“Eat in the Kitchen!” His Mother Humiliated His Wife — Until the Mafia Boss Saw Her Injured Hands

The darkness lasted only seconds, but it was enough for Arthur to escape.

When the emergency lights flickered on, Gabriel’s men found the rear exit open and the security camera smashed. Arthur had disappeared into the alley.

Gabriel wanted to pursue him.

Catherine stopped him.

“He wants you chasing him.”

“You don’t know that.”

“He came here alone, knew exactly what we had found, and told me to question my mother. He wasn’t trying to kill us. He was trying to move us toward something.”

Gabriel lowered his weapon.

“You’re assuming he’s telling the truth.”

“No. I’m assuming he wants us to believe he is.”

They returned to the estate with the box and the letter. Gabriel ordered the documents secured in his private study while Catherine called her mother.

The phone rang six times.

Finally, Margaret Bell answered.

“Catherine?”

“Mom, I need to ask you something.”

“Is something wrong?”

“Were you ever connected to the Romano family?”

Silence filled the line.

Catherine closed her eyes.

“Mom?”

“Where are you?”

“At Gabriel’s house.”

“You need to leave.”

The urgency in her mother’s voice frightened her.

“Why?”

“Because there are things you don’t understand.”

“Then explain them.”

Margaret began to cry.

“I promised someone I would never tell you.”

“Someone who?”

Before her mother could answer, the call disconnected.

Catherine stared at the screen.

Gabriel had heard enough to understand.

“We’re going to her,” he said.

“No.”

He frowned.

“No?”

“She told me to leave. If we arrive with your security team, she’ll shut down completely.”

“Then I’ll send one driver.”

“She might still refuse to speak.”

Gabriel considered that.

“Then you go first. I’ll wait outside.”

It was the first time he had offered her a choice without attaching a condition to it.

Catherine reached for his hand, then stopped herself.

“Thank you.”

He looked at her bandaged fingers.

“You don’t have to thank me for respecting you.”

The words stayed with her during the drive to her mother’s house.

Margaret lived in a small brick home outside Evanston. The curtains were closed, and the porch light remained on despite the morning sun.

Catherine knocked.

Her mother opened the door and immediately pulled her inside.

“You shouldn’t have come.”

“You said that on the phone.”

Margaret looked past her toward the street.

“Is he here?”

“Gabriel?”

“Your husband.”

“He’s waiting outside.”

Her mother’s shoulders relaxed slightly.

Then she noticed the photograph Catherine carried.

The image of the woman holding the baby.

Margaret covered her mouth.

“Where did you get that?”

“Inside a box at an old Romano warehouse.”

Margaret sat heavily on the sofa.

For a long time, she said nothing.

Then she spoke.

“You were not supposed to be born into this family.”

Catherine felt the room tilt.

“What family?”

Margaret looked at her with exhausted eyes.

“The Romanos.”

She explained that years earlier, she had worked as a nurse at a private clinic where Elena Romano was treated after a complicated pregnancy. Margaret had discovered evidence that the family’s medical records were being altered to conceal a child’s birth.

That child, she said, had been Catherine.

But before she could explain why Catherine had grown up believing herself to be Margaret’s biological daughter, someone knocked violently at the front door.