Chapter 2

"Mom."

Noah's voice pulled me back to the restaurant. He pushed the handwritten agreement closer.

"Just sign it. Daddy works so hard. He runs the ports, meets lawyers, handles family trouble. He pays for my school, my medicine, violin, fencing. Stop making things harder for him."

I listened to him count his father's burdens and asked, "Your father pays for those things?"

Noah froze.

I looked him in the eye. "Noah, your uniform, medicine, private school, and summer camps are all paid for by me."

His first reaction was anger.

"You're lying," he shouted. "You don't even have nice clothes. Your phone is old. You make me take the subway. Serena takes me to Gold Coast steakhouses, and you bring me to cheap places like this."

I wasn't poor because I enjoyed it. Every dollar went to him. His imported medicine couldn't stop. His school demanded donations. His weak heart couldn't afford one careless day. I had to think for three days before buying myself winter boots.

"Fine." I took out my phone. "Then I'll show you who has been keeping you alive."

Before I could open my bank statements, the restaurant door swung open.

Cold wind rushed in. Luca walked to our table and tapped his knuckles against the wood.

"Half an hour is over. I'm here for Noah."

Noah jumped up and grabbed his sleeve like he'd finally been rescued.

Luca glanced at the agreement. "Why are you showing him these things? His world should be riding lessons, Latin, and family etiquette. Not your bitter, shabby lectures."

I laughed, because anger had nowhere else to go.

"Shabby? Luca, don't forget who cleaned up Bellandi Logistics for you. Who wrote the encrypted port ledger. Who kept your legal companies alive through the federal audit."

Noah made a face from his father's side.

"So what if you used to be good? Serena is good now. Daddy says she understands the family better than anyone."

Luca didn't correct him. He only fixed Noah's scarf with the gentleness that used to make me believe in him.

Nine years ago, I was Isabella Rossi, one of Wall Street's youngest financial crime consultants. I traced dirty money, cracked offshore accounts, and once turned down a federal task force because I wanted freedom more than a badge.

I met Luca at a charity gala in New York. Someone had tried to siphon money from a legal Bellandi investment. I found the leak in ten minutes. Luca watched the numbers move across the screen and smiled.

"Miss Rossi," he said, "you're more dangerous than any gun I've ever owned."

He chased me hard after that, with Lake Michigan dates, roses, and a ring he put on my finger himself. He promised to keep the cleanest side of the family for me and give our child a home without fear.

Then Noah was born sick. At three months old, myocarditis put him in the ICU. He lay in an incubator, covered in tubes, too weak to cry.

I flew back from an overseas meeting and reached the hospital only to have Luca's mother slap me.

"If you wanted to be a career woman, you shouldn't have given birth to a Bellandi heir!" she cried. "He is allergic to half the world, and his heart is weak. You left him with a nanny, and he nearly died!"

Luca didn't yell. He held me and said, "Bella, there can't be two soldiers in one home. I'll fight outside. Noah needs you."

He kissed my forehead and promised, "When he's older, if you want to work again, I'll drive you back to Wall Street myself."

So I stayed. I packed away my heels and replaced financial models with medical folders. The hands that once wrote code learned to make soup, check temperatures at three in the morning, and label medicine bottles.

On Noah's third birthday, I brought a cake to Luca's office.

The door wasn't fully closed.

Serena sat on his desk in a red dress, Luca's hands on her waist. When he saw me, he didn't panic. He looked annoyed.

I smashed the cake, the glasses, and what was left of my dignity.

When I lunged at Serena, Luca caught my wrist.

"Stop," he said. "She still has to be seen in public."

I trembled. "And what am I?"

He lit a cigarette, stayed quiet for a long time, then said, "Let's divorce."

"Fine," I said. "Noah comes with me."

"Impossible. He is a Bellandi child."

From that day on, he stopped giving the household a single dollar.

Not because he had no money. Because he had none for me.

In the restaurant, Luca took Noah's hand. I caught his sleeve.

"What did everything I gave this family mean to you?"

He stopped. For one second, he looked as if he might say something human.

Then the Bentley honked softly.

Serena sat in the back seat, the window half lowered, red lips curved.

Luca pulled his sleeve free.

"You chose this road," he said. "Don't blame others because you don't like where it led."

Then he took our son to another woman.