordered. "Clean the tank. If you whisper a single word of what you find up there to another soul, I will have your families burying you in three separate caskets."

The men nodded in a flurry of jerky movements and rushed toward the stairwell.

Leonardo closed the door and locked the deadbolt. He walked back to the living room and poured himself a glass of amber whiskey.

"You need to watch your mouth, Francesca," he said, his tone sharp, yet underscored with a note of undeniable fondness.

Francesca pouted. She walked over and wrapped her arms around his waist.

"I'm just tired of hiding," she whispered. "She has been gone for three days. Can we just say she ran away?"

Leonardo took a sip of his drink. "I hope she dies out there in the streets."

Francesca rested her chin on his chest. "Do you think you were too hard on her at the pool? You were so angry, Leo. It scared me."

Leonardo set his glass down, cupping her face with his large hands.

"She pushed you," he said firmly. "You could have drowned. She is a vicious, jealous woman. She deserved the wrath of this Family. I am the Don. I protect what is mine."

Weightless and unseen, I hovered inches from his face. I wanted to scream at him. I wanted to tear his eyes out.

I did not push her.

Francesca was a cartel runaway, a girl who grew up swimming in the ocean. She had faked the entire thing to trigger his violent temper.

I had tried to pull her out. But Leonardo had shoved me so hard my knees left skin and blood on the flagstones.

He had stood over me while I bled, his voice a low command for me to apologize to his mistress in front of the estate guards.

I refused. I had my pride. I was a mafia daughter before I was his wife.

And my refusal sealed my death warrant.

He dragged me to the roof to break my pride, but he ended up breaking my body instead.

The burner phone on the table rang again.

Leonardo picked it up. "Yeah?"

It was the head of the maintenance crew. His voice was shaking so badly the words barely made sense.

"Boss. Boss, please. We opened the tank."

Leonardo frowned. "What is it? Just clean it out."

"It's a body, Boss," the man sobbed. "It's a woman. She is completely bloated. Boss... It's your wife. It's Siena."

Leonardo stopped breathing.

His impenetrable facade cracked right down the middle.

The expensive burner phone slipped from his slack fingers, and the screen spider-webbed into a dozen jagged lines against the glass of the coffee table.

*I watched the splintered glass scatter across the floor, and for the first time since my death, I felt something shift—not quite a pulse, but the first tremor of a power I did not yet understand. *