My Mafia Husband Claimed Death Was Our Only Divorce

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My Mafia Husband Claimed Death Was Our Only Divorce

NovelMaster new Completed
现实主义-Realistic魔幻-Magic浪漫-Romance

Introduction The year I turned 18, Adrian Moretti killed a man for me. He saved me from my father, who'd been beating me for years. He stayed by my side in the years that followed. We started at the bottom of a New York shipping company and clawed our way into the Moretti family's inner circle. We bled together and lost a child together. Together, we took a name no one had respected and turned it into a force no one on the East Coast could ignore. So when I found more than 1,000 photos of a woman I didn't know on his backup phone, hatred wasn't my first reaction. I just wanted a divorce. But Adrian fed the papers into the shredder. "We agreed back then. A Moretti marriage only ends one way. "Death." Later, I found the truth in files from ten years ago. That kidnapping had cost me my baby and left me too afraid to go anywhere alone for years. It hadn't just been bad luck. Adrian had known about it ahead of time. He'd even pulled the backup team himself. He just wanted me to be afraid. He wanted me to go back to being the girl who only felt safe hiding behind him. That was when I finally understood what had trapped me. It had never been another woman. It was the man who'd once set me free, and then built me a brand-new cage with his own hands. The year I turned 18, Adrian Moretti killed a man for me. The man was my father. It was pouring in New York that day. My father got drunk, dragged me out of our apartment, and pinned me against the railing of the fire escape. When Adrian burst in, my father was still clutching a broken bottle. Afterward, the police took Adrian away. He looked at me through the window of the squad car, blood at the corners of his mouth. "Don't cry, Serafina. "No one will ever get to hit you just because they're family." That was the first time I believed someone could really pull me out of the dark. Adrian spent a few years in prison for using excessive force while defending me. By the time he got out, I was 22 and working as an entry-level assistant in the accounting office of a dockside shipping company. We had no money and no connections. The only people we knew were a few guys willing to run boats at night for cash. But Adrian was a fearless gambler. And I was even bolder with the numbers. Ten years later, Moretti was a name no one in East Coast shipping circles could ignore. We'd been married for seven years, and every one of his passwords was still my birthday. Then I found photos of a woman I didn't know on his backup phone. More than 1,000 photos. Her in a college auditorium, at a riding stable, by the ocean, in a hospital room, and in Adrian's bed. In the last few, she'd started to show. In the photos, Adrian was still wearing his wedding ring. I put the divorce papers in front of him. Adrian barely glanced at them. "I'm not signing." "Why not?" He leaned back in his chair, like we were discussing some contract that didn't matter. "We agreed back then. A Moretti marriage only ends one way. "Death." I looked at him. "That was something stupid we said when we were 20." "I never thought it was stupid." He folded the papers and fed them into the shredder. The machine chewed them up with a low grinding sound. "Sera, we don't get divorced. "Our marriage only ends in death." The woman's name was Livia Caruso. She was seven years younger than me. The night my divorce papers were shredded, she called me herself. "Mrs. Moretti, you must have seen the photos by now." Her voice was sweet, with the kind of innocence that comes from being protected a little too well. "Adrian has been taking care of me since I was 19. "You've been married all these years without a single child, and I'm the one who's pregnant. Don't you get it yet?" I didn't answer. She sent me about 12 more photos. Hotel key cards. A yacht. Adrian bending down to tie her shoe. And a report from a prenatal checkup. The next day, Livia showed up at my office. My assistant tried to stop her, but Livia only smiled at her. "Mrs. Moretti knows me." I told them to let her in. She was wearing a white dress and kept stroking her belly, though she wasn't showing yet. "My father, Vincent Caruso, died because of Adrian. "He promised to take care of me for the rest of my life. "You should understand." I looked up. "Understand what? "That 'taking care of you' means taking you to a hotel room?" The smile on her face froze for a second. Then it came right back. "I just came to tell you I won't let my baby be born a bastard. "You'd better step aside." I pressed the intercom button. "Security." Two female guards came in. I pointed at the door. "Please show Ms. Caruso out." Livia's expression changed. "Serafina, you think you can lay a hand on me?" "I haven't touched you," I said. "This is my office. You barged in without an appointment, and you're interrupting my work. "As for who Adrian loves—" I pushed the prenatal report she'd brought with her back across the desk. "He can come tell me himself." Sure enough, Adrian came home that night. He didn't ask whether she'd bothered me. The first thing out of his mouth was about her. "Livia's pregnant. She's emotional. "Don't provoke her." I let out a laugh. "So