All Chapters of Married To Danger: Chapter 81 - Chapter 90

VALENTINA Two days later, I stood at the base of the staircase for a long time, staring up at the landing as if it might swallow me whole.It was just a staircase. Just another part of the house. But for the first time, it looked… different. The polished steps gleamed under the light, and the long hallway stretched upward like an open throat. Somewhere above, behind locked doors and shuttered windows, lay the truth I’d been avoiding.My hands were trembling.Adrian’s voice still echoed in my head from our call that morning — warm, steady and too careful. He’d asked how the kids were, if I’d slept well. I’d lied and said everything was fine. I could hear the faint hum of his background, and I’d imagined him there, surrounded by people, his world far from the one I’d been thrown into just a few nights ago.He didn’t know what I’d seen.And he couldn’t.I pressed a hand to the railing and started heading up.Every creak of the wood beneath my slippers made my heart skip. Even though I

VALENTINA The air in my lungs ceased. I couldn’t move, couldn’t look away.“What? He hit you?”Serena’s voice was shaking now. “He beat me until I couldn’t stand. Until I couldn’t even breathe. I was heavily pregnant and went into premature labor right there. Adrian called his trusted doctor to deliver the baby. She was snatched right from me and I barely even saw her face before I blacked out.”She motioned at the machines in the room. “Adrian bought all of this so I didn’t have to go to a hospital… so no one would know what he had done. He wanted me to be treated right under his nose. I thought I was going to die. And maybe I did, for a while. Because when I woke up, I was in this room with machines everywhere, needles in my arm.”I whispered, “He kept you here.”“Sometimes I’d hear voices— Adrian’s, the nurse’s, the doctor. And then one day I heard him.” Her eyes flickered up to mine. “He was standing right there.” She pointed to the corner near the door. “Talking to someone on th

VALENTINA “You came back.” Serena’s voice was quiet. But there was something behind it this time… something calculated. She sat by the window, her hair pulled over one shoulder, the morning light tracing the edges of her face. The same face I’d seen in photographs that Adrian once kept hidden, a face that shouldn’t have been here at all. “Yeah I did,” I admitted. Her lips curved into a knowing smile. “Thank you, Valentina.” I stayed near the door. The air between us felt thick, almost electric. Every time I looked at her, my brain struggled to reconcile what I was seeing with what I’d been told. She was supposed to be gone. Dead and buried. But she wasn’t. Serena tilted her head slightly, studying me. “You’re scared of me.” “I’m not scared,” I said too quickly. Her eyes narrowed, soft amusement in them. “Then why are you standing all the way over there, Valentina?” I hesitated, then forced myself forward a few steps. “Because I don’t know what to think. You tell me one thin

VALENTINA My name is Valentina DeLuca, and I now have a perpetual stick lodged in my heart. I spent the entire next day pretending my life wasn’t splintering down the middle. Stefan was building a cardboard fort in the living room. Sofia was on the floor drawing a family picture — four stick figures holding hands. When she lifted the page and proudly showed me, I wanted to cry. Four. Not five. She didn’t even know there was another person in this house who considered herself part of us. A ghost walking on the third floor. A ghost who wasn’t actually dead. “Mommy, look!” Sofia beamed. “This is Daddy. This is me. This is ‘Tefan. And this is you.” I forced a smile. “It’s beautiful, baby. Good job.” My hands were shaking, so I tucked them under the table so she wouldn’t see. Because tonight, if Serena had her way, everything would blow open. By early evening, I kept checking every window, every hallway, and taking note of every shadow that passed. I’d sent Sybil home for the n

ADRIAN The car hadn’t even come to a full stop before I was out. The tires crunched over the gravel, the headlights cutting through the dark as the driver braked in the circular drive. My phone was still warm in my hand from the call that had wrenched me out of a boardroom in another country and thrown me onto a jet. I didn’t even remember the flight. Only Elia’s voice. “Sir… you need to come home… it’s your wives.” Wives. I could confidently say that nothing had ever scared me like hearing that word did four hours ago. Throughout the flight, I kept trying to imagine what the situation would be like, but something told me it would be much worse than I could even try to imagine. The front doors were open, letting the light from inside spill into the night like a warning. I stepped inside. The metallic tang of blood in the air hit me first. I knew that smell better than I wished I did. I’d called both Damien and my father before I even got on the plane, and as expected, my f