Chapter 10 - THE DEAL THAT BECAME A TRAP
For the first time all night, Marco looked uncertain.
Bellini men appeared at both exits.
Daniel’s team moved behind us.
Marco had believed the Bellinis were compromised.
He had been wrong.
Lorenzo looked at me.
“I owe you an apology.”
“This is a strange time.”
“I know.”
“For which insult?”
“All of them.”
“Good start.”
Dante almost smiled despite the gun pointed toward his aunt.
Vittorio stepped forward.
“You used my son’s driver.”
Marco shrugged.
“Everybody uses somebody.”
“That is where men like you become predictable.”
Vittorio looked toward Sophie.
“She explained it to me.”
I had.
Before entering, I called Vittorio.
The Bellini driver’s movements did not match Lorenzo’s schedule.
That meant the driver was compromised, not necessarily Lorenzo.
We fed him false information.
Marco took it.
Now his escape routes belonged to us.
Marco’s smile faded.
He pressed the gun harder against Lucia.
“I still walk.”
“No,” Dante said.
“You don’t.”
Marco laughed.
“You kill me, every account Orfeo holds goes public.”
“Let it.”
Lucia’s head snapped toward Dante.
“You don’t understand.”
“I understand enough.”
Dante lowered his weapon.
“Release all of it.”
Marco stared.
“You would destroy your own family?”
“No.”
Dante looked at Lucia.
“I would stop destroying everyone else to protect it.”
That was the moment I knew my husband had changed.
Not completely.
Men like Dante did not wake up saints.
But he had stopped confusing power with preservation.
Marco’s eyes moved toward me.
“You did this.”
“No.”
I shook my head.
“You did.”
He pulled the trigger.
Nothing.
Click.
Marco stared at the gun.
Daniel smiled.
“You shouldn’t leave loaded weapons in a coat checked by professionals.”
Marco lunged.
Dante hit him once.
Hard enough to drop him.
The Bellinis disarmed him.
Lucia started crying.
Not from relief.
From defeat.
Hours later, authorities received carefully selected financial evidence tying Marco to international fraud, attempted murder, bribery, and organized cargo theft.
Lucia agreed to surrender control of every legitimate company she owned.
What happened inside the family stayed more complicated.
It always would.
Dante and I returned to the penthouse just before dawn.
The diamond necklace from dinner still lay against my throat.
He stared at it.
Then unclasped it.
“I’m sorry.”
“For the necklace?”
“For what I said before dinner.”
I looked at him.
“Be my wife, not the smartest person in the room?”
His jaw tightened.
“Yes.”
“You were an ass.”
“Yes.”
“You laughed.”
“I know.”
“That part hurt more than Lorenzo.”
“I know.”
I sat down.
“Do you?”
Dante knelt in front of me.
Not for forgiveness.
Not yet.
“To get that agreement, I was willing to let men disrespect you because I decided the business mattered more.”
His voice was quiet.
“That is the ugliest thing I learned about myself tonight.”
I studied him.
Then I asked the question neither of us could avoid.
“Can you forgive me for knowing who you were before we met?”
Dante looked at me for a long time.
“I don’t know.”
It hurt.
But it was honest.
Then he added:
“I do know I want the chance to find out.”
That might have been enough.
Except Daniel called.
They had searched Marco’s warehouse office.
Found one final file.
Our wedding photographs.
Our honeymoon itinerary.
Every hotel.
Every flight.
Every private dinner.
May you like
Marco had not started watching me after Bellacorte.
He had been watching Dante and me since the day we met.
