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Chapter 2

Penulis: Rosemary
Rain tapped the windows. Maya had made me cocoa and sat across from me in silence because there was nothing useful to say.

At two in the morning, Luca called while I sat in Maya's living room. "Anna, you left the ring at the registration table." Luca sounded calm, almost amused. "I picked it up. I'll put it back on your finger tomorrow."

"I know."

He paused. "You know?"

"I left it there."

The line went quiet. Then he chuckled. "Tonight was unfair to you. I'll explain Clara's side tomorrow. The spill wasn't her fault. Everyone saw you lend her the gown. They'll only think you're generous."

"Luca, we're done."

This time, the silence lasted longer. "Anna, stop acting out."

"I'm not acting out."

"You always say you're leaving when you're upset, and you always come back." His tone softened into the patience he used when he thought he was soothing me. "I'll pick you up tomorrow. We'll go to that Italian place you like."

"I don't want to."

"Then we'll go somewhere else."

"I mean we're done."

His breathing changed. "Over a dress?"

"Not over a dress."

"Then over Clara?" His patience thinned. "Anna, Clara and I grew up together. Her father died on a Moretti dock, and her mother bailed before Clara turned sixteen. She has no family, no backing. When something happens, she comes to me. You know that."

"So?"

"So can you stop keeping score over every little thing? You're supposed to become Moretti's Donna, not some girl from the projects fighting over crumbs. Lose that small, petty habit."

My fingers tightened around the mug. So that was what he thought. My patience was duty. My pain was bad manners. My hurt was a poor-girl habit he planned to train out of me.

"You're right," I said softly. "I'm just a girl from the projects. I don't deserve to be Moretti's Donna."

"Anna."

"Don't bother returning the ring."

His voice dropped. "Five years, and you really think you can walk away from me? Don't forget, you have no family. You only have me."

I looked at Chicago's blurred lights through the rain-streaked glass. "Luca, you're wrong."

"About what?"

"I have a family."

I hung up.

Maya watched me. "He still thinks you're an orphan?"

"Yes."

"You never told him?"

Five years ago, I came to Chicago as Anna Vale because I wanted a life beyond the Valenti name. I volunteered at a charity kitchen, and Luca, still the young Moretti heir, handed me hot coffee on a freezing night and looked at me without calculation.

I never told him my real name was Anna Valenti, or that every Chicago family lowered its eyes when my father entered. I kept waiting because I wanted Luca to love me for who I was, not because of the bloodline behind me.

In the end, I got a man who told a roomful of people I couldn't leave him.

My phone lit up again. [Sleep it off. Stop being stubborn tomorrow.]

I turned the screen facedown.

Then the secure phone hidden in my suitcase vibrated. Only the Valentis had that number.

Matteo. My older brother. My father's right hand. His voice was quiet. "The cars are on their way. Father wants to know if we should remove the Morettis from the wedding list tonight."

I looked out at the rain and gave a small laugh. "Don't make it a war. I'm only leaving Luca."

After a beat, he said, "Understood. I'll pick you up before dawn."
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  • He Thought I Was an Orphan, Until I Went Home   Chapter 9

    A month later, Luca left Chicago.Maya told me he had handed the Moretti family's daily affairs to his uncle and gone to a remote estate in Sicily. Some said he was healing. Some said the Chairman had crushed him. Others said he had finally cut Clara off.I listened and said only, "I see."Maya went quiet. "You really let him go?"I stood in my new New York apartment while movers set down the last box of books. It wasn't in the Valenti estate or under any family shell company. I had bought it with dividends from my own fund. It had a river view and clean morning light."Yes.""What now?""Build the foundation first," I said. "Then learn how to live my own life.""And love?"I smiled. "Later."After the call, the butler delivered an envelope."Miss, Mr. Moretti had this transferred as his final letter."Inside were one sheet of paper and the emerald engagement ring. Luca's handwriting was messier than I remembered.[Anna, I wrote a hundred apologies, but none of them are worthy of what

