Chapter 16 Luca
LUCA
Ithink I stepped out of bed the wrong way, because the morning only gets worse and worse. Coffee's burnt, meetings stack, and Declan's already waiting in my office like a problem tattooed to my life.
"We need to discuss your... situation," Declan says, settling into my office like he owns it.
Belle. He means Belle, but he won't say her name. Like speaking it might give her power over him too.
"Use her name," I set down my coffee harder than necessary. "You're not casting spells."
His smile could cut glass. "Aren't I?"
I hate that look on Declan's face. That smug, snake-oil smile that says he's found something to use against me. He's been circling Belle like a vulture for days, and now he thinks he's got meat.
My brother's always loved his dramatic ways. Too bad for him I'm not in the mood for theater today.
So, I let the silence stretch and let him climb into it, as he usually does.
"She's manipulating you," he says finally. "And I don't say that lightly."
"You don't say anything lightly." I give him the stare that empties rooms. "The genius in the room, after all, aren't you?"
Checkmate. That hits him smack in his pride. He's always wanted to be in control of our empire. Hates that I got it by age alone.
He fixes up that wounded look faster than I can enjoy it.
"Thought you might want to see this." He taps the folder with one finger. "Evidence."
I don't touch it. "Whatever it is, I'm sure it can wait."
"It's about your little princess." His voice drops an octave. "Belle's been lying to you, Luca."
Now he has my attention, but I'll be damned if I let him see it. I lean back in my chair, face blank as concrete. "Is that right?"
"Open the folder."
I stare him down, then flip the damn thing open just to get him off my back. Inside are photos—grainy security camera stills showing Belle entering a medical clinic. Time stamps. Dates.
I freeze. This was when she said she was out meeting her father.
"She's been sneaking out to doctor's appointments," Declan says, watching my face for any crack in the armor. "She's been there twice now."
I close the folder, slide it back across the desk. "You're having my fiancée followed?"
"Someone has to look out for the family interests when you're thinking with your dick."
I stand so fast that my chair slams into the wall behind me. "Get out."
"Really? That's your response? She's hiding something from you, and you're mad at me?"
"Going to a doctor isn't warfare," I sneer. "It doesn't make her dangerous. Instead of accusing me of thinking with my dick, use your goddamn brain."
"You didn't know she was going, did you?"
The alarms in my head start to ring. If she's been sick, why hasn't she told me? He watches for it. I don't give him the satisfaction of grabbing something.
"You done?" I ask.
"Not even close," he says. "She's a liability. She keeps secrets. She lies to your face and then bakes cookies with your kid like she's an innocent disney princess. It's strategic."
Or it's survival, my head says. Or it's plain old kindness. Or simply her trying to hold herself together while the walls close in.
Out loud I say nothing. Declan fills the space.
"You think I'm heartless," he says, softer. "I'm not. I see the way you look at her. That's why I'm here. Because the way you look at her is the way a man stops seeing straight. And when you stop seeing straight, you get us all killed."
He means Boston. He means a thousand other nights we don't name after Elena died.
"Say what you're really thinking," I tell him.
"She could be a plant. She could be working you."
The words land in my chest and look around like they might like to plant suspicion there.
I don't let it stay.
"Women like Belle always have an agenda." He leans forward, voice dropping to a whisper. "She spreads her legs, bats those green eyes, and suddenly the mighty Luca Moretti is pussy-whipped and stupid."
The words detonate in my chest. I'm around the desk before conscious thought kicks in, my fist connecting with his jaw in a satisfying crack of bone on bone.
"Jesus Christ, Luca!" Blood trickles from the corner of his mouth.
"Talk about her like that again," I say, "and I'll break more than your pretty face."
He works his jaw. "You're defending her after what I just showed you?"
"What you showed me is that you've been stalking my fiancée and invading her privacy."
"I'm protecting our family!"
"No." I round the desk, get right in his face. "You're undermining me. Trying to drive a wedge between Belle and me because you can't stand that I might actually be happy."
