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بيت / Mafia / The Don and His Arranged Wife Had Three Kids Together, So I Ran / Chapter 2

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Chapter 2

مؤلف: Jinara
I dragged myself back to the estate. I just wanted my art supplies and my mother's things.

I opened the door and the whole house was covered in balloons and streamers and a giant banner:

DANTE & BIANCA'S BABY SHOWER

Their fourth child, by my count.

Friends were dancing in the middle of the room. On the sofa, the two of them were wrapped up in each other. Dante had her pinned against the cushions, kissing her like nothing else existed. Bianca eventually gave him a soft push, and they pulled apart slowly, neither one ready to let go.

He laid his hand on her stomach, his voice so tender it turned mine.

"Baby, when you're born, Daddy's going to take you out to the shooting range."

Bianca swatted his shoulder lightly.

"Shooting range? We already have two boys. I want a girl this time. Two boys, two girls, perfect."

The way Dante looked at her, the love in his eyes looked ready to spill over. He pressed a kiss to her forehead.

"Whatever you want. As long as the baby arrives safe, I don't care either way."

I stood in the doorway listening. Their voices cut through the electronic music in a way the bass never could.

My hand moved to my own stomach without thinking. Flat now. Almost hollow.

My legs gave a little. I stumbled into a glass nearby, and Dante finally noticed me.

He made a point of putting some distance between himself and Bianca, stood up, straightened his clothes, then came toward me. There was something almost guilty in his voice.

"Nora. Sorry. Bianca's pregnant again."

I stared at him, tears threatening to spill.

"The first one was because the Costello family needed an heir."

"The second was because the family needed a daughter for an alliance marriage."

"The third was because the family business is dangerous and they needed to ensure succession."

"So what's the fourth? What's the reason this time?"

Dante pulled me close. His voice was calm, but what he said left me freezing cold.

"Nora, I'm sorry. This one was an accident. But since Bianca's pregnant, there's no reason not to have the baby."

The breath went out of me. I wrenched myself free and screamed at the top of my lungs.

"If she's pregnant it has to be kept, so why did mine have to go?"

"She's carrying your child. Wasn't I carrying your child too? What makes the difference? Why?"

Before he could answer, a toy gun came out of nowhere and hit me hard in the stomach.

My body hadn't recovered from the procedure. That impact sent cold sweat crawling across my whole body. I dropped to the floor, face white.

Bianca's oldest son wasn't done. He worked through the entire toy basket, hurling things at me one after another.

"You gold-digger! You stayed around Dad to get at the Costello money!"

"Grandpa never accepted you, so you tried to trap my mom's spot by getting pregnant. Dream on!"

When the toys ran out, he grabbed a bottle off the table and threw it at my head.

Blood dripped from my hairline, tapping against the floor.

Dante’s face softened with concern. He turned and roared at his son.

"Daniel! That's enough! Get over here and apologize!"

Bianca looked shaken. She rushed to grab Daniel, and two tears slid down her face.

"Dante, how dare you yell at our child? I nearly died having him. Have you forgotten what you swore to me outside the delivery room?"

Dante's anger dissolved almost instantly. When he turned back to me, his tone shifting from former concern to sharp impatience.

"Nora, Daniel is just a kid. And no matter what he does, he's my son. You were almost a mother yourself. Can't you be a little more patient with children?"

I looked down and laughed. Not at anyone else. At myself.

There was a moment, just then, where I actually thought he might take my side. God, Nora. You really are that stupid.
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  • The Don and His Arranged Wife Had Three Kids Together, So I Ran   Chapter 9

    Tears ran down his face. I turned to go.He dropped to his knees in front of me and wrapped his arms around my legs."Nora. Everything that happened was my fault. I didn't protect you when you needed it. I know that now.""You were with me so long that I stopped seeing you. I couldn't feel what you were giving anymore. But the second you were gone, I understood how much of my life was held together by you.""Bianca, I divorced her. I had the heads of several families witness it. It's done.""The family elders cut ties with me when I went through with it. They don't claim me anymore.""I'm free now. I can keep the promises I made you. Art school. A studio near campus. Painting together. Your mother's dream."I looked at this man crying at my feet and felt nothing. Not pity. Not a flicker. Only revulsion."Dante. Since you brought up my mother, do you know that everything she left me is gone? Your son destroyed it. The recorder. The case. Everything.""My mother's wishes are not somethin

