Chapter 10 - THE HEIR'S FIRST PROMISE
By morning, Luca had moved me and my mother to a secure residence outside the city.
He did not ask me to accept it without explanation. He showed me the security plan, introduced me to the physician assigned to my care, and made sure my mother had everything she needed.
I hated the precautions.
I understood them.
The evidence against Vittorio was growing. The falsified fertility report, the payments to the laboratory, the forged trust amendment, and the altered vehicle inspection all pointed toward the same man.
But Luca refused to act without proof that could survive outside the family.
“I'm not giving him a chance to turn this into a private feud,” he told his attorney. “I want every document authenticated. I want every witness protected. And I want the authorities to receive copies.”
His attorney warned him that the family council would resist.
“Let them,” Luca said.
Vittorio called that afternoon.
Luca put the call on speaker.
“You're making a mistake,” his uncle said.
“Which one?”
“Dragging family business into public view.”
“You falsified my medical records.”
“I protected the family.”
“You stole my future.”
“You had no future as an heir without me.”
Luca looked at me.
Then he answered.
“I have a future now.”
A pause.
“You mean the child?”
“I mean my wife. My child. The family I chose.”
Vittorio's voice hardened.
“You have no idea what your father set in motion.”
“Then explain it.”
“Come to the estate. Alone.”
“No.”
“Then you will never learn the whole truth.”
Luca ended the call.
I watched him.
“You think he knows who arranged the crash?”
“I think he knows more than Rusk told us.”
“Will you go?”
“Not alone. Not without a plan.”
He sat beside me and took my hand.
“I need to tell you something.”
“What?”
“When I was told I could never have children, I convinced myself I didn't want them. It was easier than admitting how much it hurt.”
His thumb moved over my knuckles.
“I stopped imagining a family. I stopped letting myself want one. Then you came into my life, and I began to want things again without realizing it.”
My eyes filled.
“Luca…”
“I don't know what kind of father I'll be.”
“You'll learn.”
“I don't know what kind of world our child will inherit.”
“Then change it.”
He looked down at my stomach.
“I promise you this. Our child will never be used as a weapon in a family war. No one will decide their future for them. No one will tell them they are unwanted, broken, or incapable of choosing their own life.”
I leaned against him.
For a little while, the room was quiet.
Then Marco called.
“Boss, Vittorio has left the city.”
“Where is he going?”
“We traced his car to the old Varenna estate.”
Luca stood.
“Why would he go there?”
Marco's voice lowered.
“Because someone has opened your father's private vault.”
Luca looked at me.
“What was in that vault?” I asked.
He shook his head.
“I don't know.”
A message arrived on his phone.
It contained a photograph of a sealed envelope on a desk. The handwriting on the front was unmistakably his father's.
LUCA — OPEN ONLY WHEN YOU KNOW THE TRUTH ABOUT THE NIGHT OF THE CRASH.
Beneath it was a second line, written in a different hand.
THE CHILD MUST NEVER BE BORN.
Luca's face turned cold.
He put the phone away and reached for his coat.
I caught his hand.
“Don't go without telling me what you're doing.”
He looked at me.
“I am going to find out what happened to my father.”
“And what about us?”
He bent and kissed my forehead.
“You are the reason I am coming back.”
Then he left.
I stood in the quiet room with one hand over my stomach, listening to the door close.
For eleven weeks, I had believed the greatest secret in our marriage was that Luca could father a child.
Now I understood.
The real secret was that someone had spent twelve years making sure he never would.
And whoever had written that final message was still afraid of the baby I was carrying.
May you like
THE END OF CHAPTERS 1–10
TO BE CONTINUED
