Chapter 4 - THE WOMAN HE WAS SUPPOSED TO MARRY
Nora screamed for Lorenzo.
Within seconds, the estate erupted.
Security sealed every exit.
Marcus searched the surveillance system.
Then they discovered something impossible.
Eleven minutes of footage had been erased.
Someone inside the estate had taken Giovanni.
Lorenzo looked ready to tear the mansion apart stone by stone.
Nora noticed something everyone else missed.
Giovanni’s slippers were gone.
“So?”
Marcus looked confused.
“If someone dragged him away quickly, why put on his slippers?”
Lorenzo turned.
Nora continued.
“And his medication is missing.”
Marcus checked.
She was right.
“This wasn’t rushed,” Nora said. “Someone moved him carefully.”
Lorenzo’s gaze shifted toward the old service corridors.
His father had designed the mansion.
Including passages absent from the modern blueprints.
They found Giovanni forty minutes later in the abandoned chapel beneath the east wing.
Alive.
And beside him stood a woman in a white cashmere coat.
“Hello, Lorenzo.”
Lorenzo stopped.
“Celeste.”
Nora immediately understood there was history.
Celeste DeLuca was elegant, beautiful, and perfectly composed.
She was also the daughter of another powerful family.
More importantly, she had once been engaged to Lorenzo.
Giovanni had summoned her.
Not with speech.
With an emergency button hidden beneath his wheelchair.
Celeste had secretly given it to him years earlier.
“Your father stopped trusting the house staff three years ago,” she explained.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I tried.”
“No.”
“You refused every call after we ended our engagement.”
Pain flickered across her face.
“You assumed everything involving me was another attempt by our families to force the marriage.”
Nora quietly stepped back.
This was not her world.
Not her family.
Not her war.
But Giovanni reached for her.
His fingers closed around her hand.
Celeste noticed.
So did Lorenzo.
Later, while Giovanni rested, Celeste explained the deeper truth.
Giovanni’s stroke had occurred two days before he planned to rewrite the Moretti Family Trust.
The existing trust divided billions among Lorenzo, Elias, and several family-controlled foundations.
But Giovanni had discovered Elias was laundering family money through medical charities.
He planned to remove him.
Then came the stroke.
“And the document disappeared,” Celeste said.
Lorenzo stared into the fireplace.
“How much?”
“Potentially nine hundred million.”
Nora nearly choked.
Celeste looked at her.
“And if Giovanni becomes legally competent again, Elias loses everything.”
The motive was suddenly obvious.
Keep Giovanni alive.
Keep him silent.
Keep him legally incompetent.
For five years.
Nora felt sick.
That evening, Celeste found Nora alone in the kitchen.
“You love him?”
Nora nearly dropped her glass.
“Who?”
Celeste smiled.
“Relax. I meant Giovanni.”
“Oh.”
Nora flushed.
Celeste laughed softly.
“You thought I meant Lorenzo.”
“No.”
“You absolutely did.”
Nora looked away.
“He’s my employer.”
“And?”
“And terrifying.”
“That’s not an answer.”
Nora’s voice lowered.
“I’m pregnant with another man’s baby, broke, and sleeping in a room guarded by armed men because somebody may be trying to kill an elderly Mafia Don. Romance isn’t exactly high on my priority list.”
Celeste studied her.
Then surprisingly, she smiled.
“I like you.”
Nora blinked.
“That feels like a threat.”
“It might be.”
For the first time in days, Nora laughed.
From the doorway, Lorenzo heard it.
And stopped.
He hadn’t heard Nora laugh like that before.
Something unfamiliar tightened inside his chest.
Celeste noticed him watching.
Her smile became knowing.
Later that night, Lorenzo found Nora in the library.
“You should be resting.”
“You should stop ordering me around.”
“You’re six months pregnant.”
“Thank you. I had forgotten.”
He almost smiled.
Then Nora noticed blood on his knuckles.
“What happened?”
“Nothing.”
“That’s clearly blood.”
“Not mine.”
She stared.
“I don't want to know, do I?”
“No.”
She fetched a first-aid box anyway.
“Sit.”
Lorenzo actually obeyed.
Nora cleaned the cuts.
His hand was enormous in hers.
Neither spoke.
The silence changed.
For the first time, she became aware of how close they were.
Lorenzo watched her lower her eyes.
Then Lily kicked.
Nora gasped.
His hand immediately pulled away.
“What?”
“She kicked.”
Something almost boyish crossed his face.
“Does it hurt?”
“No.”
Another kick.
Without thinking, Nora took his hand.
She placed it against her belly.
Lorenzo froze.
Then Lily kicked beneath his palm.
His entire expression changed.
Wonder.
Fear.
Something softer.
Nora looked at him.
He looked at her.
For several seconds, neither moved.
Then a gunshot exploded downstairs.
Lorenzo was on his feet instantly.
“Stay here.”
He drew a pistol and ran.
Nora followed despite his order.
In the foyer, one of Lorenzo’s guards lay bleeding.
The front doors stood open.
Snow blew across the marble.
And pinned to the wounded man’s jacket was a photograph.
Nora.
Taken three months earlier.
Before she ever applied for the maid position.
May you like
On the back were four handwritten words.
SHE WAS ALWAYS THE KEY.