when she shows up at my office to push me out, I'm the one provoking her?" Adrian rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Her father died because of me. I owe her." "Can you stop hiding behind that line every time something happens?" "Sera." His voice dropped. "She's young. She doesn't know any better. "You're different." I looked at him. So "different" meant she got to make mistakes, and I had to be the reasonable one.Adrian saved me when we were young. So for years after that, I saved him too. The closest call came in our third year in the Moretti family. Adrian was negotiating for a North Shore shipping route, but he disappeared after the talks ended. The other side left only one message. "If you want him alive, Serafina comes alone." I was eight months pregnant by then. Everyone told me not to go. I went anyway, with ten men. That night, we fought our way in through the front door of an abandoned warehouse. It wasn't a hail of bullets like in the movies. It was mostly chaos, smoke, and screaming. I never knew who'd lunge out of the dark next. In the end, only two of my guards and I were left standing. When I found Adrian, he was tied to a chair, his face covered in blood. Someone kicked me from behind. I slammed into a metal table and started bleeding right there. I lost the baby. Afterward, Adrian knelt outside the operating room and cried for the first time. He held me. "I'll never let you take a risk like that again. "I'll protect you." I believed him. Even when the doctor told me getting pregnant again might be harder, I comforted Adrian first. "It's okay. "We still have each other." All these years later, I still felt a dull ache low in my belly whenever it rained. Adrian knew, so I never once ran out of my medication. That was why I'd always believed he'd never hurt me on purpose, no matter how much we fought or clashed over power. Then Livia showed up. And I found out he knew far more about that kidnapping than I'd ever imagined. The next time Livia came looking for me was at the Moretti family's charity gala. She didn't come straight to me. She just waited outside the restroom. "Adrian says you used to be quite the fighter." She gave me a breezy little smile. "You're not much of one now." I washed my hands and ignored her. Suddenly she grabbed my wrist and pressed my hand against her belly. "What are you doing?" I yanked my hand away at once. She let herself fall backward. A second later, I heard footsteps outside the restroom. Adrian rushed in. Livia was pale, clutching her stomach. "Adrian, it hurts so much." I stayed where I was. I didn't explain. Adrian looked at me. Just once. Then he picked Livia up. "Call a doctor." As he passed me, he paused briefly. "That's enough for tonight." I looked up. "What's that supposed to mean?" "Don't touch her again." That was clearer than any accusation. As far as he was concerned, he didn't even need to know what had happened. I turned and went back to the ballroom. Ten minutes later, my assistant sent the security footage from the restroom hallway to my phone. The camera couldn't see inside, but it caught Livia propping her phone up behind a potted plant by the door before she went in. I had someone retrieve the phone. The recording had caught it all: How she goaded me. How she grabbed me first. How she fell on purpose. Every second of it, crystal clear. I didn't give it to Adrian right away. I just handed the file to my lawyer. "Keep it on file." My assistant was taken aback. "You're not going to show the Don?" I said, "If I have to keep proving to my own husband that I haven't hurt anyone, there's no point explaining myself anymore."Livia didn't lose the baby. The hospital even confirmed she only had mild abdominal pain. It was two in the morning when Adrian came home. He took off his coat and saw me sitting in the living room. "Still up?" "Waiting for you." He stopped for a moment. I pushed the divorce papers across to him again. "Sign." Adrian stared at the papers. "Not this again." "This is the last time." He went to the liquor cabinet and poured himself a whiskey. "Sera, you're just upset because of Livia. "I'll handle things with her." "How are you going to handle it?" "After the baby's born, I'll give her some money." "And what about her after that?" He didn't answer. "Do you love her?" "That doesn't matter." I laughed. "Of course it doesn't matter to you. "Because you want to keep both options open." Adrian's face darkened. "Don't make it sound so ugly." "Then you make it sound nicer." I pointed at the papers. "Sign." He stood there holding his drink for a long time. Finally, he picked up the papers. I thought he was finally going to sign. But a lighter flared. Flames climbed up from the corner of the page. I watched him burn the second set of divorce papers to ash. "I told you. "A Moretti marriage only ends in death." I didn't lose my temper. I just nodded. "Fine." This time, he was the one who frowned. "What do you mean, 'fine'?" "Nothing." I stood up. "I just wanted to be sure you'd used up your last chance." The next day, I went to the old archives. That was where we kept the records from our most chaotic early years. A lot of those operations were legitimate now, but not all the old records had been destroyed. I'd only meant to find the compensation records for that kidnapping ten years