Chapter 2

My phone rang the moment I'd sent the message. It was an unfamiliar number.

"Is this Signora Corleone? I'm calling from the amusement park in Illinois. The boy you listed under emergency contacts, Antonio, just went missing near the carousel. We're doing everything we can to find him. Could you come down right away?"

I froze. "A child? I don't have a child."

The person on the other end hesitated too. "But this boy is registered as Signor Corleone's adopted son..."

My knuckles went white around the phone.

So Michele had already been quietly pushing the adoption through, and I, his so-called wife, was the very last to know.

I drove to the park.

From a distance, I could already see a crowd gathered near the carousel. A woman ran out and threw herself into Michele's arms, sobbing so hard her whole body shook.

"Michele, Antonio's gone! I'm so scared. Please, you have to find him..."

I stared at the woman he was holding so gently.

It was Rita.

Michele bent his head to murmur something in her ear, the kind of easy, effortless closeness that only exists between people who are truly close. I rested a hand on my own stomach.

There was a child here too, and its father had his arms around another woman.

A few minutes later, a park employee finally walked up with a sniffling Antonio in tow. Rita rushed over and swept the boy into her arms.

Michele put his arms around both of them and told the employee, "Rita's son is my adopted son. Please make sure my son is properly looked after from now on."

I stood outside the crowd like I was watching a movie that had nothing to do with me.

I watched Michele hug Rita with one arm and hold Antonio's hand with the other, the three of them heading for the exit. Antonio laughed happily at Michele's side, and Rita leaned down to kiss the boy's cheek.

Watching the three of them look so much like a happy family, it felt like something blunt had slammed into my chest. Cold air poured out through the hole it left, and I went cold all over.

A park employee walked past and murmured to a coworker, "Signor Corleone is so good to that boy. Honestly, you'd think he was his own."

"Of course. The boy's mother is that lady right there. I heard the two of them were childhood sweethearts. The boy isn't even his, but Signor Corleone still decided to make him heir to the Corleone famiglia. It's really touching, isn't it?"

Every word felt like a blade scraping against bone.

I lowered my head and slowly ran a hand over my own flat stomach.

The tiny life growing there had picked the worst possible moment to arrive.

Its father might never even know it existed, or if he ever found out, he'd probably just see it as one more problem.

I all but fled to my car and started the engine in a daze.

I'd just pulled into the underground garage and was about to get out when a few members of the Corleone famiglia walked past, their voices deliberately lowered. Their conversation still reached my ears.

"Poor Mae, still completely in the dark..."

"I heard the boss has been going to see Rita every single day lately. They're legally married. So what does that make Mae?"

"She lives in that villa without even a title to her name. What do you even call that?"

I went still for a moment, and the blood in my veins felt like it had frozen solid.

A mistress. So that was what I was to them: a woman with no name and no place, a joke the whole family already knew by heart.