All Chapters of MARRIED TO THE MAFIA KING : Chapter 131 - Chapter 140

CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED THIRTY-TWO:“Don’t say I’m doing better.”Theo had the sentence ready before he cleared the kitchen doorway, backpack half on, eyes already hard.Lyra looked up from the calendar. “I didn’t.”“You were about to.” Theo’s voice was fast, tight. “I can feel it in the room. Two quiet nights. One protected hour that held. No hospital. Somebody always wants to name it better. Don’t.”Dimitri turned from the stove. “No one is naming it better.”“Good.” Theo dropped the bag into a chair. “Because better becomes a standard. Better becomes the floor I’m supposed to stay above. Better becomes the thing you look disappointed about when the next bad night comes. I’m not doing better. I’m surviving a stretch. That’s all.”Anna banged a plastic cup on the tray. June paused with toast halfway to her mouth. The air climbed one inch and held.Lyra’s eyes flashed. “Surviving a stretch is allowed to exist without a trophy and without a threat. You don’t have to call it better. You als

CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED THIRTY-FOUR:“She’s choking—”Theo’s voice tore through the kitchen so hard Lyra dropped a plate into the sink without rinsing it. He was already moving toward Anna on the floor, hands out, face white.Anna coughed once, hard, eyes wide—and then spit a wet piece of cracker onto the tile and started crying from surprise more than air hunger.Dimitri got there first by a step. “She’s breathing.”“She wasn’t—” Theo’s hands hovered, shaking. “It sounded—”“She’s breathing,” Dimitri repeated, exact, palm on Anna’s back as she wailed and grabbed for Lyra. Color fine. Chest moving. Cracker on the floor. Ordinary disaster.Lyra scooped Anna up. The cry was loud and offended and full of air. “Clear. Cracker. Not a throat close.”Theo stood in the middle of the kitchen with nowhere to put the adrenaline. “It sounded like it.”“I know,” Dimitri said.“Don't know me.” Theo’s voice climbed. “I heard it and my whole body went to the hospital before my eyes finished looking. I wa

CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED THIRTY-SIX:“Stop turning my ears into homework.”Theo said it in the kitchen at 5:10 p.m. before anyone had asked him to practice anything, backpack still on, eyes already hot.Lyra looked up from the counter. “No one assigned homework.”“You did.” Theo’s voice was fast, tight. “Twice-and-stop. Reps in the dark. Reps on the creaks. Kill the third look. It’s correct and it’s still a shift. I can feel myself staffing my own recovery.”Dimitri closed the fridge. “The reps were tools, not a roster.”“Tools become rosters in this house.” Theo dropped the bag. “I spent half the day counting looks. First look. Second look. Stop. Like a drill sergeant lives in my neck. That’s not killing the trial. That’s renaming it.”Anna banged a spoon on the tray. June froze near the doorway. The air climbed.Lyra’s eyes flashed. “So what do you want? No practice? Pure hope that lag dies on its own? That is how the third look becomes a freeze on a real night.”“I want five minutes whe

CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED THIRTY-EIGHT: “How long is this our life?”Theo asked it in the living room at 4:25 p.m. standing over the coffee table like the question might finally put a crack in the floorboards.Lyra looked up from folding. Dimitri stopped in the doorway. June’s crayon froze mid-stroke.“What part?” Lyra said.“All of it.” Theo’s voice was fast, scraped. “Empty days. Free nights. Two looks. Protected hours. Residual. Scripts. ER parking. I’m twelve and I can’t see the end of the system. I can only see the next sound.”Anna sat on the rug with stickers on both knees, congested and ordinary. The ordinary felt like an insult.Dimitri’s voice stayed low. “Systems end when they aren’t needed. We don’t know that date. We know today’s rules.”“That’s not an answer.” Theo stepped closer. “That’s a loop. Today’s rules. Tonight’s tool. Tomorrow’s residual. I’m asking how long I live in a house organized around her lungs before I forget what a house feels like without a protocol.”Sile

CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED FORTY:“You’re staring at it again.”Lyra said it from the stove without turning. Theo stood in front of the kitchen calendar with his backpack half on, eyes locked on the black circle thirty days out like it might move if he blinked.“I’m checking,” he said.“You’re counting.” Her voice was flat. “There’s a difference. Counting turns the checkpoint into a fuse.”Theo didn’t look away from the mark. “You put it there. You don’t get to tell me how to look at it.”Dimitri came in from the hall with Anna on his hip. “She’s right about the fuse. The date is a review, not a detonation timer.”“Everything in this house becomes a timer if you live here long enough.” Theo finally turned. “Empty days. Free nights. Two looks. Protected hours. Now a circle on a wall. I’m supposed to pretend I don’t feel the days stacking under it?”June paused mid-pour on her juice. Anna reached for the calendar like it was a toy. Dimitri shifted her away.Lyra set the spatula down hard. “Fee