ago. Instead I turned up a security deployment order. It was dated the day I lost my baby. It read: [Once the target enters the warehouse, the backup team at the perimeter is to withdraw for 20 minutes.] Approved by: A.M. Adrian Moretti. I stared at those two letters as my palms slowly went cold. I kept reading. There was also a scanned email. It was from Adrian's personal assistant at the time. [Confirming the plan: create chaos, but cause no actual harm to Serafina. She needs to learn the cost of ignoring orders.] The reply was one line. [Scaring her is enough.] I sat on the floor of the archive room and didn't move for a long time. That kidnapping wasn't entirely fake. The enemy was real. The fighting was real too. But Adrian had known ahead of time. He'd even made sure word got out that I'd be the one coming. He wanted me to back down after one failure and let him take charge of all the negotiations, contacts, and dealings with outsiders again. He hadn't planned for me to lose the baby. He'd only planned for me to be afraid. This was his idea of "protection": First, he created the danger. Then he made himself the only person who could save me. I made copies of every file. When I got home, Adrian was in the kitchen. He hardly ever cooked. But that day, he'd made the pasta I loved most as a kid. "It's raining hard today," he said. "Your stomach's going to hurt." I stood in the kitchen doorway and looked at the man I'd known better than anyone for more than a decade. For the first time, he felt like a complete stranger.I didn't confront him that night. I took care of something else first. I separated our business finances. The Moretti family's legitimate businesses fell into three categories: Port logistics. Wineries and hotels. Overseas trade. Adrian had always been seen as the man in charge. But I'd signed the long-term contracts with nearly half our clients. I spent a week sorting out all the authorizations for the companies I personally controlled. I wasn't moving family assets. I was replacing the vague idea of "running everything together as husband and wife" with clear corporate boundaries. The CFO looked over the list, sweat beading on his forehead. "Donna, if we do this, all three North Shore ports will have to renegotiate their guarantee agreements." "Then we renegotiate." "But the Don..." "There's nothing in the company bylaws that says 'husband's approval required.'" He shut his mouth. The second thing I did was replace my personal security team. Before, every hire had needed Adrian's final sign-off. This time, I canceled their contracts outright and hired an independent firm. Third, I went to the hospital. I had another full workup. Dr. Elaine Brooks frowned after going through my old records. "Who told you that you couldn't get pregnant?" "A doctor, ten years ago." "Your uterus has healed very well," she said. "There was serious damage, yes, but your current results don't support the conclusion that pregnancy is 'basically impossible.'" I froze. "Then why haven't I gotten pregnant all these years?" Elaine was quiet for a moment. "Has your husband been tested?" Adrian had a physical every year. But he'd never once let me see the fertility results. I went back and looked. The report had a separate password. The password wasn't my birthday. It was Livia's. The report showed Adrian's fertility was extremely low. It wasn't impossible for him to get someone pregnant. But the odds of him getting a woman pregnant twice in quick succession without medical help were almost absurdly low. I put the report down. And suddenly I laughed. Of Livia's two so-called pregnancies, one had already "ended unexpectedly." The other was still ongoing. If the baby wasn't Adrian's, there was another reason she was in such a hurry to force me into a divorce. She needed to become Mrs. Moretti before the truth came out. I had someone look into where she'd been over the past year. They didn't go near her bedroom. They didn't run any surveillance that crossed the line. They only checked public flight records, company access logs, and the timestamps on her social media posts. A name came up fast. Noah Bell. Her college boyfriend. They were still in touch. More importantly, Noah had once worked for the Caruso family's old company. And Vincent, Livia's father, had been an accomplice in that "kidnapping" ten years ago. At last, all the threads came together. That night, Adrian came home. I laid the old kidnapping files on the dining table. He read just one page. His face went white. "Sera." "Don't call me that." "Let me explain." "Fine." I sat down. "Explain." He opened his mouth. After a long silence, he said, "I was scared of losing you back then." I could hardly believe what I'd heard. "So being afraid of losing me gave you the right to put me in danger?" "You kept getting stronger." His voice was hoarse. "A lot of people started bypassing me and coming straight to you. "Some people in the Moretti family were even saying you could hold it all together without me." I looked at him. "So you made me afraid on purpose." He closed his eyes. "I just wanted you to slow down. "To lean on me a little more." The silence was so thick it made me sick. I finally understood. He'd saved me. He'd loved me too. But once I was no longer the girl who needed saving, he started looking for ways to make me that girl again.