  • He Thought I Was an Orphan, Until I Went Home   Chapter 8

    Luca's apologies began to turn specific.He sent a box to the estate. No jewelry, no check, only a black leather notebook. My name was written on the first page, followed by things he had forced himself to remember.[Anna gets cold easily and doesn't like sitting near the door in winter.][Anna doesn't like sweet cream. She switched to black coffee last year.][Anna hates waiting, but she waited for me so many times.][Anna's grandmother's lace shawl wasn't an old thing. It was a memory from her family.]On the last page, he wrote one line.[I thought I knew you. I only knew the version of you who kept making room for me.]I closed the notebook and put it back in the box. The next day, Dante returned it.That afternoon, Clara came too. She wasn't allowed inside the estate, so she waited in the outer reception hall. Dante wanted to send her away, but I agreed to see her once.Clara looked worn down, clutching her purse strap with both hands. "Anna, I wanted to apologize."I sat across f

  • He Thought I Was an Orphan, Until I Went Home   Chapter 7

    The day Luca was discharged, Clara posted another Story. In the photo, Luca leaned against a hospital pillow, pale, his left arm in a sling. Clara stood beside him with white roses.[He's always like this, putting everyone else's problems before himself. Hope he gets better soon.]The comments called Luca gentle, said Clara was lucky, and asked whether Anna Valenti had really broken off the engagement.Clara didn't answer. She only replied with a teary little smile emoji.Maya sent me the screenshot.[Is this woman still playing innocent?]I replied, [Ignore her.][You're seriously not mad?][No.]I meant it. Once, I would have wanted Luca to see how perfectly Clara used every fragile moment. Now I understood she had never been the real problem. Luca was the one who valued her fragility over my dignity.That afternoon, Luca called from an unknown number. "Anna, I'm in New York."I glanced out the window. The Valenti estate had three security posts before the inner gate. He wasn't getti

  • He Thought I Was an Orphan, Until I Went Home   Chapter 6

    A week later, I received a call from Chicago City Hospital.The nurse said Luca Moretti was in the emergency room with a deep glass cut on his left arm. In the registration system, I was still his first emergency contact.I could have stayed away. But in that moment, I didn't think about love. I thought of the young man who had once handed me hot coffee on a snowy night.I told myself this would be the last time.When I arrived, Luca had just been stitched up, his left arm wrapped in gauze. The second he saw me, his eyes lit up like a man pulled out of the dark. "Anna."I stayed by the door. "What happened?"He looked away. "Clara's apartment was smashed up by her cousin's men. I went over. A glass cabinet fell."Of course. Even this last visit had Clara in it.A nurse came in to change his dressing. Seeing me, she smiled. "You're his fiancee, right? He was hurt and still gripping his phone, said he was afraid he'd miss your call."Luca's fingers curled slightly.After the nurse left,

  • He Thought I Was an Orphan, Until I Went Home   Chapter 5

    Luca truly understood I wasn't coming back on the day our wedding should have happened.There were no flowers at St. Rosalia Chapel, no white-draped chairs, no priest waiting. The administrator handed him an envelope and said the venue had been canceled a week earlier.Inside was the seating chart I had drawn by hand: blue for Moretti guests, silver for Valenti guests. Luca hadn't known the silver column belonged to people who could make Chicago captains hold their breath.Luca stood outside the chapel for a long time while wind rattled the paper in his hand. Marco waited behind him and didn't dare speak.At last, Luca asked, "How long did she prepare?"Marco lowered his head. "According to the planner, nine months. Miss Vale came almost every week.""Alone?""Yes."Luca closed his eyes. He remembered me spreading color swatches across the dining table and asking whether roses or camellias would look better by the lake. He had been texting Clara and said they were all the same.When I

  • He Thought I Was an Orphan, Until I Went Home   Chapter 4

    He called me. Powered off.Then he summoned the downstairs guard. "Where did Anna go?"The guard went pale. "Sir, Miss Vale was picked up this afternoon by a convoy. They used council-level clearance. We didn't dare stop them."Luca snatched up the ring. "Find her flight, cards, phone location. Pull every record."Half an hour later, Marco, the Moretti chief of security, hurried in with a tablet."Her public records are gone. As of this afternoon, Anna Vale looks like she never existed.""But we found another name."On the screen, a young woman in a black evening gown stood beside a cold-eyed man whose cane bore the Valenti silver eagle."Her name isn't Anna Vale," Marco said. "It's Anna Valenti.""She's the Mafia Chairman's daughter."When I returned to the Valenti estate, dawn had just begun to pale the sky.The car followed the Hudson north to a gray stone mansion without gold gates or obvious armed men. Valenti security was invisible, quiet, and exact, like my father.Carmine Valen

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