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My Mafia Husband's New Bride Is My Sister
Novelix
Completed
For five years, I kept my marriage to Roman Vescari secret to protect his position in the family. Then he announced he was marrying my sister. Apparently, the papers he'd called routine business were our divorce. He thinks I'll accept whatever place he leaves me. But I'm pregnant, and I won't raise another child waiting to be chosen.
Chapters (2)
第1章
At Thanksgiving dinner, my mother asked my husband to find me a boyfriend.
She didn't know he was my husband. We'd kept our marriage private for five years. Roman Vescari said the men fighting over his father's organization would use me against him if they knew.
When the succession was settled, he'd promised, we'd tell everyone.
Under the table I nudged his ankle.
Mom was smiling at him over the candles. “You must know somebody decent. Audrey and Tessa can't both spend every holiday with me.”
Roman took my sister's hand.
“Actually, Marianne, Tessa and I got married this morning.”
He placed a copy of their marriage certificate beside the cranberry sauce.
Mom gasped, then laughed in astonishment. She hugged the daughter she'd adopted when we were young and asked why on earth they hadn't told her sooner.
I couldn't feel my feet.
Later Roman motioned me onto the balcony. Chicago lay cold and bright beyond the glass.
“Those documents three months ago,” he said, lighting a cigarette. “They weren't amendments to the family trust. They were divorce papers. The decree came through last week.”
I stared at him.
“You told me the lawyer needed my signature.”
“He did.”
“Roman.”
“Tessa needed protection. She thought your mother would make her marry one of my father's old associates to settle a business dispute.”
“My mother would never do that.”
“She's scared. She doesn't have the same security you do.”
Inside, Tessa called him. He crushed the cigarette, touched my hair as if I were being unreasonable, and went to his new wife.
I stayed outside until Mom found me.
“Audrey? You're freezing.”
“I'm coming with you,” I said. “To Switzerland.”
Mom owned a small house near Leysin. She'd been planning to make it her home again since selling her business. She and I both had Swiss passports; I'd been born there. I'd always refused to leave because Roman was here.
Now she studied my face.
“You've changed your mind?”
“Yes.”
She took my hands between hers. “Then we'll go.”
That night Tessa sent photographs.
Dinner at the restaurant where Roman had first told me he loved me. The two of them in the bedroom I'd furnished, in the house he said I couldn't move into until our marriage was public.
The photographs were two years old.
Then came a picture of Tessa beside another man. I knew his face before I knew why I was shaking.
Dylan Mercer.
Want to know why Roman married you in the first place? she wrote.
第2章
I was twenty-two when Dylan came on the hiking trip Tessa had organized after graduation.
She called him a friend. He carried my bag without asking, brushed against me whenever the path narrowed, and laughed when I moved away.
I told Roman he was making me uncomfortable.
“Stay near the guide,” he said. He was kneeling to retie Tessa's boot.
Once, when we were younger, he'd marched me into the principal's office after a school employee touched me. He'd stayed while I made the report. I'd loved him partly because he never asked me to pretend something hadn't happened.
On that trip, he didn't even look up.
I woke in my tent with Dylan pulling at my shirt.
I screamed. The guide came running. Roman pulled me out and held me while I tried to breathe.
“I want the police.”
“Think for a second,” he said. “There'll be interviews. Pictures. My father's enemies will get hold of it. You'll never be left alone.”
I was frightened and disoriented. He made the prospect of asking for help sound more dangerous than the man who'd hurt me.
“I'll take care of you,” he promised.
A week later he proposed. We married quietly. I mistook secrecy for safety because the person I trusted most told me they were the same.
Now Tessa's message glowed in my hand.
I brought Dylan because I knew you wouldn't go near him otherwise. Roman found out afterward. He married you so you'd stop asking questions. He didn't want Mom finding out what I'd done.
I read it three times.
There was no reason to believe everything Tessa said. But there was a photograph of the two of them together long after Roman had told me he'd never seen Dylan again.
Another file arrived. Audio this time.
Roman's voice: Audrey's pregnant. Don't worry. I'll deal with it.
Two years earlier I'd been pregnant. He'd been delighted. He'd rested his face against my stomach and asked whether the baby could hear him.
The next morning he drove me to an appointment. The brakes failed on a bend outside the city.
After the impact I pulled him from the car through a broken window. I remember glass in my hand, the smell of smoke, the terrible effort of making him move.
I lost the pregnancy.
He cried beside my bed. I spent half my recovery comforting him.
Now I sat on the floor with Tessa's recording playing again and again.
In my coat pocket was a new ultrasound report. I was pregnant again. I'd planned to tell him after dinner.
I folded it until it fit inside my hand.
