Chapter 2 - DANTE DID NOT KNOW I WAS PREGNANT
I was thirty-six weeks pregnant, and my husband still did not know the baby was a boy.
That fact suddenly terrified me.
Dante knew I was pregnant, obviously.
He had attended the first appointments.
Held my hair when morning sickness became violent.
Painted the nursery himself at midnight because he did not trust contractors around me.
But after I discovered Natalia, I stopped sharing things.
At twenty weeks, when the technician asked whether we wanted to know the sex, Dante had been in New York handling what he called a family emergency.
I said yes.
A boy.
I planned to tell him that evening.
He never came home.
Natalia did.
Not physically.
Her perfume arrived on his jacket.
I said nothing.
Now someone associated with North Meridian knew what Dante did not.
“Who knew?” Elias asked.
“My obstetrician. My sister Valentina. You.”
“Anyone in Dante’s security team?”
“No.”
Then I remembered.
A nurse had placed the ultrasound report inside my foundation tote bag.
I carried it into my office.
Natalia had been there that afternoon.
My stomach turned.
“She could have seen it.”
Elias nodded.
“Possibly.”
His phone rang again.
This time, the caller was Dante.
Elias looked at me.
I shook my head.
He rejected it.
Thirty seconds later, my phone rang.
DANTE.
I watched until the screen stopped glowing.
Again.
Again.
Then a message.
WHERE ARE YOU?
Another.
WE NEED TO TALK.
Then:
NATALIA IS GONE.
I frowned.
Elias noticed.
“What?”
“She left the gala.”
“That worries you?”
“No.”
It did.
Because Natalia had wanted to be seen.
She had stood beside Dante beneath chandeliers wearing gold while his pregnant wife removed her wedding ring.
Why disappear before enjoying the damage?
Then another message arrived.
Dante:
THE FOUNDATION ACCOUNTS WERE HIT.
CALL ME NOW.
I called.
He answered immediately.
“Where are you?”
“Safe.”
“Where?”
“Not relevant.”
His voice dropped.
“Isabella, thirty-eight million dollars just moved into a restricted account using your authorization.”
“It moved six weeks ago.”
Silence.
“What?”
“You didn’t know?”
“No.”
I closed my eyes.
I knew Dante’s lies.
After eight years, I knew the fractional pause before one.
This was not it.
“Your signature is on the transfer.”
“What transfer?”
My anger weakened around the edges.
“You really don’t know.”
“Send it to me.”
“No.”
“Isabella.”
“You lost the right to give me orders.”
Silence.
Then quietly:
“You’re right.”
That almost hurt worse.
I told him the entity name.
North Meridian.
Dante stopped breathing.
Not metaphorically.
I heard the silence change.
“You know that name.”
“Yes.”
“What is it?”
His answer came carefully.
“My father created North Meridian twenty-three years ago.”
“For what?”
“To hide clean money from my grandfather.”
“Why?”
“Because my grandfather was stealing from the family.”
I looked at Elias.
Dante continued.
“North Meridian was dissolved after my father died.”
“When?”
“Eleven years ago.”
I stared at the current account records.
Someone had resurrected a dead company.
Then Dante said:
“Isabella, there’s something I should have told you before we married.”
I almost laughed.
“What a crowded category.”
“My father didn’t die naturally.”
The highway seemed to narrow around us.
Dante’s voice hardened.
May you like
“He was murdered.”
“And the last person who saw him alive was Natalia Duca’s father.”
