Chapter 4 - THE OTHER WOMAN’S SECRET
Serena saw the change in Lucian before he spoke.
Not fear.
Lucian Moretti did not display fear in ordinary ways.
He became still.
“Take Leo into the other room,” he said.
Serena’s eyes hardened.
“No.”
“Serena.”
“No more rooms I’m sent out of while men decide what I’m allowed to know.”
Marcus remained silent.
Lucian looked at his wife for several seconds.
Then something surrendered in his face.
“Fine.”
He sat.
“Bianca Vale works for Europol.”
Serena stared at him.
Then she laughed.
It was quiet and disbelieving.
“Of course she does.”
“It’s true.”
“The beautiful woman photographed touching your ankle in Sicily is secretly law enforcement?”
“She wasn’t touching my ankle.”
“Wonderful clarification.”
Lucian exhaled.
“Her name isn’t Bianca Vale. It’s Bianca Valenti. Her father worked with mine.”
Serena’s sarcasm disappeared.
Lucian continued.
“Six months ago, someone began using Moretti shipping routes to move weapons through ports we control legally. Whoever was doing it had access to old organization codes.”
“Why didn’t you go to federal authorities?”
“Because someone inside the investigation was leaking information.”
“And Bianca?”
“She approached me.”
“In secret.”
“Yes.”
“In Palermo.”
“Yes.”
“While your wife was thirty-eight weeks pregnant.”
Lucian’s jaw tightened.
“Yes.”
Serena looked down at Leo.
“You always have a reason.”
The words struck harder than shouting.
Lucian leaned forward.
“This time the reason matters. The black crown belongs to Carlo Ventresca.”
Marcus swore softly.
Serena recognized the name.
Everyone in Lucian’s world did.
Carlo had once been Lucian’s father’s closest ally.
He had disappeared after an internal war fifteen years earlier.
“He’s alive?” she asked.
“We believe so.”
“And why does he care about me?”
Lucian looked at Leo.
Serena instinctively tightened her arms.
“Lucian.”
“Ventresca believes my father stole control of the organization from his family. He thinks blood legitimizes power.”
Serena understood.
“He wants your son.”
“Yes.”
“For leverage?”
Lucian’s silence frightened her more than the answer.
“For succession.”
The room went cold.
Marcus stood.
“We need police.”
“We need people we can trust,” Lucian corrected.
“And you decide who those people are?”
Serena asked.
Lucian looked at her.
“No.”
That surprised everyone.
“You do.”
Within two hours, Serena had established conditions.
She would not return to the penthouse.
Lucian would not secretly track her.
No armed guard would enter her residence without permission.
Every security arrangement would be disclosed to her and Marcus.
Lucian agreed to all of it.
The last condition hurt most.
“He does not stay overnight with you.”
Lucian looked at Leo.
“Until when?”
“Until I trust you.”
“And when will that be?”
“I don’t know.”
For a man accustomed to controlling outcomes, uncertainty was torture.
But Lucian nodded.
That evening, Serena returned to the Brooklyn brownstone Elena had borrowed from a friend.
Lucian remained outside in a car until every light went out.
At 1:17 a.m., his new phone rang.
Bianca.
“We found Ventresca’s broker.”
“Where?”
“Queens.”
“I’m coming.”
“No.”
Lucian’s voice sharpened.
“Bianca.”
“He wants you angry. Predictable.”
“He photographed my son.”
“And that means we stop making mistakes.”
Lucian looked up at Serena’s bedroom window.
“I already made the mistake.”
“What mistake?”
“I thought protecting my family meant keeping them outside my war.”
Bianca was quiet.
Lucian continued.
“All I did was keep myself outside my family.”
The following morning, Serena received an envelope.
No postage.
No courier.
It had been pushed beneath the brownstone door.
Inside was a photograph.
Lucian.
Twenty-six years old.
Standing beside his father.
Beside them stood Carlo Ventresca.
On the back were seven words.
ASK YOUR HUSBAND WHO REALLY KILLED HIS FATHER.
Serena called Lucian.
He arrived in eleven minutes.
She handed him the photograph.
His face drained.
“Is it true?”
“What?”
“That Carlo knows something about your father’s death.”
Lucian sat slowly.
“My father was shot outside a restaurant.”
“I know.”
“I was told Ventresca ordered it.”
“And?”
Lucian stared at the old photograph.
“I never saw proof.”
Serena felt something shift.
“Then why did you believe it?”
“Because my mother told me.”
That afternoon, Lucian visited his mother.
Isabella Moretti lived in a guarded estate north of the city.
At seventy-one, she remained elegant, sharp, and terrifyingly composed.
Lucian placed the photograph before her.
She did not touch it.
“Where did you get this?”
“Serena.”
For the first time, Isabella looked frightened.
“Carlo is alive.”
“I know.”
Lucian froze.
“You know?”
Isabella closed her eyes.
The truth came slowly.
Lucian’s father had not been murdered by Carlo.
He had been betrayed by someone inside the Moretti organization after attempting to leave organized crime entirely.
Carlo had tried to warn him.
“Who betrayed him?” Lucian demanded.
Isabella looked at her son.
“Your uncle Vittorio.”
Lucian stepped backward.
Vittorio Moretti had been his adviser for fifteen years.
The man who had taught him how to run the organization.
The man who had stood beside him at his wedding.
Leo’s intended godfather.
And that night, across Manhattan, Vittorio received a message from an unknown number.
LUCIAN KNOWS.
Vittorio read it.
Then he smiled.
Because Lucian knew only half the truth.
May you like
The other half concerned Serena.
And if she discovered it, divorce would become the least dangerous thing threatening the Moretti family.