Declan's eyes narrow. "You think this is about your happiness? This is about survival. She could be anyone, Luca. FBI. Rival. Or just a gold-digger with good timing."
"She's none of those things."
"How can you be so sure?"
I'm not. That's the bitch of it. Belle's been distant lately. Something's off, and we both know it.
But like hell am I giving Declan the satisfaction.
I clench my fists at my sides, willing myself not to hit him again. "You've said your piece. Now get out."
Declan sighs, like I'm the unreasonable one here. "Fine. I've done my duty as your brother. What you do with the information is up to you."
He heads for the door, pauses. "Just ask yourself this: if she's not hiding anything, why hasn't she told you where she's been going?"
The door closes behind him.
I stand there, thinking of Belle with her secrets.
No.
I refuse to let Declan plant these seeds of doubt. Belle has her reasons. Maybe she's scared. Maybe she's not sure how to tell me. Maybe she's not even keeping secrets, and this is all just another one of Declan's mind games.
Only one way to find out.
I need to find Belle.
But she's not in her room. Not in the kitchen. Not in the garden where she sometimes reads.
"Have you seen Belle?" I ask one of the maids.
She shakes her head. "Not since this morning, sir. She was baking with Miss Sofia."
I check the living room, the library, even the pool house. Nothing.
The panic is now all I see and feel.
Where the hell is she?
I've turned the entire estate upside down. My security team is checking the cameras.
The anxiety claws into me, an unwelcome little fucker. With Belle missing, I'm terrified. What if Declan was right? What if, someday, she gets what she wants and leaves. Where does that leave Sofia? Me?
I storm back into the house, ready to tear the place apart again, when I hear it—the faint sound of a television coming from Sofia's room.
I climb the stairs with my heart in my throat, and freeze in the doorway.
And there they are; my whole world in one frame.
Sofia sprawled like a starfish, dark hair wild against white pillows, one small arm thrown protectively across Belle's waist. Belle curled toward her, hand resting on her stomach, face peaceful in sleep.
The TV throws pale blue across both of them.
The room is littered with evidence of a party: crayons, stuffed animals, a bowl full of snacks.
My chest tightens, then loosens, like a fist unclenching. The panic drains incrementally, leaving me a little shaky and annoyed at being human.
I stand in the doorway and let myself want: A quieter life, fewer cameras, a version of me that knows how to hold a woman without looking over her shoulder for ghosts, and a life where I step into this room without feeling like I'm going to wake up and it'll all be gone.
My eyes stick on the scene and refuse to move. Declan's words spin in my head, and I push them away before they can land.
I don't know. Maybe I'm an idiot or a coward. Maybe I'm protecting her by not naming it suspicion. Maybe I'm protecting myself.
Sofia snuffles and rolls, and Belle's hand adjusts without waking, the kind of protective move you don't teach. You either have it or you don't.
She has it.
A memory sneaks in—early morning, a woman laughing in the kitchen, baby Sofia kicking in a high chair, me thinking life is ugly and then wrong and then ugly again, and maybe I can leave it all behind and find us all a slice of heaven to live in.
I remember the way things ended.
The boom I still hear sometimes when I close my eyes.
Loss is like muscle memory in this house.
I swallow around it. I step closer. The cartoon cracks a joke; the laugh track claps for itself. I want to turn the TV off and freeze them in this exact light where the world is simple. I don't move.
"Life could've been different," I hear myself say—too quiet to be for anyone but me.
Maybe. Or maybe I'd have found a new way to ruin it.
Belle shifts, and I freeze like a thief, but she only burrows. I kneel without thinking. My fingers hover over her hair but don't touch.
Sofia's face is open, peaceful in sleep. I look at her, and something inside me gives up pretending.
"Sofia and I can't handle any more loss," I whisper. Saying it out loud doesn't make it less true. It just makes it real enough to hurt.
I exhale. Long. Quiet. Ready to stand up and go back out.
Then Belle's lashes flutter.
She just blinks, registers me, registers Sofia heavy on her arm, registers the quiet in my face.
Her voice is a whisper, rinsed in sleep, and it hits me like salvation. "Then stop pushing me away."