Mafia Lord's Mute Sweetheart

Chapter 2: Chapter 2 Jinx

After the party ended, Daisy stood near the staircase, her feet throbbing inside her heels. The guests were gone, and the servants had started clearing glasses. She hoped to slip away to her room before anyone noticed her.

She wasn’t lucky.

The front door opened, and Jenna Evermont walked in. Cedric’s mother was a woman with sharp cheekbones and sharp blue eyes. She had missed the party because she went to meet the old man, who was in the hospital. The doctor wanted to talk to her regarding something. The old man’s health had been failing for months, and Jenna blamed one person.

Her gaze found Daisy immediately.

Jenna dropped her coat on a servant’s arm without looking, her voice icy cold. "I hope ’it’ didn’t embarrass you today." She didn’t say Daisy’s name. She never said Daisy’s name anymore.

Cedric stood by the bar, pouring himself a drink. Jessica clung to his arm, her red hair spilling over his shoulder, her beautiful face arranged into something soft and concerned. The perfect picture of a caring girlfriend.

Cedric didn’t look at Daisy. "She did." He downed half his glass in one swallow. "Standing in the corner like a statue. People asked if she was mentally disabled, not just mute. I had to explain three times that she understands speech. Three times, Mother."

Jenna’s lips pressed into a thin line. She turned her hateful eyes on Daisy, who shrank back against the staircase railing.

Jessica’s voice dripped with false kindness as she placed a gentle hand on Cedric’s chest. "Cedric, you can’t say that. She is mute. How can she embarrass you? You can’t be angry just because she married you. She didn’t know we are both in love."

Her dark black eyes met Daisy’s. There was nothing gentle in them. Only victory.

Cedric set down his glass and walked toward Daisy slowly, each step echoing in the silent foyer. His gorgeous blue eyes, the same eyes that had looked at her coldly on their wedding night, now looked at her with something worse than coldness. Disgust.

He rolled his eyes. "Heh! It’s because of her. Because of this... this thing my grandfather forced on me."

He stopped inches from Daisy. She could smell whiskey on his breath and perfume on his collar. Jessica’s perfume.

Cedric’s voice dropped too quietly. "You know what the doctor said today? My grandfather’s heart is failing. He asked for you. Not me. Not his son. Not his daughter-in-law. He asked for the mute."

Daisy’s eyes widened.

He continued, "He wants to see you tomorrow. He wants to give you something. Jewelry, probably. Or money. Something that should be mine."

His hand shot out and grabbed her chin hard, forcing her to look at him. "I don’t know what spell you cast on him, but it ends now. You will go tomorrow and pretend you are happy with me. And when he dies, which will be soon thanks to the stress you’ve caused this family, everything he gives you will come to me. Understand?"

Daisy’s eyes burned. She couldn’t nod. His grip was too tight.

Jessica called softly, "Cedric, you’re hurting her."

She didn’t sound concerned. She sounded amused.

Cedric released Daisy’s chin. She stumbled back, one hand flying to her jaw. It would bruise. They always bruised.

"Get out of my sight," he said. "Go hide in your room like the good little ghost you are."

Daisy turned and climbed the stairs. Her legs shook, and her vision blurred. She didn’t look back.

Behind her, she heard Jenna’s voice. "Did you see how she stood there? No expression. No tears. Nothing. It’s like living with a corpse."

Cedric said, "She can’t cry, Mother. Her voice box is damaged. The doctors said emotional expression is connected to—"

Jenna snapped, "I don’t care about the medical reasons. I care that my father in law is dying because that jinx entered this family."

A jinx. That’s what they called her. The mute jinx. The girl who killed her own parents in a car accident, at least that’s what the rumors said, and now she was killing Cedric’s grandfather too.

Daisy reached her bedroom. She closed the door. She didn’t lock it. She wasn’t allowed to lock it.

She sat on the edge of her bed and stared at the wall. The wall that separated her room from Cedric’s.

Daisy pulled out her journal. Her hands were shaking so badly she could barely hold the pen.

She wrote:

Tomorrow I see Grandpa. He is dying. He asked for me. Not anyone in this house but me. This makes me happy.

He is the only person in this house who has ever been kind to me.

He gave me to Cedric as a bride. I used to wonder why. Why give an orphan to a man who already had a lover? Why give me to a monster?

But now I think maybe Grandpa didn’t know. Maybe he saw a lonely girl and a lonely grandson and thought love would grow.

He was wrong.

Love doesn’t grow in frozen ground.

And my ground has been frozen since the night I pressed my ear to the wall and heard my husband intimate with someone else.

After writing down all her other thoughts, she closed the journal and hid it under her mattress.

Half an hour later, she heard movements in the room next door.

She froze.

The wall was so thin. Why was the wall so thin? She had asked herself this question a hundred times since the wedding night. A thousand times. The builders must have used cheap plaster, or perhaps the Evermonts simply never imagined that someone would be forced to listen to her husband make love to another woman every single night.

Daisy pressed her hands over her ears.

Nevertheless, the sounds permeated the space: the creaking of the bed, the loud moaning, and occasional laughter. Her eyes became bloodshot, not from tears, as her body had forgotten how to weep, but from a more profound source—a burning sensation behind her eyeballs and an unbearable pressure in her chest with no outlet.

Jessica’s voice drifted through the wall, breathy and playful. "Baby, I saw you kiss her today on the cheek. Do you love her?"

Daisy’s hands froze over her ears. She listened.

Cedric replied immediately, his voice clear and unconcerned, like the question was ridiculous. "No. How should I love her? She looks like a living corpse. How should I love her?"

Daisy’s heart cracked. Not broke. Cracked. Breaking would require having something left to break.

Jessica pressed, her voice pouty. "But she is beautiful. People say how beautiful she is. Everyone talks about her big eyes and her soft skin. So you must feel desires for her. You’re a man, after all."

A pause. Then Cedric laughed. "So what? She is mute. It disgusts me. The thought of touching her... she would probably just lie there. A dead fish on the bed. Staring at me with those empty eyes."

Another pause. His voice dropped lower. "Unlike you. Your voice is heavenly...and.."

Jessica giggled.

The sounds resumed.

Daisy pressed her hands harder against her ears. She pressed until her head ached, until her temples throbbed, until she could feel her own heartbeat pounding against her palms.