Page 250 of Mario
It was ridiculous.
Gross, even.
The man had been nothing but careful with me. Intense, yes. Demanding, yes. Infuriatingly arrogant, obviously. But not cruel. Not careless. Not the kind of man who would hurt a woman.
Not his wife.
Not the mother of his children.
I told myself all of that while I made coffee Sunday morning.
I told myself all of that while I ignored the nausea twisting in my stomach.
I told myself all of that while I opened my laptop to catch up on actual work.
And there it was—the article.
Still open.
The mysterious death of Anna Conti.
I should have closed it.
I almost did.
My finger hovered over the button, and I told myself, out loud, “No. Absolutely not. You are not doing this.”
Then I did it anyway.
A new search.
A much more… pointed one this time, involving Anna Conti’s death and the rumors surrounding it.
And then there was more.
Not just one awful article this time.
Some garbage, yes. Some obvious gossip. Anonymous sources. Thinly veiled accusations padded with enough question marks to dodge defamation.
But not all of them were like that.
Some of them looked legitimate.
Older newspapers. Reports. Not wild claims with dramatic, clickbait headlines. But they all held the same careful gaps, the same restrained language. The same strange absence where the cause of death should have been.
Anna Conti died unexpectedly at the Conti residence.
The family requested privacy.
No cause released.
No further comment.
No further comment.
No further comment.
I read article after article after article until the words stopped looking like words and started looking like evidence.
