All Chapters of Married The Wrong Groom: Claimed By The Ruthless Don : Chapter 61 - Chapter 70

Raina didn't sleep at all. She lay on the bed in the room Gerald had given her and stared at the ceiling as everything played on repeat in her head because there was no way to stop it. Every time she closed her eyes it was all still there waiting for her. The white cloth, the briefcase hitting the floor, Lorenzo on his knees in the hospital corridor. And underneath all of it, running like a current through everything else, Gerald's voice explaining quietly what had been done to their family.The man in the Valente mansion was not her father.She kept coming back to that sentence because her brain refused to fully absorb it no matter how many times she turned it over. It was too large and it required her to dismantle something she had built her entire understanding of her own life on top of and she couldn't do that quickly no matter how willing she was.Maxwell Valente…Her uncle.A man she had never heard of and never seen or been told existed. A man who had looked at his own brother'

Nobody spoke for a long time after Lorenzo's words landed.Their father sat with those words in the room and didn't try to argue with them or soften them or redirect them into something more comfortable. He just held them the way you held something that was heavy and sharp and completely deserved.Then he slowly nodded with a serious expression."I know," he said quietly. "And I won't stand in your way."Lorenzo looked at him for a long moment and something shifted in his face. Not forgiveness, that was going to take time that nobody in this room had a clear timeline for but something that was at least the beginning of understanding that this man was not the enemy.The door opened.Gerald came in with the particular energy of someone who had been moving fast and had information that couldn't wait. He looked at all three of them and read the room quickly and then set his face into the expression of a man delivering news that was going to change the temperature of the conversation immed

Gerald turned to Lorenzo and Raina and his voice dropped low and direct."Stay inside with your father until I signal you," he said. "Both of you shouldn't come out before then, regardless of what you hear." He looked at them each once. "Trust me."Lorenzo's jaw tightened but he nodded.Raina said nothing. She just looked at Gerald for one steady second and then looked at Lorenzo and they both moved back from the door and Gerald went out and pulled it closed behind him.The sitting room felt different with just the three of them in it. Smaller. Their father had his hands on his armrests and his eyes on the door and his face was carrying something that was not fear but was not far from it either. The particular expression of a man who had been waiting for a confrontation for eight years and was now listening to it arrive.Raina moved to the window, not close enough to be seen from outside. Just enough to watch the angle of the driveway.Lorenzo came and stood beside her and they didn't

Maxwell didn't hesitate at all and he was extremely thrilled.The question had barely finished landing before he started speaking and his voice carried the smooth confidence of a man who had prepared for exactly this kind of moment.He looked around confidently as he began speaking and his head was raised high with a smug smile on his lips." We first met in City M," he said with a voice filled with certainty. "In the city's suburbs. I found you there and saw what you were capable of, so I recruited you myself." He looked at Terry with the warm certainty of someone recalling a shared memory. "You had potential that nobody else around you could see, but I could."He said it with a perfect smile and his tone was filled with fake emotions of a person that was accessing a real memory rather than a rehearsed one. Even Raina, who knew exactly who he was, felt uncomfortable when she saw how confident he was.Maxwell let the silence sit for exactly one minute and then his smile widened slight

Raina pulled Lorenzo into her arms before he could say another word.The force of it caught him off guard.For a moment, he simply stood there, stunned, while she held onto him as though letting go would make him disappear. It had been years since they had hugged openly without the fear of being seen….Years since they had allowed themselves to be vulnerable without worrying about being discovered.But at that moment, none of that mattered."Don't," she whispered against his shoulder, her voice shaking. "Don't you dare do anything stupid, Lorenzo."Her fingers tightened around the back of his shirt."Don't you dare leave me."Lorenzo swallowed hard, because the fear in her voice was real and he could hear and feel it."I need you," she continued, and this time her voice broke completely. "Do you hear me? I still need you here."Something twisted painfully inside his chest and it felt like an invisible hand was clutching his heart.All morning, he had been drowning in thoughts he couldn