Chapter 31
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Alessia
Two months earlier
His head is wrong, tilted at an angle that makes nausea rise in my throat. Blood mats his dark hair, pools beneath his skull, spreads across expensive stone in patterns that look almost decorative in the moonlight.
I press my fingers to his throat, searching for a pulse, and the stillness beneath my touch makes panic spike through my chest. Nothing at first, and then—there, so faint I almost miss it. A flutter beneath my fingertips, weak and irregular.
"No, no, no." I start pressing against his chest, trying to keep his heart beating even though my hands are shaking so badly I can barely maintain any kind of rhythm. "You can't die. Lorenzo, please. You have to stay alive."
Because if he dies, the Morettis will want to know how it happened, and the truth will get me killed.
His eyes flutter open for just a second, unfocused and glazed with pain, and his lips move around words I can barely hear. I lean closer without thinking, and that's when I catch it—that whispered rasp that sounds like it's being pulled from somewhere deep inside him.
"Bambola mia."
My doll. Even dying, even with his skull cracked open and his blood painting the stones, he still thinks he owns me.
Then his eyes go empty, staring past me at nothing, and I feel the last breath leave his lungs in a rattle that makes my stomach drop. The faint pulse beneath my fingers stutters once, twice, then stops completely.
"No." I keep pressing against his chest even though I know it's useless, even though I can feel that he's already gone. "Please don't do this. You can't leave me like this."
But he's dead. Lorenzo Moretti is dead, and I killed him.
My hands freeze on his chest, and I can't make them move again. My vision narrows to just Lorenzo's face, those empty eyes staring past me at nothing, and I can't look away even though I want to.
What have I done? What have I done? What have I fucking done?
My stomach heaves, and I barely manage to turn away before I'm retching onto the stones beside Lorenzo's body. Nothing comes up except bile that burns my throat, but my body keeps trying anyway, muscles clenching until my ribs ache.
The Morettis will kill me for this. They'll find out what happened and they'll make me pay. My hands are shaking so badly I can barely get them under control, and when I try to stand, my legs won't support me.
I need to run. Need to get out of here before someone comes. But where would I go? The Morettis have eyes everywhere, connections that reach into every corner of Chicago and beyond. There's nowhere I could hide that they wouldn't eventually find me.
Unless I can convince them, it wasn't me.
The thought cuts through the panic with sudden clarity. If they believe someone else did this, if they think outside enemies murdered Lorenzo while I was helpless to stop it, then I'm not a threat. I'm a victim. I'm someone who needs their protection instead of someone who deserves their vengeance.
My phone is in the pocket of my nightgown, and I pull it out with fingers that can barely grip the smooth surface. The screen blurs as I scroll through my contacts, and my stomach clenches when I realize who I have to call.
Don Emilio Moretti. My father-in-law, with his cold eyes and colder voice, the man who's always looked at me like I'm a disappointing addition to his family, someone who hasn't yet proven her worth.
But he's the only person who can handle this, the only one with enough power to control what happens next.
I press the call button and lift the phone to my ear with a hand that won't stop trembling.
It rings twice before his voice cuts through the line, sharp and alert despite the late hour. "Alessia? What's wrong?"
"Something's happened." My voice comes out high and broken, and I don't have to fake the terror that makes the words shake because the fear is real even if the story isn't. "I came downstairs and found Lorenzo on the patio. There's so much blood, Don Emilio. I think he's—I think he's dead."
The silence that follows stretches long enough that I wonder if the line has dropped, but then I hear him breathing on the other end, controlled and measured in a way that tells me he's already thinking through implications and responses.
"We're coming," he says finally, and his voice carries the kind of authority that's been giving orders for decades. "Don't touch anything. Stay where you are. We'll be there soon."
The line goes dead, leaving me kneeling in my dead husband's blood with nothing but moonlight and silence for company.
I look down at Lorenzo's still face, at the blood soaking into my nightgown, at my hands stained red from trying to save him. The Morettis are coming, and I need to get my story straight before they arrive.
Present
I open my eyes and find myself back in Matteo's bedroom, back in the present with my confession hanging in the air between us. My face is wet with tears I didn't realize I'd been crying, and my whole body is shaking with the memory of that night.
Matteo is still sitting on the edge of the bed, but his expression has changed. The anger is still there, but it's not directed at me. His hands are curled into fists so tight his knuckles have gone white, and I can see a muscle jumping in his jaw as he grinds his teeth together.
"He tried to rape you," Matteo says finally, and his voice is so quiet and deadly that it makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up. "That drunken bastard tried to force himself on you, and when you fought back, he strangled you."
"Yes." The word comes out barely above a whisper.
"And then you pushed him and he fell."
"Yes."
"That's not murder, Alessia." He turns to look at me, and what I see in his eyes makes something in my chest crack open. "That's self-defense. That's survival. Any court in the world would call it justified."
"The Morettis wouldn't see it that way." I wrap my arms around myself, suddenly cold despite the warm room.
"Then we make sure they never find out." His voice hardens, taking on that edge of absolute authority.
“It’s why I lied. I said I was pregnant, and that there were attackers I never saw—only heard. At the time, it felt like the most logical thing to do; Lorenzo had plenty of enemies. I just never imagined I’d end up with the man I blamed for his death.”
Matteo caresses my cheek and the says, "Whoever's been sending these letters, whoever knows what really happened that night—we find them before they can tell anyone else."
I search his face for any sign of disgust or condemnation, but all I see is grim determination and something that looks like protectiveness. "You're not angry with me?"
"I'm furious." He stands up and starts pacing, all that controlled energy finding an outlet in movement.
"But not at you. I'm angry at Lorenzo for what he tried to do.
I'm angry at the son of a bitch that’s been threatening you with this information.
And I'm angry at myself for not seeing how much danger you're in. "
"Matteo—"
"Somehow someone inside my organization knows your secret," he continues, cutting me off as he works through the implications. "Someone with enough access to have details about that night, someone who's been watching you closely enough to piece together what really happened. That's not random."
The weight of his words settles over me like a shroud. He's right. Whoever's been sending those letters hasn't just been guessing or fishing for information. They know. They know what I did, and they're using it as a weapon.
"What do we do?" I ask, and I hate how helpless my voice sounds.
Matteo stops pacing and turns to face me, and what I see in his expression makes my breath catch. This is the man who built an empire on blood and strategy, who's survived in a world that eats weak men alive, and right now he's looking at me like I'm something worth protecting.
"We find the traitor," he says simply. "And we eliminate the threat before it can destroy us both."