Chapter 3 - The Reason She Left
Luca improved overnight.
By morning, his fever had lowered, and he had enough strength to cry when a nurse checked his temperature. Lauren had never been more grateful for the sound.
Giovanni had not left.
He had spent the night in a chair beside Luca’s bed, still wearing the same black suit. His men remained outside the pediatric ward, but Giovanni himself barely moved.
When Luca woke, Giovanni was there.
When Luca cried, Giovanni stood.
When Lauren fell asleep for twenty minutes with her head against the window, Giovanni covered her with his coat.
She woke furious.
“You can’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Act like you’re a father now.”
Giovanni’s face went still.
“I am his father.”
“You are biologically his father. That is not the same thing.”
The words hurt him.
Lauren did not take them back.
Later that afternoon, they stood in the hospital’s quiet family room while Luca slept.
Giovanni shut the door behind them.
“Tell me why you left,” he said.
Lauren laughed without humor. “You know why.”
“No. I know what I thought.”
“And what did you think?”
“That you were tired of my life.”
“I was tired of being invisible in it.”
Giovanni’s eyes narrowed.
Lauren crossed her arms. “Every dinner had bodyguards. Every trip had armed men. Every phone call made you disappear into another room. You told me nothing. You expected me to smile at charity events while people whispered that I was married to a monster.”
“I kept you safe.”
“You kept me locked out.”
His expression darkened.
She continued anyway.
“The night I found the gun in the nursery drawer, you told me it was necessary. You told me danger was part of your life. And then you said something I never forgot.”
Giovanni looked away.
“You said,” Lauren whispered, “‘If we ever have children, they will be used against me.’”
“I was trying to protect you.”
“No. You were warning me that you would never choose a life where we could be normal.”
Giovanni’s silence confirmed everything.
Lauren wiped at her eyes, angry that tears had come.
“A month after the divorce, I learned I was pregnant. I thought about telling you every day. Then I imagined men following us. I imagined Luca being kidnapped because someone wanted leverage over you. So I ran.”
Giovanni looked through the glass wall toward Luca’s room.
“I would have protected him.”
“You couldn’t protect us when I was your wife.”
That was the wound neither of them could avoid.
That evening, Giovanni’s phone rang.
He answered quietly, listened for several seconds, then ended the call.
Lauren knew that face.
“What happened?”
“There was a break-in at your apartment.”
Her blood went cold.
“Was anyone there?”
“No. My security team got there after the police.”
“My security team?”
“I sent them when I learned where you lived.”
“You followed me?”
“I made sure you were safe.”
“You had no right.”
“I know.”
His answer stopped her.
Giovanni placed a photo on the table.
Lauren’s apartment door had been forced open.
Inside, everything had been overturned.
But nothing had been stolen.
Except one thing.
A framed photo from their wedding day.
On the wall behind it, written in black marker, were five words:
THE BOY BELONGS TO MORETTI.
Giovanni’s face became ice.
“This is not about the divorce anymore,” he said.
Lauren looked toward Luca’s hospital room.
“What does that mean?”
“It means someone knows he exists.”
May you like
And somewhere in Boston, someone had decided that Luca Moretti was worth hunting.
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