Todos los capítulos de MAFIA BRIDE: Capítulo 111 - Capítulo 120

The mansion had not sounded like this in years.Laughter rolled down the grand staircase, and from the kitchen came the clatter of pots and Rosa's cracked voice singing over a simmering broth. Isabella stood in the nursery doorway on a gray October morning with Matteo asleep against her shoulder, and she let the noise wash over her. Three weeks earlier she had dragged a dying man out of a Sicilian cellar. Now that same man sat in the rocking chair by the window with a blanket over his knees, pale and thin and grinning like a schoolboy."It still leans, Marco," Luca said, nodding at the crooked crib in the corner, his voice still rough from the tube that had been in his throat. "I counted three slats too many.""Then you may fix it yourself, Don Luca," Gentile answered, setting down the screwdriver with a wounded air and brushing sawdust from his scarred hands, "as soon as the doctor lets you lift anything heavier than a spoon."Sofia hurried past the door with a stack of folded linen,

Luca asked her to come to the long gallery at sunset, and he would not say why.Isabella climbed the stairs slowly with Matteo against her shoulder and one hand trailing along the banister. The Council hearing had been four days ago, and she was still sore in places she had not known she had. At night she woke with Ferrante's cane tapping in her head, and the little red lion on that page. She did not mention it to Luca. He had not mentioned it to her either. They had both folded it away like a letter neither wanted to open."You are late," Luca said, when she reached the gallery door, from somewhere in the long amber dusk. "I have been standing here for an hour, pretending I am not afraid.""Of what?" Isabella asked, stepping inside.He did not answer. He stood at the far end of the room beside a tall easel draped in white cloth, leaning on his silver cane, in the gray suit that no longer fit his shoulders. The gallery ran the whole length of the east wing, a hall of dark wood and old

The waltz ended in the middle of a bar, and nobody noticed except the two people standing in the center of the floor.Isabella's hand slid from Luca's shoulder. Around them the guests laughed and clapped and went on talking, glasses clinking, Tarini's deep voice rolling over the crowd. Snow drifted past the tall windows. At the head table, among the crystal and the heaped white roses, the small black box sat exactly where it had sat a minute before, tied with its silver cord, as quiet as a stone on a grave."Stay here, Bella," Luca said softly, without taking his eyes off it."I will not," Isabella answered, gathering her mother's veil in one hand and following him across the floor.Marco Gentile saw them go. He stopped dancing in the middle of a step, and Paulo, still locked in his grim waltz, nearly tripped over his own boots. By the time Luca reached the table, both men stood at his shoulders. Near the door, Stefano Leone had come off the wall with his hand inside his jacket."Nobo

"Marco, the nursery!" Luca roared, the words tearing out of him before the second screen had stopped flickering. "Go, now!"Gentile was already running. He took the great staircase three steps at a time with one scarred hand on his holster, and Paulo pounded after him with his stitched leg dragging. Isabella lunged to follow, and Luca caught her around the waist with both arms."Let me go!" she cried, clawing at his sleeves. "That is my son!""He is perfectly safe, signora, for the moment," Nico's voice said from the speakers, so mild that it chilled her more than any shout. "I would never harm a hair on that head. Not yet. Go to your study, both of you, and we will speak like a family. The Inspector may stay with the guests."Leone lowered the radio from his ear, and his gray eyes were hard. "Gentile is in the nursery, Don Luca," he said quietly. "The boy is asleep. The maid is unhurt."Isabella sagged against her husband, shaking from head to foot.The study was cold, and the fire h

The dining table had not been used for dinner in four days.Paper covered every inch of it, bank slips and shipping forms and long strips of printed ledgers weighted down with silver candlesticks. Mario sat at the center of the mess with his collar open and ink smeared across his round cheek, a pencil behind each ear. He had not slept more than three hours since the wedding. Beside him, Marco Fontana peered through a magnifying glass at a page covered in tiny numbers, and a cold pipe hung forgotten from the corner of his mouth.It was the fourth morning after the screens had gone dark, and Don Vittorio Bellucci's son had been buried the day before in a closed coffin. Don Vittorio had not come to ask Luca for anything. Isabella had watched the funeral from a car across the road, with the rain running down the glass, and she had not been able to stop seeing the white lily on a dead boy's chest."Follow the money, cara," Fontana said, without lifting his eyes, when she came in with Matte