Chapter 2

Luca continued waiting for my answer.

I looked at him for several seconds.

In those few seconds, I remembered the first family dinner we had attended together. He had held my hand and promised that he would never leave me alone beneath the judgment of the other families.

I also remembered our engagement three years earlier. In front of the elders of both families, he had said I would be the only woman who ever stood at his side.

Even now, Luca still believed that place belonged to me.

He only wanted to lend it to Sofia for a while.

I stepped back and cleared the path to the dance floor.

“Go ahead.”

Surprise crossed Luca’s face.

Sofia also hesitated, as though she had expected me to object.

“Alessia, I truly don’t mean anything by this.”

“I know.”

I looked toward the musicians.

“The music has already started.”

Luca appeared ready to say more, but Sofia had extended her hand.

He finally took it and led her onto the dance floor.

A slow waltz filled the ballroom.

Luca placed one hand at Sofia’s waist. She was tense at first and nearly missed the rhythm several times, but he guided her with steady patience.

Her uneasiness gradually disappeared.

She raised her face toward him, and a smile returned to her eyes.

The guests around me began speaking in low voices.

Some praised Luca for remembering an old ally. Others suggested that the Bellini family might recover its position under Moretti protection.

The official photographers raised their cameras and captured Luca and Sofia in the center of the floor.

The opening dance that should have belonged to me had become a public declaration that the Morettis stood behind Sofia Bellini.

I did not keep watching.

I turned my engagement ring toward my palm, avoided the curious looks around me, and left the ballroom alone.

The air outside was cold.

My driver opened the door as soon as he saw me.

“Miss Romano, should we wait for Mr. Moretti?”

“No.”

I entered the car.

“Take me home.”

My phone lit up as we passed through the gates of the Moretti estate.

The first message was from Luca.

“Why did you leave early?”

A second message appeared almost immediately.

“Sofia just came back. Everyone in that room was waiting for her to embarrass herself. I was only helping her get through tonight.”

The third arrived less than a minute later.

“One dance means nothing.”

I did not reply.

Several minutes passed before he sent another message.

“Alessia, I already told you that you’re the woman I love. Can you stop treating Sofia like a threat?”

I studied the screen before switching off my phone.

Luca had always believed I was jealous of Sofia.

He had never seriously considered that my anger was not about how much she received. It was about how much he expected me to surrender each time she needed something.

When I returned to the Romano estate, I went upstairs alone.

The documents for the Atlantic Coast operation still covered my desk.

Luca and I had spent almost a year preparing that plan. After his appointment ceremony, we were supposed to move to Boston for six months and reorganize the alliance’s ports, hotels, and logistics companies.

Luca would handle security and relationships between the families. I would oversee the legitimate businesses and financial restructuring.

We planned to marry when the operation was complete.

My computer still displayed the appointment offered by the Chicago branch.

I read the terms again.

The offer gave me a one-year assignment with independent authority over the project, far from the Moretti family and Luca.

I selected Confirm.

The page refreshed, and a short message appeared in the center of the screen.

“Appointment confirmed. Report to the Chicago branch within five days.”

I had only five days left in New York.

I closed the computer and began removing everything connected to Luca from my room.

The invitation from the first alliance dinner we attended together went into a dark wooden chest. So did the silver bookmark he had brought me from Sicily and the photographs we had collected over the years.

A black scarf remained on the highest shelf of my wardrobe.

When Luca was seventeen, he had been sent on his first operation without his father. Before leaving, he gave me the scarf and asked me to keep it safe.

He said I had to place it around his neck when he returned.

The operation lasted seventeen days.

Every evening, I stood at the second-floor window and waited for his car.

When Luca finally came home, he still had a poorly treated wound on his shoulder. Before allowing the doctor to examine it, he lowered his head and waited for me to tie the scarf around his neck.

Later, he told me that knowing I was waiting had given him a reason to return.

I folded the scarf and placed it inside the chest.

The box contained more than a decade of our lives.

Every object carried a story.

I had once believed those stories would continue through our wedding, the family we would build, and the day we took responsibility for both our houses.

Now they only needed a lid.

I closed the chest and asked a maid to move it into storage.

My phone vibrated on the desk.

For a moment, I thought Luca had contacted me again.

The notification came from the alliance’s private social platform.

Sofia had posted an update.

The first photograph showed a hotel suite.

Only the lamp beside the bed was on. Two unfinished glasses of wine stood on the table. A man’s black dinner jacket had been draped over the back of a chair, and the silver Moretti crest was visible on the cuff.

I recognized the jacket.

Luca had been wearing it when we entered the ballroom only a few hours earlier.

The second photograph showed a platinum bracelet resting on the nightstand.

Two overlapping letters had been engraved on the inside.

The engraved letters were A and L.

It was the bracelet I had given Luca.

Sofia did not explain what had happened in that room.

She included only one sentence.

“Thank you for always being beside me when I need you most.”