Chapter 1 - THE MONEY MATTEO NEVER KNEW I CONTROLLED
The first transfer was only $80,000.
The second was $210,000.
The third made my fingers stop over the keyboard.
$1.4 million.
Anyone watching those numbers move across Matteo Rossi’s private banking network would have assumed I was robbing my husband while he vacationed in Greece with his mistress.
I wasn’t.
Every dollar I touched legally belonged to me.
Matteo simply didn’t know that.
Three years earlier, before our wedding, his attorneys had placed several properties and investment accounts under my name to shield them from investigations. Matteo had laughed about it at the time.
“You’re cleaner than I am,” he said. “On paper, half this family belongs to you.”
He expected me never to read those papers.
That was his mistake.
For the past year, I had copied contracts, beneficiary forms, account statements, and ownership records. I knew which businesses were legitimate. I knew which accounts were dangerous. And I knew exactly how much money could be moved without touching a single dollar tied to Matteo’s criminal operations.
The transfers went into a new irrevocable trust.
Beneficiary:
My unborn child.
Secondary beneficiary:
Norah Rossi.
Trustee:
A Boston attorney Matteo had never met.
When the final confirmation appeared, I released a breath.
For the first time since marrying Matteo, I had enough money to disappear without asking him for permission.
Then the study door opened.
I spun around.
Elena, Matteo’s sixty-two-year-old housekeeper, stood frozen in the doorway.
She had worked for the Rossi family longer than Matteo had been alive.
Her eyes moved from me to the laptop.
Then to the packed suitcase beside the desk.
“You’re leaving him.”
It wasn’t a question.
I closed the laptop.
“I’m leaving before he decides I’m not allowed to.”
Elena stepped inside and quietly shut the door.
“You think Santorini gives you four days.”
“It gives me two.”
“Why two?”
“Because Matteo gets bored when he’s pretending to be happy.”
To my surprise, Elena almost smiled.
Then her expression became serious.
“You need to leave tonight.”
My hand went instinctively to my stomach.
“Why?”
She walked to Matteo’s bookshelf, removed an old leather-bound ledger, and pulled a folded photograph from behind it.
She placed it in front of me.
Harper.
But she wasn’t alone.
She was standing outside a restaurant beside Matteo’s consigliere, Luca Bellini.
The photograph had been taken six months earlier.
Luca’s hand rested on Harper’s lower back.
Not romantically.
Possessively.
I looked at Elena.
“What is this?”
“Your husband thinks Harper belongs to him.”
“And?”
Elena’s voice dropped.
“She was never his.”
My pulse changed.
“Then whose?”
Elena tapped Luca’s face.
“His.”
I stared at the photograph.
Matteo’s closest friend.
The man who had stood beside him at our wedding.
The man who controlled half the security around our home.
“Why would Luca send Harper to Matteo?”
Elena looked toward the locked study door.
“To keep him distracted.”
“From what?”
She reached beneath her apron and placed a second item on the desk.
A medical invoice.
My name was printed across the top.
So was the name of my obstetrician.
Dr. Evans.
I frowned.
“What is this?”
“Read the procedure code.”
I did.
Then my blood turned cold.
It wasn’t for a prenatal exam.
It was for a private fetal DNA collection scheduled for the following Monday.
Authorized by Luca Bellini.
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And beneath the authorization was a note:
PATERNITY CONFIRMATION REQUIRED BEFORE SUCCESSION.
