Chapter 3 - The Mistress Who Knew Too Much
Vanessa Hale vanished three days after Lorenzo received my divorce papers.
Her apartment was empty when police arrived. Her closets were open. Her passport was gone. A half-finished glass of wine sat on the kitchen counter beside a broken phone.
The media called it a mysterious disappearance.
The city whispered that Lorenzo had done something to her.
I knew better.
Or at least, I wanted to.
Lorenzo could be merciless in business. He had enemies who had learned not to cross him twice. But despite everything, I could not believe he had harmed Vanessa.
Not because he was incapable.
Because he was too controlled.
If Vanessa had disappeared, it was likely because she knew something dangerous.
A week later, I received a package at the bookstore.
There was no return address.
Inside was a flash drive.
And a note written in Vanessa’s careful handwriting.
ISABELLA,
I KNOW YOU HATE ME. YOU SHOULD.
BUT LORENZO WAS NEVER SUPPOSED TO FIND OUT ABOUT US.
HE WAS NEVER THE PLAN.
THE PERSON WHO PUT ME CLOSE TO HIM IS COMING FOR YOU.
DON’T TRUST ANYONE FROM HIS INNER CIRCLE.
— V.
I read the note six times.
Then I plugged the flash drive into the old laptop Grace had provided.
It contained financial records, private meeting schedules, voice recordings, and messages between Vanessa and a man named Matteo Ricci.
Matteo was Lorenzo’s cousin.
His childhood friend.
The man who had stood beside us at our wedding.
The man Lorenzo trusted with the parts of his business he would never explain to me.
In the recordings, Matteo spoke about weakening Lorenzo’s organization from inside.
He wanted Lorenzo distracted.
Unstable.
Desperate.
Vanessa had been placed near Lorenzo to create a scandal that would destroy his marriage and make him vulnerable.
But the affair had become real.
At least, real enough for Vanessa to betray Matteo by copying his files.
One recording made my blood turn cold.
Matteo’s voice said, “When Isabella leaves, Lorenzo will chase her. He will expose every route, every safe contact, every weakness. And when the baby comes, he will be impossible to predict.”
I stopped breathing.
They knew.
Not because Lorenzo told them.
Because someone had been watching me.
The receipt from the baby boutique had not been an accident.
I called Grace immediately.
Within hours, she moved me again.
This time to a secured property owned by a retired judge outside Boston. She told me I had to consider telling Lorenzo about the pregnancy.
“He may already know,” she said.
“He cannot find me.”
“Bella, men like Lorenzo find things.”
I looked down at the ultrasound photograph.
“No,” I said. “Not if I stop being something he owns.”
But that night, as snow began to fall outside the small cottage, a black car stopped at the gate.
Every muscle in my body went rigid.
Two men stepped out.
Not Lorenzo.
One was Dominic Ferraro, Lorenzo’s longtime head of security.
The other was an older woman I recognized immediately.
Lorenzo’s mother.
Sofia DeSantis had never liked me. She believed I was too gentle for her son, too ordinary for their family, too unaware of the world I married into.
Now she stood at the gate with tears in her eyes.
I did not open the door.
Dominic raised both hands.
“Mrs. Moretti,” he called. “We are not here to take you back.”
“You found me.”
“Yes.”
“Then Lorenzo knows.”
Dominic looked down.
“He does now.”
The words made the room spin.
Sofia stepped forward.
“My son found the boutique receipt,” she said. “He asked me if you could be pregnant.”
I placed one hand over my stomach.
Sofia saw the movement.
Her face crumpled.
“Oh, Isabella.”
“You don’t get to call me that like you care.”
She closed her eyes.
“You are right.”
Then Dominic spoke.
“Matteo is looking for you too. Vanessa sent Lorenzo a message before she disappeared. She said the affair was a trap.”
I stared at them through the glass.
“Where is Lorenzo?”
Dominic’s voice went low.
“Trying to find Vanessa before Matteo does.”
“And if he cannot?”
“Then Matteo will use you to destroy him.”
I should have told them to leave.
I should have called Grace and had them removed from the property.
But Sofia reached inside her coat and held up a small white shoe.
The second one.
“I found this in Lorenzo’s car,” she whispered. “He has carried it with him every day since.”
My throat closed.
“He did not know,” Sofia said. “But he knows now.”
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For the first time since I left, I wondered whether Lorenzo’s silence had ever been love.
And whether love could survive what he had done.
