Chapter 2 - THE MAN I MARRIEDThe police arrived in less than four minutes.
Lucian did not touch Ethan.
That surprised everyone.
Most of all Ethan.
He stood near the marble column with two witnesses blocking his path and Marco positioned beside the front door.
Ethan kept glancing at Lucian as if waiting for the explosion.
It never came.
Lucian had always understood something men like Ethan never did.
Real control did not need theatrics.
When Officer Ramirez entered Belladonna with his partner, Lucian simply stepped aside.
“That man assaulted my wife.”
Ethan laughed nervously.
“You’re taking his word?”
“No,” the waitress said.
Every face turned toward her.
She was young, maybe twenty.
Her hands shook as she pointed toward Ethan.
“I saw it.”
The businessman who had stood earlier raised his hand.
“So did I.”
“So did we,” an elderly couple said.
Phones were already out.
Several people had recorded everything.
Ethan’s confidence began cracking.
“She attacked me first.”
“No, she didn’t,” the waitress said.
Officer Ramirez looked at me.
“Ma’am, would you like medical attention?”
Lucian answered before I could.
“Yes.”
I touched his arm.
“Lucian.”
He turned instantly.
“I’m breathing.”
“That isn’t the standard.”
“I don’t need an ambulance.”
“You’re pregnant.”
The word sounded strange coming from him.
Awed.
Terrified.
Possessive in a way that somehow had nothing to do with owning me and everything to do with suddenly understanding how much there was to lose.
I almost smiled.
Almost.
Then Ethan said, “You should ask her whose baby it is.”
Lucian slowly looked over his shoulder.
Officer Ramirez intervened.
“Sir, stop talking.”
But Ethan could never stop when cruelty was available.
“She didn’t tell you everything about us, did she, Moretti?”
My blood went cold.
Lucian looked at me.
Not suspiciously.
That somehow made it worse.
“Whatever he wants to say,” Lucian said, “he can say it through an attorney.”
Ethan smiled.
“Oh, she definitely didn’t tell you.”
Officer Ramirez cuffed him.
As he was taken toward the door, Ethan twisted around.
“Ask her about Philadelphia!”
My heart stopped.
Lucian noticed.
Of course he did.
He noticed everything about me.
Ethan laughed as officers pushed him outside.
“Ask your wife what happened at the Sterling Hotel!”
The doors closed behind him.
I stared at them.
Lucian said nothing.
Marco approached.
“Boss?”
“Get copies of every recording before people leave.”
Marco nodded.
“And Ethan?”
“Police have him.”
Marco waited.
It was a question without words.
Lucian’s answer came coldly.
“He stays with the police.”
Marco understood.
So did I.
No retaliation.
No alleyway disappearance.
No Moretti justice.
At least not today.
Lucian turned back to me.
“We’re going to the hospital.”
“I told you—”
“We’re going to the hospital.”
Normally I would have argued.
But my throat hurt.
My hands were shaking.
And beneath my palm existed a tiny person I had known about for approximately seven hours.
So I nodded.
Lucian removed his jacket and draped it around my shoulders.
As he guided me toward the door, I caught the waitress watching us.
Not fearfully.
Curiously.
Because almost everybody in Chicago knew Lucian Moretti’s name.
Some knew him as CEO of Moretti International Holdings.
Others knew about the restaurants, hotels, freight terminals, construction firms and nightclubs.
Then there were the whispers.
Organized crime.
Family connections.
Men who feared him.
Men who disappeared from his business circles.
Lucian never discussed those stories directly.
I had stopped asking for perfect innocence long ago.
I only demanded one promise before agreeing to marry him.
Never bring violence into our home.
He had kept it.
Now violence had followed me there anyway.
The hospital examination took nearly two hours.
Lucian sat beside the bed while a nurse photographed the bruising on my neck.
He never complained.
Never checked his phone.
Never left.
When the doctor finally entered with the ultrasound equipment, my pulse doubled.
“I’m very early,” I said.
“Approximately?”
“Seven weeks.”
Lucian’s head turned.
“Seven?”
I gave him a weak smile.
“I found out this morning.”
The doctor dimmed the lights.
A few minutes later, a flickering shape appeared on the screen.
I stared.
Lucian stared harder.
Then came a rapid little sound.
A heartbeat.
My breath caught.
Lucian’s entire body became still.
“That’s—”
“Your baby’s heartbeat,” the doctor said.
My eyes filled.
Lucian took my hand.
His grip was careful.
For a man who frightened half the city, he held me as though my fingers were made of glass.
The doctor smiled.
“Everything looks good.”
Only then did Lucian breathe again.
He leaned forward.
His forehead touched the back of my hand.
I watched the most feared man I had ever known close his eyes because he was overwhelmed by the sound of something smaller than his thumb.
“I bought shoes,” I whispered.
He laughed once.
A broken little sound.
“I saw.”
“They were supposed to be funny.”
“They’re ridiculous.”
“They’re adorable.”
“They look like mine.”
“That was the point.”
He kissed my fingers.
Then his expression changed.
“Did he know?”
I knew instantly who he meant.
“No.”
“Did anyone?”
“Only the clinic.”
“What was Philadelphia?”
There it was.
I looked toward the ultrasound screen.
“I should have told you.”
Lucian waited.
That was another thing about him.
He could make silence heavier than interrogation.
“Ethan nearly killed me there.”
