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ol
my husband's childhood sweethear
my life, and the life ring was d
y, hugging it to her chest, while my husband
ous," he said. "The water's barely two meters d
punishment for being "disobedient" in his eyes. What he
ong since peeled free of my flesh, was flo
was left in me was a
step, in the hell he had built with his ow
pte
two-and-a-half-meter pool. My lungs were screaming for oxygen, and all I could
ried for barely six weeks, still a secret, the heir to the most b
ds of three rival families in a single night. He was power and violence incarnate, an apex predator before whom ev
arlier I had only reached for a glass of juice at the edge of the terrace, and she had pretended
mped shut as if in an iron vise. I thrashed with everything I had and finally b
e ring hung from the metal railing, barely an arm's length
osing for the guests scattered across the lawn. She giggled, pretending it was all for a p
d, shifting layers of water I saw Dante standing at the edge. He did not jump in to save me, did not even hold
e provocation against his authority. He meant to apply some tw
ing the boss's wife drown as if it were a clever,
e black silence of the deep end swallowed me, the weight of the water nearly crushing my chest. The bur
uggle s
ning simply evaporated. I opened my eyes and found that I was no longer in
n spread and drifted around my legs like a shroud;
as
despair and terror that had drowned me moments before were gone
of a suffocating marriage, a cage
e. He stopped at the dessert table, picked up a silver knife, and cut cleanly through the center of the swan fondant cake, th
d, one hand pressed to her chest, her voice full of counterfei
eath for five minutes was nothing to me. Then he fell into easy conversation with the capos and the men around him, certain t
d stumbled into her myself, that I was simply clumsy. And just like that, black turne
ter, his voice carrying the Godfather's unquestionable command:
hand resting on his arm, the lif
e said, loud enough for the lawn t
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