The Iris Lie
Three months since my husband, Julian Moretti, disappeared.
I walked into his favorite den, the grief so deep it stole the air from my lungs.
I just wanted to breathe him in, to find any trace of him that was left.
Then I heard it. A familiar laugh. And the soft moan of a woman.
Through a crack in the door, I saw him.
My husband, the man "missing" for three months, had his hand tangled in another woman's hair.
"Baby, just a little longer," he said. "Soon as I siphon enough cash from the family's books, we're gone. You and me."
In his arms was Bianca, from the Rosso family.
"What about your wife?" she purred.
"Let her play the grieving widow. She's nothing without me anyway."
My fists clenched. The world went quiet, my blood turning to ice.
The next day, I put the word out to the entire Family.
"I'm holding a memorial mass for my husband."
At the service, he stormed in, a ghost returned from the grave, roaring that he was alive and there to take back what was his.
But I was standing next to his uncle, Dante Moretti, and all I did was stare him down.
"Then explain," I said, my voice cutting through the silence. "Explain the woman. Explain the money. Explain your betrayal... to the Family. And to me."