His hand tightened around mine.
“Explain.”
“Two months before I left him, we went to Philadelphia for a wedding. He got drunk afterward. We fought in our hotel room.”
“About what?”
“I wanted to leave.”
Lucian’s eyes hardened.
“He pushed me against the balcony railing.”
The room suddenly felt colder.
“We were seventeen stories up.”
Lucian rose.
I grabbed his wrist.
“Sit down.”
He looked at me.
“Lucian.”
Slowly, he sat.
“I didn’t fall,” I continued. “A hotel employee knocked on the door because someone complained about the noise. Ethan stopped.”
“Was there a police report?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because I lied.”
He said nothing.
“I told security we were arguing. I said I tripped.”
“Why?”
“Because Ethan’s father was a judge.”
Lucian’s expression shifted.
Richard Cole.
Cook County appellate judge.
Respected.
Connected.
Untouchable.
Or so people believed.
“I left Ethan two months later,” I said.
“And he found you today by accident?”
“I don’t know.”
“You were at Belladonna for a medical appointment.”
“Yes.”
“Who knew where you’d be?”
“The clinic called yesterday to move paperwork pickup there because one of their administrative staff was working nearby.”
Lucian frowned.
“That makes no sense.”
“I thought it was strange too, but—”
His phone vibrated.
Marco.
Lucian answered.
“What?”
He listened.
His face became unreadable.
“When?”
Another pause.
“Send it.”
He ended the call.
“What happened?” I asked.
Lucian looked at me.
“Ethan made bail.”
“What?”
“His father arranged it.”
“He was arrested two hours ago.”
“And now he’s out.”
My heart started racing.
Lucian stood and walked toward the window.
His phone vibrated again.
A message.
He opened it.
Then turned the screen toward me.
A photograph.
Me.
Leaving my obstetrician’s office that morning.
Taken from across the street.
My stomach dropped.
Below the photograph was a text sent anonymously to one of Lucian’s private numbers.
CONGRATULATIONS ON THE HEIR.
Lucian’s gaze met mine.
“Ethan did not find you by accident.”
We left the hospital through a private exit.
Four Moretti security vehicles surrounded our car.
I hated it.
The men.
The armored glass.
The way strangers stepped aside when Lucian passed.
Three years earlier I had escaped one man’s control.
The last thing I ever wanted was to live inside another man’s cage, even if that cage was built from protection instead of cruelty.
Lucian understood that.
Usually.
Tonight was different.
“No public appearances,” he said once we were inside the SUV.
“No.”
“Norah.”
“I’m not disappearing.”
“Someone followed you to your doctor.”
“That doesn’t mean I stop living.”
“It means our normal security protocols failed.”
“Your security protocols.”
“Our child changes that distinction.”
I turned to the window.
Chicago passed in streaks of rain.
He sighed.
“Look at me.”
I didn’t.
“Norah.”
Eventually I did.
“I will not imprison you.”
“Good.”
“But until I know who took that photograph, you don’t travel alone.”
“I usually don’t.”
“Today you did.”
“You were in New York.”
“I have employees.”
“I’m your wife, not cargo.”
“I know.”
“Then stop talking like I’m an asset you’re transporting.”
The words struck.
He looked away.
For several seconds neither of us spoke.
Then he said quietly, “I’m terrified.”
That stopped me.
Lucian rarely admitted fear.
“My father was murdered when I was fourteen.”
I knew.
“My brother was shot when I was twenty-six.”
I knew that too.
“My first fiancée died because someone planted a bomb beneath a car meant for me.”
I knew that story.
But he almost never spoke about it.
“I spent most of my adult life believing if I loved nothing, nobody could use anything against me.”
He looked at my stomach.
“Then you happened.”
My anger softened.
“I’m still not cargo.”
“I know.”
“And I get a vote.”
“You get half.”
I raised an eyebrow.
“Half?”
“The baby gets half. I currently get zero, apparently.”
Despite everything, I laughed.
He smiled faintly.
Then the SUV stopped suddenly.
Marco’s voice came through the front.
“Boss.”
Lucian instantly became alert.
“What?”
“There’s a vehicle blocking the gate.”
“Plate?”
“Covered.”
My pulse jumped.
Lucian reached beneath his jacket.
I saw the gun.
“Lucian.”
“Stay here.”
“No.”
“Norah.”
“You promised.”
He looked at me.
“No violence around our home.”
“I remember.”
The security men exited first.
One approached the abandoned vehicle.
Then he called something back.
Marco swore.
“What is it?” Lucian demanded.
Marco turned.
“There’s a box on the hood.”
Ten minutes later, security confirmed there was no explosive.
The box was carried into the gatehouse.
Lucian would not let me near it.
But I saw what was inside anyway.
A photograph.
The Sterling Hotel.
Philadelphia.
Three years earlier.
A picture of me on the seventeenth-floor balcony.
Ethan’s hands on my shoulders.
My body bent backward over the railing.
Someone had photographed the moment I thought I was going to die.
Written across the bottom in black ink were six words.
YOU SHOULD HAVE LET HER FALL.
And beneath them:
THE BABY CHANGES EVERYTHING.
Lucian stared at the photograph.
I stared at him.
For the first time, I realized Ethan might not be the person we needed to fear most.
Because Ethan had been inside that hotel room with me.
May you like
Whoever took this photograph had been watching from somewhere else.
And they had been watching for three years.
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