Blood and Silence:The Don's Discarded Wife

On my thirtieth birthday, the first thing I received was a photograph of my husband kissing a nightclub singer in full view of every associate and enemy who cared to look.

At the Don's Feast, every pair of eyes in that candlelit ballroom had settled on me. They watched the way wolves watch a wounded deer at the edge of the clearing, patient and bright-eyed, certain I would shatter the way I always had before. Certain I would weep and beg my husband to come home.

But with my eight-month belly pressing against the beaded silk of my gown, I finished the evening with my spine straight and my…