Chapter 5 - The Woman from Giovanni’s Past
The next threat came with a name.
Elena Valenti.
She had been the daughter of Carlo Valenti, a powerful crime boss killed twelve years earlier in a war that made Giovanni Moretti the man he became.
Lauren had heard the name only once during their marriage.
Giovanni had been drunk, exhausted, and bleeding from a cut above his eyebrow.
“Elena hates me,” he had said.
Then he had refused to explain why.
Now, she was in Boston.
She appeared on a security camera outside the residence at three in the morning, wearing a red coat and staring up at the nursery window.
She did not try to enter.
She wanted them to know she could.
Giovanni wanted to move Lauren and Luca immediately.
Lauren refused.
“I’m tired of running.”
“You think I enjoy this?” he snapped.
“No,” she said. “I think you’re good at it.”
The words cut him.
He turned away.
Then Lauren said, more softly, “If we keep moving, Luca will grow up in the same fear I left you to escape.”
Giovanni looked at his son.
“What do you want me to do?”
“Tell me the truth. All of it.”
So he did.
Years before, Carlo Valenti had ordered the death of Giovanni’s younger brother, Adrian. Giovanni had retaliated. The war that followed destroyed both families.
But Elena believed Giovanni had personally killed her father.
“I didn’t,” Giovanni said. “But I gave the order that led to the night it happened.”
Lauren stared at him.
“And you kept this from me?”
“I kept everything from you.”
“Why?”
“Because I thought if you didn’t know the darkness, it could never touch you.”
Lauren’s eyes filled.
“But it touched me anyway.”
That evening, Elena finally called.
Her voice was calm.
“Lauren Grant,” she said. “You left him once. You were smart then.”
“What do you want?”
“I want Giovanni to understand what it feels like to lose family.”
Lauren gripped the phone.
“If you hurt my son—”
“I won’t hurt him,” Elena interrupted. “Not unless Giovanni forces me to.”
Then the call ended.
Giovanni listened to the recording.
His face was unreadable.
But Lauren saw his hands.
May you like
They were shaking.
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