Flaunting My Ring? Too Bad Your Man Is My Husband—and I Hold the Pen to His Fortune! Chapter 08
Severin’s POV
The room smelled like expensive bourbon
and regret.
I stared at the ruined portrait. My fingers
were smeared with sticky black ink.
Elara’s face was destroyed.
“Elara… Elara, I’m sorry… Elara…”
My hands shook. I tried to wipe the ink away.
Fix it. But it only got worse. The black
smudge spread. Her once–warm smile
blurred into something grotesque.
I gave up and just covered myself in ink.
“Severin!” a voice called out. It sounded like
her. So close it made my chest ache.
Mirella appeared through my blurry vision. She took my ink–stained hands and wiped
them with a bar towel.
“Look at this mess. Come on. Let me help
you to bed.”
She tried to pull me toward the big
four–poster bed. I dug in my heels.
“No.”
“Severin, you need to sleep.”
“I can’t sleep. The sheets smell like her. Like
Elara. And I’m covered in… this filth. I can’t
sleep.”
I felt like I was defiling the last trace of her
in this house.
“Severin!” Mirella’s voice turned soft,
pleading. She leaned closer. “Silly. Can’t you
tell? It’s me. It’s Elara. I’m right here.”
Her breath smelled like alcohol. For a
second, my drunk, grieving mind almost.
believed it.
Almost.
Then I saw the calculation in her eyes. The
greedy glint.
“You’re not her.” I shoved her away.
She staggered against the vanity. The feigned concern vanished from her face.
“Hmph.” She smoothed” her silk robe.
“Even dead drunk, you can still tell.”
She laughed. A sharp, grating sound.
“Yeah. Even drunk, I can tell.” “That realization hit me like a punch to the gut.
I could always tell.
That night. All those nights. But I’d chosen
not to see.
I let the alcohol be my excuse. A shield for
my weakness. An alibi for later.
I could have told Elara, “I was drunk. I didn’t
know what I was doing. I mistook her for
you.”
I thought it was the perfect lie.
Stupid.
Of course Elara saw right through it.
She always sees right through me.
“Get out.”
“What?”
“I said get out.”
“You’re kicking me out? After everything we’ve been through?”
“Fine.”
She grabbed her phone from the nightstand,
swiped fast, and shoved it in my face.
The photo was dark, but clear enough.
Us. Right here. A few months ago.
“If you send me away, my next stop isn’t the
street. It’s every rival family’s offices on the
East Coast. It’s the Federal Building. I’ll send this photo to every member of the Family Council. I’ll post it online for every client and colleague to see. Let them see how their
beloved Don mourns his wife. You think
you’ll lead anyone after that?”
She smiled. Predatory.
“This scandal alone would bring shame to your family.”
I looked at her. Really looked. The pretty,
hollow bird I’d kept was gone. In its place was this… viper.
I’d made her.
I laughed.
What had I done? Threw away the only person who loved me faithfully… for this? A pretty traitor?
“You have no choice, Severin.” Mirella’s
“confidence was back. “You need me now.
To quiet the rumors. To save face.”
“It’s me or chaos.”
We had a cold, lifeless wedding at City Hall.
No family. No council members. Just two of
my men as witnesses. They couldn’t even
look me in the eye.
The irony. I married Elara for business, to
get my mother’s approval, and fell in love
with her.
I married Mirella to fix things, and felt nothing but empty disgust.
Mirella’s regret came faster than I expected. My mother didn’t welcome her with open arms. She gave her a list of chores. Every
day, Mirella was called to the old mansion to
serve tea.
One afternoon, Mirella was late.
Mother said nothing. Just nodded to her
advisor, Bruno. Bruno was a wall of a man.
He stepped forward–not violently, but with the family’s old discipline flowing through
him.
“The Don’s wife should be punctual,”
Mother said calmly.
Bruno took out a thick leatherbound ledger
-the family ledger–and a sturdy leather
strap with a brass buckle.
“Madam,” your hand, please…“”
Mirella couldn’t believe it. “You’re
joking.
)) (())
“Severin! Tell them to stop!”
I set down my drink. “You wanted to be part
of this family. These are the rules. Learn
them.”
The strap hit her open palm. The first blow
made her scream. After three, she was
crying.
The shame hurt more than the pain.
Another time, after a harsh lesson in
etiquette, Mirella flew into a rage and tried to push my mother down the stairs. Stupid.
Impulsive.
Bruno moved faster than a man his size
should. He grabbed her arm, twisted it
behind her back, and marched her down to
the wine cellar.
Mother followed calmly. She sat in the
upstairs study and listened.
The sounds were muffled, but clear enough.
A body hitting the muddy floor. Muffled
cries. Mirella’s choked sobbing. No strap this
time. A more direct lesson.
An hour later, she limped out. Her makeup
was ruined. Her pride was gone.
That night, she crawled into my bed and
cried.
“She’s a monster, Severin! He hit me. Like a
dog! You have to do something!”
I flipped through the financial reports. “You wanted the family name. You got it. Privileges and punishments. Accept it.”
“She was in agony. Desperate. This wasn’t the ““Severin“” she thought she’d caught.
She tried to run twice.
First time, she made it to the bus station. My men picked her up before she could buy a
ticket.
Second time, she got all the way to a motel
across the state line. She woke up with two of
my mother’s men standing by the bed. They brought her straight back to the old
mansion.
Mother made her kneel on the cold stone
floor of the basement–we called it the
““quiet room“–“for eight hours.
After that, she stopped fighting.
The protests stopped. The complaints
stopped. She became quiet, docile. A ghost in designer clothes.
Mother thought she’d learned her lesson.
She loosened her grip.
That’s when Mirella’s real problems started.
With me. I cut her off.
The generous monthly allowance stopped.
The black card was canceled.
She had no skills. No way to make money.
Her only asset was her connection to me.
Desperation is a powerful drug. She started ““shopping“” during the day. Museums. Charity lunches. Highend spas. Places where
the rich and powerful gathered.
She thought I was too busy grieving and running things to notice.
She was wrong.