Chapters (4)

第1章

Introduction The year I turned 18, Adrian Moretti killed a man for me. He saved me from my father, who'd been beating me for years. He stayed by my side in the years that followed. We started at the bottom of a New York shipping company and clawed our way into the Moretti family's inner circle. We bled together and lost a child together. Together, we took a name no one had respected and turned it into a force no one on the East Coast could ignore. So when I found more than 1,000 photos of a woman I didn't know on his backup phone, hatred wasn't my first reaction. I just wanted a divorce. But Adrian fed the papers into the shredder. "We agreed back then. A Moretti marriage only ends one way. "Death." Later, I found the truth in files from ten years ago. That kidnapping had cost me my baby and left me too afraid to go anywhere alone for years. It hadn't just been bad luck. Adrian had known about it ahead of time. He'd even pulled the backup team himself. He just wanted me to be afraid. He wanted me to go back to being the girl who only felt safe hiding behind him. That was when I finally understood what had trapped me. It had never been another woman. It was the man who'd once set me free, and then built me a brand-new cage with his own hands. The year I turned 18, Adrian Moretti killed a man for me. The man was my father. It was pouring in New York that day. My father got drunk, dragged me out of our apartment, and pinned me against the railing of the fire escape. When Adrian burst in, my father was still clutching a broken bottle. Afterward, the police took Adrian away. He looked at me through the window of the squad car, blood at the corners of his mouth. "Don't cry, Serafina. "No one will ever get to hit you just because they're family." That was the first time I believed someone could really pull me out of the dark. Adrian spent a few years in prison for using excessive force while defending me. By the time he got out, I was 22 and working as an entry-level assistant in the accounting office of a dockside shipping company. We had no money and no connections. The only people we knew were a few guys willing to run boats at night for cash. But Adrian was a fearless gambler. And I was even bolder with the numbers. Ten years later, Moretti was a name no one in East Coast shipping circles could ignore. We'd been married for seven years, and every one of his passwords was still my birthday. Then I found photos of a woman I didn't know on his backup phone. More than 1,000 photos. Her in a college auditorium, at a riding stable, by the ocean, in a hospital room, and in Adrian's bed. In the last few, she'd started to show. In the photos, Adrian was still wearing his wedding ring. I put the divorce papers in front of him. Adrian barely glanced at them. "I'm not signing." "Why not?" He leaned back in his chair, like we were discussing some contract that didn't matter. "We agreed back then. A Moretti marriage only ends one way. "Death." I looked at him. "That was something stupid we said when we were 20." "I never thought it was stupid." He folded the papers and fed them into the shredder. The machine chewed them up with a low grinding sound. "Sera, we don't get divorced. "Our marriage only ends in death." The woman's name was Livia Caruso. She was seven years younger than me. The night my divorce papers were shredded, she called me herself. "Mrs. Moretti, you must have seen the photos by now." Her voice was sweet, with the kind of innocence that comes from being protected a little too well. "Adrian has been taking care of me since I was 19. "You've been married all these years without a single child, and I'm the one who's pregnant. Don't you get it yet?" I didn't answer. She sent me about 12 more photos. Hotel key cards. A yacht. Adrian bending down to tie her shoe. And a report from a prenatal checkup. The next day, Livia showed up at my office. My assistant tried to stop her, but Livia only smiled at her. "Mrs. Moretti knows me." I told them to let her in. She was wearing a white dress and kept stroking her belly, though she wasn't showing yet. "My father, Vincent Caruso, died because of Adrian. "He promised to take care of me for the rest of my life. "You should understand." I looked up. "Understand what? "That 'taking care of you' means taking you to a hotel room?" The smile on her face froze for a second. Then it came right back. "I just came to tell you I won't let my baby be born a bastard. "You'd better step aside." I pressed the intercom button. "Security." Two female guards came in. I pointed at the door. "Please show Ms. Caruso out." Livia's expression changed. "Serafina, you think you can lay a hand on me?" "I haven't touched you," I said. "This is my office. You barged in without an appointment, and you're interrupting my work. "As for who Adrian loves—" I pushed the prenatal report she'd brought with her back across the desk. "He can come tell me himself." Sure enough, Adrian came home that night. He didn't ask whether she'd bothered me. The first thing out of his mouth was about her. "Livia's pregnant. She's emotional. "Don't provoke her." I let out a laugh. "So when she shows up at my office to push me out, I'm the one provoking her?" Adrian rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Her father died because of me. I owe her." "Can you stop hiding behind that line every time something happens?" "Sera." His voice dropped. "She's young. She doesn't know any better. "You're different." I looked at him. So "different" meant she got to make mistakes, and I had to be the reasonable one.

