Chapter 7 - The Rules of Alessandro Vitali
The penthouse went into lockdown.
Metal shutters descended across the private elevator.
Marco’s security team swept every room.
Alessandro issued orders with terrifying calm.
I stood barefoot in the hallway watching him become the man newspapers feared.
Then I noticed his hand.
It was trembling.
Barely.
But I saw it.
I walked over and took it.
He stopped speaking.
Marco looked away.
“Continue,” Alessandro told him.
But his fingers closed around mine.
That tiny contradiction explained Alessandro better than any biography ever could.
Powerful enough to command fifty people.
Terrified enough to need one hand.
The hacker had breached the building through an obsolete maintenance server.
They left one file.
A video.
Sofia Vitali appeared on-screen.
Alessandro stopped breathing.
She was beautiful.
Dark hair.
Amber eyes.
His eyes.
The recording date was August 2001.
“If Alessandro ever sees this,” she began, “then Jonathan failed to destroy it.”
Alessandro moved closer.
Sofia explained that ORPHEUS had begun as a legitimate emergency fund used by several wealthy Chicago families to protect whistleblowers and witnesses.
Then someone corrupted it.
Money disappeared.
People disappeared.
Sofia and Jonathan Bellamy discovered the theft.
They planned to expose it.
But Sofia had another reason to run.
Her newborn daughter.
“Her name is Isabella,” Sofia whispered.
Alessandro covered his mouth.
I squeezed his hand.
Sofia continued.
“Vittorio believes she died during delivery. Jonathan arranged her disappearance. Rebecca Bellamy will help place her somewhere safe.”
The video ended abruptly.
Alessandro stood motionless.
His sister had survived.
Somewhere.
Possibly for twenty-five years.
“We find her,” I said.
His eyes met mine.
“We?”
“Yes, we.”
“You’re pregnant and currently targeted.”
“Correct.”
“You’re staying here.”
“No.”
“Elizabeth.”
“No.”
His eyes narrowed.
“This is not negotiable.”
“Then enjoy negotiating with yourself.”
I walked away.
He followed.
“You are carrying my child.”
“Our child.”
“Which increases my concern rather than reducing your stubbornness.”
“You don’t get to lock me in a tower because you’re afraid.”
He stopped.
That hit him.
I softened.
“Alessandro, protection without choice is just another kind of cage.”
His expression changed.
His mother had probably taught him that lesson by dying.
He looked down.
“Then give me rules.”
“What?”
“Rules I must follow.”
I stared.
“You’re serious?”
“Yes.”
So we wrote them on the kitchen chalkboard.
Rule one: Alessandro could not secretly buy my workplace, school, apartment, or anything else affecting my life.
Rule two: no tracking me without my knowledge.
Rule three: security decisions involving me required discussion unless there was immediate danger.
Rule four: he could worry obnoxiously.
I added that one.
He added rule five.
Elizabeth must eat breakfast.
I erased it.
He rewrote it.
I erased it again.
The next morning it had been engraved onto a small brass plaque.
I nearly murdered him.
Bianca laughed for ten straight minutes.
But something changed between us.
Alessandro stopped treating my safety as a problem he could solve by ownership.
I stopped interpreting every protective instinct as a threat.
We began meeting in the middle.
The search for Isabella led to a Catholic adoption agency that had closed in 2007.
Its records had supposedly burned.
One surviving employee remained.
Margaret Shaw.
She lived outside Milwaukee.
We visited her together.
The eighty-three-year-old woman recognized Sofia immediately.
Then she looked at me.
Her teacup fell.
“You’re Rebecca’s daughter.”
“Yes.”
Margaret began crying.
“She saved that baby.”
“Isabella?”
“Yes.”
“Where did she go?”
Margaret shook her head.
“I promised.”
“She may be in danger,” Alessandro said.
Margaret studied him.
“You have Sofia’s eyes.”
His face tightened.
Finally, Margaret retrieved an envelope from behind a framed photograph.
Inside was an adoption record.
The child’s new surname had been Carter.
I stared at the page.
Carter.
Liam’s surname.
“No.”
I read the first name.
Isabella Grace Carter.
My hands went numb.
Liam had told me his older sister Grace died before I met him.
A car accident.
Age twenty-three.
Alessandro’s sister had been raised by Liam’s parents.
And she was dead.
Or so we thought.
Then Margaret said quietly:
“Grace Carter did not die in that accident.”
Alessandro looked up.
Margaret’s next words changed everything.
“She staged her death because someone found her.”
“Where is she?” I whispered.
Margaret looked directly at me.
“You already know her.”
And from the hallway behind us, a woman said:
May you like
“Yes, Elizabeth does.”
Bianca De Luca stepped into the room.
