Claimed By The Mafia Don (Ariella and Asher) novel Chapter 422

ASHER

As soon as Leon disappeared, the room became quieter. I slipped my hands into my pockets.

“How is he doing?” I asked.

Sia’s face softened immediately.

“He’s doing great,” she said honestly. “Just as he said himself. If he keeps progressing like this, I’ll contact the school so he can sit for the exams with the others.”

“That’s great to hear,” I nodded.

And it really was. For all the chaos surrounding us lately, Leon was thriving. Perhaps because he was loved, or maybe because, despite everything, this house had become a home for him.

“Okay,” I said after a moment. “I’ll leave you to it.”

Then her expression softened slightly. “How is Ariella?” she asked quietly.

I paused for a second before answering honestly.

“We’ll just have to wait and see.”

She nodded slowly. I gave her a small smile before walking back out of the room. Straight back toward Ariella. I stopped by my office first, grabbed my laptop and the files I needed, and then carried everything back into our bedroom. I didn’t want her waking up and finding herself alone.

*

I don’t know what I expected would happen when Ariella finally woke up that evening.

Leon kept coming in and out of the room every couple of minutes just to check on his mother. He would quietly walk over to the bed, kiss her cheek gently, and then look at me seriously before reminding me again and again to call him the moment she woke up.

Like I would forget. Like there was anything in this world capable of pulling my attention away from her right now. Eventually, it was time for dinner and Leon left with Maria after making me promise one last time that I would call him if his mother opened her eyes.

Maria brought Ariella’s food upstairs later that evening, but of course, she was still sleeping. So I told her to keep it warm until she woke up. Then I had my own dinner sitting beside the bed, watching my wife sleep while feeling completely fucking useless.

That was the worst part. Not being able to fix this. Not being able to eliminate the problem in front of me. My entire life, every issue had a solution. Every threat could be removed and every enemy could disappear. But this? This was grief And grief wasn’t something I could shoot, threaten, or bury in the ground.

I couldn’t fix Ariella’s pain. And the helplessness of that feeling sat inside my chest like something heavy and poisonous.

“I’m fine.”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

Over and over again. Like if she repeated the lie enough times, maybe it would eventually become true. But she wasn’t fine. God.... She was getting worse. And the terrifying part was that she was falling apart so quietly that most people probably wouldn’t even notice it happening.

I wasn’t home the day I finally figured it out, and somehow that broke me even more. Because I did try to talk to her. I tried. But every single time I asked if she was okay, Ariella would just smile softly and tell me she was fine. That everything was okay. And maybe that was the problem. She was trying too hard to be normal.

I started noticing the little things after that day. The way she would come out of the shower with her eyes too red like she’d been crying under the water where nobody could hear her. The way she laughed was too hard at things that weren’t even funny. The way she forced smiles onto her face like she was trying to convince herself she was okay.

But I knew her. I knew when something was wrong with her. And little by little, I could see grief draining the life out of her., killing her slowly from the inside. What hurt the most was that she wouldn’t let me carry any of it with her.

I didn’t know why. Maybe she was trying to protect me, maybe she thought talking about it would make it real or maybe she didn’t even know how to explain the kind of pain she was feeling.

But God... watching her pretend was destroying me. I wanted to shake her sometimes and tell her to stop pretending with me. To stop acting strong every second of the day, especially not with me.

But I couldn’t..... Because every time I looked at her, she looked exhausted already.