第2章

Adrian saved me when we were young. So for years after that, I saved him too. The closest call came in our third year in the Moretti family. Adrian was negotiating for a North Shore shipping route, but he disappeared after the talks ended. The other side left only one message. "If you want him alive, Serafina comes alone." I was eight months pregnant by then. Everyone told me not to go. I went anyway, with ten men. That night, we fought our way in through the front door of an abandoned warehouse. It wasn't a hail of bullets like in the movies. It was mostly chaos, smoke, and screaming. I never knew who'd lunge out of the dark next. In the end, only two of my guards and I were left standing. When I found Adrian, he was tied to a chair, his face covered in blood. Someone kicked me from behind. I slammed into a metal table and started bleeding right there. I lost the baby. Afterward, Adrian knelt outside the operating room and cried for the first time. He held me. "I'll never let you take a risk like that again. "I'll protect you." I believed him. Even when the doctor told me getting pregnant again might be harder, I comforted Adrian first. "It's okay. "We still have each other." All these years later, I still felt a dull ache low in my belly whenever it rained. Adrian knew, so I never once ran out of my medication. That was why I'd always believed he'd never hurt me on purpose, no matter how much we fought or clashed over power. Then Livia showed up. And I found out he knew far more about that kidnapping than I'd ever imagined. The next time Livia came looking for me was at the Moretti family's charity gala. She didn't come straight to me. She just waited outside the restroom. "Adrian says you used to be quite the fighter." She gave me a breezy little smile. "You're not much of one now." I washed my hands and ignored her. Suddenly she grabbed my wrist and pressed my hand against her belly. "What are you doing?" I yanked my hand away at once. She let herself fall backward. A second later, I heard footsteps outside the restroom. Adrian rushed in. Livia was pale, clutching her stomach. "Adrian, it hurts so much." I stayed where I was. I didn't explain. Adrian looked at me. Just once. Then he picked Livia up. "Call a doctor." As he passed me, he paused briefly. "That's enough for tonight." I looked up. "What's that supposed to mean?" "Don't touch her again." That was clearer than any accusation. As far as he was concerned, he didn't even need to know what had happened. I turned and went back to the ballroom. Ten minutes later, my assistant sent the security footage from the restroom hallway to my phone. The camera couldn't see inside, but it caught Livia propping her phone up behind a potted plant by the door before she went in. I had someone retrieve the phone. The recording had caught it all: How she goaded me. How she grabbed me first. How she fell on purpose. Every second of it, crystal clear. I didn't give it to Adrian right away. I just handed the file to my lawyer. "Keep it on file." My assistant was taken aback. "You're not going to show the Don?" I said, "If I have to keep proving to my own husband that I haven't hurt anyone, there's no point explaining myself anymore."

第3章

Livia didn't lose the baby. The hospital even confirmed she only had mild abdominal pain. It was two in the morning when Adrian came home. He took off his coat and saw me sitting in the living room. "Still up?" "Waiting for you." He stopped for a moment. I pushed the divorce papers across to him again. "Sign." Adrian stared at the papers. "Not this again." "This is the last time." He went to the liquor cabinet and poured himself a whiskey. "Sera, you're just upset because of Livia. "I'll handle things with her." "How are you going to handle it?" "After the baby's born, I'll give her some money." "And what about her after that?" He didn't answer. "Do you love her?" "That doesn't matter." I laughed. "Of course it doesn't matter to you. "Because you want to keep both options open." Adrian's face darkened. "Don't make it sound so ugly." "Then you make it sound nicer." I pointed at the papers. "Sign." He stood there holding his drink for a long time. Finally, he picked up the papers. I thought he was finally going to sign. But a lighter flared. Flames climbed up from the corner of the page. I watched him burn the second set of divorce papers to ash. "I told you. "A Moretti marriage only ends in death." I didn't lose my temper. I just nodded. "Fine." This time, he was the one who frowned. "What do you mean, 'fine'?" "Nothing." I stood up. "I just wanted to be sure you'd used up your last chance." The next day, I went to the old archives. That was where we kept the records from our most chaotic early years. A lot of those operations were legitimate now, but not all the old records had been destroyed. I'd only meant to find the compensation records for that kidnapping ten years ago. Instead I turned up a security deployment order. It was dated the day I lost my baby. It read: [Once the target enters the warehouse, the backup team at the perimeter is to withdraw for 20 minutes.] Approved by: A.M. Adrian Moretti. I stared at those two letters as my palms slowly went cold. I kept reading. There was also a scanned email. It was from Adrian's personal assistant at the time. [Confirming the plan: create chaos, but cause no actual harm to Serafina. She needs to learn the cost of ignoring orders.] The reply was one line. [Scaring her is enough.] I sat on the floor of the archive room and didn't move for a long time. That kidnapping wasn't entirely fake. The enemy was real. The fighting was real too. But Adrian had known ahead of time. He'd even made sure word got out that I'd be the one coming. He wanted me to back down after one failure and let him take charge of all the negotiations, contacts, and dealings with outsiders again. He hadn't planned for me to lose the baby. He'd only planned for me to be afraid. This was his idea of "protection": First, he created the danger. Then he made himself the only person who could save me. I made copies of every file. When I got home, Adrian was in the kitchen. He hardly ever cooked. But that day, he'd made the pasta I loved most as a kid. "It's raining hard today," he said. "Your stomach's going to hurt." I stood in the kitchen doorway and looked at the man I'd known better than anyone for more than a decade. For the first time, he felt like a complete stranger.

