Chapter 7 - THE MAN GUARDING OUR HOUSE WORKED FOR LUCA
Marco DeSantis had protected Adrian for nine years.
He knew our routines.
Our cars.
Which windows I opened when it rained.
Which florist I used for my mother.
That realization frightened me more than Luca.
A stranger can watch you.
A trusted guard already knows where to look.
Marco disappeared before investigators reached him.
Luca stopped answering calls.
Two men Adrian trusted most were gone.
I moved hotels.
My decision.
Not Adrian’s.
I hired security through a former federal agent Rachel knew.
Independent.
Adrian offered to pay.
I said no.
He accepted.
Progress measured in tiny humiliations.
Bianca came to see me.
She looked older than she had three days earlier.
“I did not know Luca was framing you.”
“I believe that.”
Relief crossed her face too quickly.
I continued.
“You still forged a notarial acknowledgment.”
Her shoulders lowered.
“Yes.”
“You still knew your son was cheating.”
“Yes.”
“You still paid Sofia to stay quiet.”
“Yes.”
“Then we understand each other.”
Bianca cried.
I did not hug her.
She whispered:
“I wanted a grandchild.”
I looked at her.
“You had a daughter-in-law.”
That silenced her.
For years she had asked when Adrian and I would give her grandchildren.
Then Adrian told me we should wait.
Apparently Bianca had decided any Moretti child was better than waiting for me.
“Did you know Adrian kept saying our life was too dangerous for children?”
She closed her eyes.
“Yes.”
“And you let Sofia become part of it.”
“Yes.”
That betrayal had layers.
Then Bianca revealed another secret.
Luca’s resentment toward Adrian started when their grandfather changed the succession trust eighteen years earlier.
Originally, Luca’s father’s branch would inherit equal management power.
Then Luca’s father was arrested for financial crimes.
The trust was rewritten.
Adrian’s branch received control.
Luca spent his adulthood serving as attorney to the cousin who inherited the position he believed should have been his.
The pregnancy created his opportunity.
No child?
No descendant block.
Child with Claire?
Claire controls the temporary trust.
Child with an outside woman whose father Luca could influence?
Perfect.
Except I refused to sign.
So he forged me.
Then investigators searched Marco DeSantis’s apartment.
They found cash.
Fake passports.
Surveillance photographs.
And one printed itinerary.
My mother’s address.
Tomorrow.
I felt my body go cold.
Adrian stood.
“I’m sending men—”
“No.”
He stopped.
I called Rachel’s security contact.
Police moved Mom immediately.
Adrian watched without interfering.
That may sound small.
For him, it was enormous.
Hours later, Luca sent me one message.
Sign the real waiver, and everyone you love becomes irrelevant to this fight.
I handed it to federal investigators.
No reply.
Then another message came.
A photograph.
Sofia leaving her doctor’s office months earlier.
Taken before she told Adrian she was pregnant.
Written underneath:
The child was always the plan. Adrian was merely the route.
But in the corner of the photograph, reflected in a car window, stood someone we had not expected.
Marco DeSantis.
May you like
Adrian’s trusted security chief had been following Sofia too.
Luca had been playing both sides of Adrian’s affair from the beginning.
