Chapter 4 - The Man Beneath the Name
Lorenzo came to Boston alone.
Not to the cottage.
Not at first.
He waited outside the small church near the river where I went on Sunday mornings because no one knew me there.
I saw him from across the street.
He wore a dark coat, no security team, no black cars, no visible weapon. Snow gathered lightly on his shoulders.
For several minutes, I considered walking away.
Then I saw the exhaustion on his face.
Lorenzo DeSantis had always seemed impossible to shake. Even after sleepless nights, he looked controlled. Even after threats, he looked calm.
But now he looked like a man who had lost the one thing he never believed could leave him.
Me.
I crossed the street slowly.
He did not move toward me.
That mattered.
“Hello, Isabella,” he said.
“Do not call me your wife.”
His face tightened.
“Okay.”
The simple answer surprised me.
We stood several feet apart beneath the bare trees.
“I know about the baby,” he said.
My hand moved instinctively over my stomach.
“I am not asking you to come back,” he continued. “I am not asking you to forgive me. I am asking you to let me make sure you are safe.”
“You had two years to make me safe.”
“I know.”
“You lied to me.”
“Yes.”
“You made me feel like I was loved while you were kissing another woman.”
His eyes closed briefly.
“Yes.”
The honesty did not heal anything.
But it stopped the wound from becoming another lie.
“Why?” I asked.
He looked toward the river.
“At first, Vanessa was useful. She had access to information. She knew how to move through rooms where people underestimated her. Matteo introduced her as someone we could trust.”
“And then?”
“And then I became careless.”
“That is not an answer.”
Lorenzo looked at me.
“Then I became weak.”
I had never heard him say those words.
“Vanessa made it easy to avoid looking at what I had become,” he said. “With you, I wanted to be better. And instead of becoming better, I hid the worst parts of myself from you.”
Tears burned behind my eyes.
“You called me quiet and grateful.”
“I was cruel.”
“You laughed.”
“I hated myself the moment I saw you standing at that door.”
“Yet you kept laughing.”
His face broke then.
Not dramatically.
Not loudly.
But I saw the grief he had hidden from everyone else.
“I was afraid to tell Vanessa she meant nothing,” he said. “I was afraid she would expose Matteo’s operation. And I used you as an excuse because I thought you would always be there.”
I looked at him for a long time.
“Do you love me?” I asked.
Lorenzo did not hesitate.
“Yes.”
“Then why did I always feel lonely beside you?”
He had no answer.
That was the truest thing he gave me.
A phone rang.
Dominic.
Lorenzo answered, listened, and his face went cold.
“Where?” he asked.
Then he ended the call.
“Matteo found Vanessa,” he said.
“Is she alive?”
“Yes. For now.”
“Where is she?”
Lorenzo looked at me with terror.
“She told him where you are.”
The church bells began to ring.
At the same moment, a van pulled onto the quiet street.
Lorenzo moved in front of me without thinking.
Men stepped out.
Dominic’s team appeared from the opposite corner almost instantly, but Matteo’s men had planned carefully.
A flash of smoke filled the street.
Someone grabbed my arm.
I screamed.
Lorenzo turned, his voice breaking through the chaos.
“Isabella!”
The last thing I saw before the van door slammed shut was Lorenzo running toward me through the snow.
Not as a mafia boss.
Not as a feared man.
May you like
As my husband.
Too late.