第4章

I didn't confront him that night. I took care of something else first. I separated our business finances. The Moretti family's legitimate businesses fell into three categories: Port logistics. Wineries and hotels. Overseas trade. Adrian had always been seen as the man in charge. But I'd signed the long-term contracts with nearly half our clients. I spent a week sorting out all the authorizations for the companies I personally controlled. I wasn't moving family assets. I was replacing the vague idea of "running everything together as husband and wife" with clear corporate boundaries. The CFO looked over the list, sweat beading on his forehead. "Donna, if we do this, all three North Shore ports will have to renegotiate their guarantee agreements." "Then we renegotiate." "But the Don..." "There's nothing in the company bylaws that says 'husband's approval required.'" He shut his mouth. The second thing I did was replace my personal security team. Before, every hire had needed Adrian's final sign-off. This time, I canceled their contracts outright and hired an independent firm. Third, I went to the hospital. I had another full workup. Dr. Elaine Brooks frowned after going through my old records. "Who told you that you couldn't get pregnant?" "A doctor, ten years ago." "Your uterus has healed very well," she said. "There was serious damage, yes, but your current results don't support the conclusion that pregnancy is 'basically impossible.'" I froze. "Then why haven't I gotten pregnant all these years?" Elaine was quiet for a moment. "Has your husband been tested?" Adrian had a physical every year. But he'd never once let me see the fertility results. I went back and looked. The report had a separate password. The password wasn't my birthday. It was Livia's. The report showed Adrian's fertility was extremely low. It wasn't impossible for him to get someone pregnant. But the odds of him getting a woman pregnant twice in quick succession without medical help were almost absurdly low. I put the report down. And suddenly I laughed. Of Livia's two so-called pregnancies, one had already "ended unexpectedly." The other was still ongoing. If the baby wasn't Adrian's, there was another reason she was in such a hurry to force me into a divorce. She needed to become Mrs. Moretti before the truth came out. I had someone look into where she'd been over the past year. They didn't go near her bedroom. They didn't run any surveillance that crossed the line. They only checked public flight records, company access logs, and the timestamps on her social media posts. A name came up fast. Noah Bell. Her college boyfriend. They were still in touch. More importantly, Noah had once worked for the Caruso family's old company. And Vincent, Livia's father, had been an accomplice in that "kidnapping" ten years ago. At last, all the threads came together. That night, Adrian came home. I laid the old kidnapping files on the dining table. He read just one page. His face went white. "Sera." "Don't call me that." "Let me explain." "Fine." I sat down. "Explain." He opened his mouth. After a long silence, he said, "I was scared of losing you back then." I could hardly believe what I'd heard. "So being afraid of losing me gave you the right to put me in danger?" "You kept getting stronger." His voice was hoarse. "A lot of people started bypassing me and coming straight to you. "Some people in the Moretti family were even saying you could hold it all together without me." I looked at him. "So you made me afraid on purpose." He closed his eyes. "I just wanted you to slow down. "To lean on me a little more." The silence was so thick it made me sick. I finally understood. He'd saved me. He'd loved me too. But once I was no longer the girl who needed saving, he started looking for ways to make me that girl again.