My Mafia Husband Buried an Empty Coffin

"The Draganovs are moving on Celeste tonight. I'm taking her to the safe house. We'll do the claiming after this, Orla. I promise."

That's what my husband said the seventh time he chose Celeste over me.

Celeste. The girl he'd loved since before he had a wife to ignore.

The first time, she heard footsteps outside her window at two in the morning. Rafael sent his whole detail to sit on her house and left me at a meeting with two men who wanted our shipping routes and didn't like being told no. I came home with a bullet crease across my ribs. He apologized for a week.

The third time, someone tipped the cops on one of our warehouses and she got scared. He drove her upstate himself. I took a knife at the door because there was no one left standing in front of me.

By the sixth time, he didn't explain. He just texted the doctor to be ready for me and left.

He's a Don. When the guns come out, he walks away clean. I'm the one wearing his name where everyone can see it. The one they aim at first. Six scars say so.

Every time, he held my face after and promised. Founders' Day. In front of every family in the city. Once Celeste was safe. I believed him six times.

So when the seventh time came and he chose her again, my bags were already packed.

There won't be an eighth time he sends me out to die for her. Next time, there won't be a wife left for him to send.

Odette taped the last of the gauze under my ribs, and I reached for the earrings. She'd been the family's doctor since before I married in. She'd stitched all six.

Sapphires. His mother's. Cold when they touched my neck.

The Donna wore them everywhere the family wanted the city to see that Rafael Sciarra had a wife. I'd worn them six times. Every time, I came home with a new stitch.

"It hasn't closed yet," Odette said. She kept her voice low. She always did in that house. "You shouldn't be standing. You definitely shouldn't be going out."

"Then tell him."

She snapped her kit shut instead. We both knew how that conversation ended.

The door opened without a knock. He never knocked. His house, his name, his wife on loan.

Rafael stopped when he saw me in the sapphires, and his jaw did the tight thing he thought passed for feeling. Two years ago it used to work on me.

"Orla."

"Take it off." I clipped in the second earring. "The ring, the speech, whatever you came in here to say. I already know how tonight goes."

He didn't move.

"You're taking Celeste to the safe house. You're leaving me the front. The claiming gets pushed again." I found his eyes in the mirror. "Tell me if I missed anything."

He crossed the room and took my hand out of the air, folded both of his around it. Like that had ever fixed one single thing.

"They found where she's staying," he said. "If I don't move her tonight, she doesn't see morning. You know what the Draganovs do."

"I know you have her address memorized and you forget I'm alive the second a gun comes out."

"That's not fair."

"Six scars think it's plenty fair." I pulled my hand back. "Tonight it's the Verano sit-down downtown. Two men who want our routes and hate that you keep saying no. So it's a lovely room to be the only Sciarra in. But go. She's waiting."

For half a second he looked like the man I married. The one who used to check my ribs himself before he learned to hand me off and leave.

Then his phone rang.

I watched it happen. The way it always happened. His whole body turned toward the screen before he even read the name.

"Celeste. Slow down. Are you hurt?" He was already reaching for his coat. "Stay inside. Don't open the door for anyone. I'm coming."

He pulled the phone from his mouth and looked at me, and whatever was in his face, I didn't want any of it.

"Go," I said. "You'll be late. Then you'll come home and tell me it's my fault you were late."

"Orla."

"Go, Rafael."

He made it to the door. Stopped. Turned back with the call still open in his hand, Celeste's voice small and shaking on the other end, right on cue.

"Founders' Day," he said. "I'll claim you. In front of everyone. I mean it this time."

"You said that the last three times."

"This time I mean it."

And he was gone, back on the phone before the door finished closing, telling her he was five minutes out.

The house went quiet.

Odette picked up her kit and looked at me. I knew that look. She'd worn it over me six times, thread in one hand and pity she couldn't hide in the other.

"You could tell him no," she said. "Once. You could stay home tonight and let him deal with it."

"And let the whole family wonder why the Donna hid while her husband ran to save another woman?" I turned back to the mirror. "No. I'll go. I'll smile at the men who want us dead. I'll let them point their guns at his wife so he can hold Celeste's hand somewhere with good locks."

"Orla."

"It's fine." I fixed a curl that didn't need fixing. "It's the last time anyway."

She went still. "The last time he pulls your guards?"

I didn't answer.

I picked up the little clutch that matched the dress he'd chosen for me and checked what was inside. A phone that wasn't the one he tracked. A key that didn't open any door in his house. That was all I needed.

Founders' Day. He finally picked the date. So did I. His to make me a wife. Mine to disappear.