Maria: Discovery

I stood frozen in the doorway, Roman on my shoulder and Matteo clutching my hand, dressed in the demure clothes Carmen had chosen for me.

Donatello’s aunt had taken charge of our household after his mother’s death. At sixteen, I had supposedly been too young to manage an estate as vast as the Rossi mansion, so Carmen had stayed on, ruling the servants and the household with an iron hand. The staff answered to her, not me. Most treated me as though I were an inconvenient piece of furniture.

Her arched brows and disapproving gaze always conveyed the same message.

You are not good enough.

Yet I had been good enough to bear Donatello two sons in three years.

Carmen dressed exclusively in black and seemed determined to make me look like a nun. When I had timidly protested against one of her choices, she had sniffed.

“This is how a Mafia wife should present herself.”

I had appealed to Donatello, hoping he might allow me some say in my own appearance.

“Carmen knows how a Mafia wife should conduct herself,” he had snapped, dismissing the matter.

Mandy, my only real friend, had been less tactful.

“It’s deliberate, Maria. She wants you to look like that.”

I hadn't wanted to believe her.

Before I married at sixteen, I wore bright colours, laughed freely, and spent my days with friends. Now I dressed as I was told, spoke when spoken to, and lowered my eyes whenever anyone looked at me too directly.

The women in Donatello’s family had never let me forget that I was the daughter of a mere Capo, whose death saving Vittorio Rossi’s life had led to my marriage. They spoke as though my father’s sacrifice had been a calculated scheme to secure me a place in the Rossi family.

And now, listening to my husband call me a debt while another woman caressed his hand, I understood how thoroughly I had internalised their contempt.

I had spent three years trying to become the wife Donatello might one day want.

Instead, I had almost forgotten the girl I used to be.

For two years, I had longed to be seen as the Don’s wife, not some nameless presence he left behind at home.

But Matteo had arrived barely nine months into our marriage, and before his first birthday, I was pregnant with Roman.

I adored my sons. Yet sometimes, I mourned the teenage years I had never truly experienced. I longed to go on holiday, to spend a day with my husband, to do something as ordinary as enjoy his company.

Whenever I tentatively suggested an outing, Donatello’s heavy black brows drew together.

“Maria, you know I have no time. I have Family business.”

Family business.

Mafia business, in other words. His favourite excuse.

Now I stood outside his inner office, listening to him mock our marriage. The guard who had appeared behind me looked uncomfortable, but one glance at my white face kept him silent.

My boys had been feverish and fretful for days. I had tried calling Donatello repeatedly, desperate to speak to him. He hadn't answered a single call.

That was what had driven me here.

I had never suspected him of being unfaithful. Unlike many men in his world, Donatello lived by a rigid code of conduct. He never broke his word or allowed himself to lose control.

But fidelity was not love.

At night, when he returned to the estate, he sought me out in the darkness. He was relentless in bed, taking me with an intensity that left me breathless, sometimes reaching for me three times before morning.

Then daylight came, and he became a stranger again. My questions earned grunts, my attempts at conversation clipped replies. He scarcely looked at me.

Now, with my heart pounding painfully against my ribs, I understood why.

I was a burden. A debt to be repaid. A body to satisfy his needs and a womb to provide his heirs.

The conversation inside brought me back to the present.

“But, Don, you got her pregnant twice in three years!” Bruce Tyson, Donatello’s old college friend, laughed. “Must be good in bed, huh?”

Bruce was another man I loathed. Whenever he visited the estate, he looked at me as though I were something he had scraped off the bottom of his shoe.

I burned with humiliation, standing outside with my children.

“She’s good in bed. Fertile.” Donatello’s response was little more than a grunt. “I needed heirs. My wife obligingly gave me two.”

His voice was roughened by whiskey, but he was not drunk. Donatello Rossi never surrendered control.

Bruce chuckled.

“But she’s not as hot as Sophia, is she? That gorgeous woman you were supposed to marry before plump little Maria crawled into your bed?”

His laughter rang through the office.

“Speaking of Sophia, I hear her divorce is final. She’s coming back.”

I went rigid.

Sophia Bellini.

Everyone in our world knew their story. The beautiful, golden-haired daughter of the Bellini family had been Donatello’s childhood sweetheart and intended bride.

Then my father died saving Vittorio Rossi’s life, and the old Don ordered his son to marry me instead.

I had known the story from the beginning. Sophia’s furious breakdown, her threats of suicide, her impulsive marriage to another man. She had left for Italy on the very day Donatello married me.

Sometimes, after he had taken me fiercely and rolled away, I lay awake watching him stride to the bathroom, his muscular back glistening with sweat.

I wondered if he had imagined Sophia beneath him.

Then another, more painful thought would follow.

No. He would be gentle with her. Tender. He would give her the affection he had never given me.

Donatello had never been deliberately cruel to me. His indifference was worse. We seemed to inhabit different worlds, and I was the only one who kept trying to bridge the distance.

Young and foolishly in love, I had done everything I could to make him notice me. Despite Carmen’s derision, I cooked his favourite dishes, prepared his coffee just the way he liked it, and made sure his suits were pressed and ready when he emerged from his bath.

I waited for him at dinner, night after night.

More often than not, he never came.

I drew a steadying breath and stepped into the office.

All three turned towards me.

Bruce, sprawled in a leather armchair before Donatello’s desk, had the grace to look ashamed. Belinda slid off the desk, a smug smile playing on her lips.

Donatello’s expression darkened. His handsome face tightened, his displeasure unmistakable.

For one fleeting moment, I wondered whether he was concerned about how much I had overheard.

Then I dismissed the thought.

Donatello Rossi did not care what I heard.

“Oh, Mrs Rossi!” Belinda exclaimed, her voice dripping with false concern. “Have you been waiting outside long?”

I ignored her. My eyes remained fixed on my husband.

“Maria.”

He sat straighter, his black eyes hardening.

“Why are you here? What do you want?”

His words struck like blows, but I refused to flinch. Not in front of these people.

My eyes stung. I lifted my chin.

Crying before people who despised me would only make me their entertainment. I had learned that lesson the hard way.

“Donatello,” I whispered, shifting Roman’s heavy, sleeping body to my other shoulder. “Our sons have been sick.”

I hesitated, my carefully rehearsed words deserting me.

Then the truth escaped before I could stop it.

“I wanted to see you.”