  • The Don and His Arranged Wife Had Three Kids Together, So I Ran   Chapter 8

    My mother's recorder was fixed. The sound was fragmented in places, but that only gave her voice a strange, weathered quality, something beautiful in it, actually.A few months later, at the student showcase, I built the recording into a sound installation mounted behind a series of paintings. I called the series The Gallery That Never Arrived.It was about a woman finding her way out of a life she'd been kept in, and everything she felt on the way: the confusion, the helplessness, the damage, the fight, the grief.The artists who came through stopped in front of it for a long time. Classmates asked me about the concept, the source material, where it all came from.I hesitated. That past was far too painful for me.The dean appeared beside me. She told them what she'd seen in my work over the past months, that great art comes from talent and discipline, yes, but also from having lived something real.As she spoke, fragments from those years rose up behind my eyes. Even now, even this f

  • The Don and His Arranged Wife Had Three Kids Together, So I Ran   Chapter 7

    Bianca heard everything. She wasn't worried.She poured herself a glass of red wine."Dante. Do you really think going after her now means anything?""She's gone because of you. Every single thing that happened to her, you caused it.""The family gave the order, yes. But she could have run away back then. You were the one who drugged the necklace. You put her on that table yourself."She swirled her glass."There's one more thing the Don neglected to mention. The procedure wasn't done under anesthesia. I heard it from the doctor directly. She woke up during it, passed out from the pain, then woke up again. That's how the whole thing went."Dante stood very still.This woman, the one he'd promised to protect for the rest of his life, had been inside this estate being put through something inhuman. And he'd done nothing. He'd been the one who handed her over.When he went to her with a ring, he thought he could give her the life she'd always wanted. He had no idea he'd become the person

  • The Don and His Arranged Wife Had Three Kids Together, So I Ran   Chapter 6

    Dante watched all of it from the top of the stairs, and it brought things back.Eight years of passing Nora in the halls of this house. She was always holding a baby, sometimes two, one in her arms and one on her back. Her clothes were perpetually stained with formula and worse. When she came to him it was usually to ask for help, and he'd looked at her like she was bothering him. The elders pushed him toward Bianca and the children, and he let them, without ever once stopping to see what Nora was carrying.These weren't even her children. She had no obligation, none at all. But she'd taken care of every one of them with real care and genuine responsibility.And their actual mother, Bianca, had never once, in all the years he could remember, looked after a single one of them herself. The jewelry never stopped. The nails were always done. The heels never came off.He searched his memory for one image of Bianca with a child in her arms. There wasn't one.Below him, Bianca was trying to c

  • The Don and His Arranged Wife Had Three Kids Together, So I Ran   Chapter 5

    Dante'd been distracted all through the ceremony, his mind kept drifting to Nora. He'd felt something off about her these past few days.After the reception wound down and he'd done the rounds with the family elders and the visiting men, he went straight home. The moment he walked in, the silence hit him wrong.He called her name. The house didn't answer.He checked her room first. Standing inside it this time, something strange happened and he actually looked at it, really looked. A small bed. The rest of the space packed with junk and baby things. Not enough floor space for even a small table. Worse than the room they gave the nannies.Panic flared when he found Nora gone from the bedroom. His heart skipped a beat, yet a flicker of hope still lingered. He rushed toward the studio next.He'd converted those two rooms for her himself, back when things were good. He'd brought in designers, spent weeks collecting every detail, the school, the gallery options, the names of artists she adm

  • The Don and His Arranged Wife Had Three Kids Together, So I Ran   Chapter 4

    I pointed at the wreckage around us."Dante, you should be asking yourself that."He looked at the crumpled photos on the floor. Something flickered across his face, guilt that went as fast as it came. Then he dropped to one knee, every inch of him radiating sincerity."Nora, I know these years have been hard on you. But trust me, with Bianca it's only ever been strategy. Once she delivers this baby, I'm cutting ties. The elders will hand power over to me, and we'll be free.""We had a plan, remember? America. Art school. The gallery. Finishing what your mother started."His phone rang. He stepped away to answer it, thinking I couldn't hear.He underestimated the Costellos, because my phone buzzed at the same moment.A wedding invitation. Dante and Bianca. The date: tomorrow.The witness list ran long, top names from families across every territory. Men whose presence made a marriage permanent. Nobody walked away from a wedding they witnessed, not in this world. That was how you lost y

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