Chapter 3 - THE MAFIA BOSS CHOSE HIS FORMER MISTRESS AGAIN—BUT WHEN HIS WIFE'S PRIVATE DOCTOR CALLED, HE DISCOVERED THE ONE SECRET SHE HAD NEVER TOLD HIM

I read the message until the letters blurred. Then I turned off the lamp, crossed the bedroom, and looked through the curtains at the long driveway. A security vehicle idled beneath the cypress trees. I couldn't tell whether the man inside was protecting the house or watching me.

My phone vibrated again.

Don't make him choose twice.

I took screenshots and sent them to Daniel through the encrypted account he had set up for me. His response came almost immediately: Do not answer. Do not leave the house alone. We are accelerating.

I wanted to call Alexander. The instinct was humiliating in its familiarity. For years, danger had meant reaching for him, trusting that the man who controlled half the city's shadows could make mine disappear. But Alexander had become part of the danger. I placed the phone face down and locked the bedroom door.

By morning, I had made a decision. I would not let an anonymous threat force me into a reckless escape. I would collect the evidence Daniel needed, protect the baby, and leave through a legal route that Alexander couldn't easily reverse. I called Nina, who arranged to take over my studio appointments. Then I asked Rosa to bring breakfast upstairs and told her I was feeling unwell.

Rosa set the tray beside me. 'You don't have to tell me anything,' she said, 'but if someone is frightening you, there are people in this house who would help.'

I studied her kind, lined face. 'How long have you worked for Alexander?'

'Twelve years.'

'Do you believe he can change?'

She considered the question. 'Yes. But change is something a person does when nobody is applauding. Not a speech, not a gift, not an injury.'

I thought of nine thousand stone steps and a ring found in the gutter. 'I wish someone had told me that sooner.'

'I think you knew,' Rosa said. 'You just wanted to give him the chance.'

At eleven, Daniel called. 'I found the source of the SUV. The vehicle was dispatched by Russo's office, not Alexander's personal security chief.'

'Why would Russo follow me?'

'We're checking. I also found something odd in a corporate filing. A trust was established three months ago, with Olivia Voss named as a beneficiary. It includes provisions for a child.'

I sat down. 'Alexander knew about a child before our wedding?'

'Not necessarily. The trust could have been drafted as a precaution. We need documents before making accusations.'

'What about the medical confidentiality agreement?'

'Keep your copy. Don't sign it. And Claire, there's a clause in the trust filings that refers to succession rights. Someone is positioning Olivia's baby as a future Moretti heir.'

My hand went to my stomach. 'They don't know about mine.'

'Someone may. The photograph proves you were watched leaving a clinic. We don't know what they learned inside.'

'How soon can you get me out?'

'Tomorrow night. A driver will meet you near the service gate. You will travel under your own legal name, but not on a Moretti aircraft. We're arranging a safe place and independent counsel.'

'Alexander will come looking.'

'He can ask a court for information like anyone else. He does not get to decide where you live because he's powerful.'

I breathed more easily. Daniel was not promising magic. He was promising paperwork, witnesses, and boundaries. It was less romantic than Alexander's grand gestures. It was exactly what I needed.

The afternoon brought Olivia to my door.

She arrived in a white coat with two bodyguards and an expression carefully arranged to look vulnerable. Rosa attempted to turn her away, but Olivia announced that Alexander had invited her. I heard the argument from the stairs and came down before the guards could enter farther.

'He isn't home,' I said.

Olivia looked up at me. 'I know. I came to speak to you.'

'You can speak from there.'

She glanced at Rosa. 'Alone.'

'No.'

For a moment, her pleasant expression cracked. Then she placed a hand over her stomach. 'I didn't want things to happen this way.'

'Neither did I.'

'Alexander loves you.'

'You seem very confident about that.'

'He talks about you constantly. Even when we were together, he—'

'Stop.'

She lowered her eyes, but I caught a flash of satisfaction before she did. 'I'm only trying to help you understand. This baby changes things. The Moretti family will need to make arrangements.'

'For your child, I hope you make arrangements with the child's father.'

'Alexander is the father.'

'Then he can be responsible. That doesn't give you a place in my home.'

She stepped closer. 'I don't want to hurt you, Claire. But his family has expectations. They want an heir.'

I felt a surge of anger so clean it steadied me. 'A child is not a corporate appointment.'

'You wouldn't understand.'

I almost laughed. She had no idea how much I understood.

'Leave,' I said.

Olivia looked past me at the staircase. 'You think you can keep him just by refusing to let me in?'

'I don't want to keep anyone who wants to leave.'

She stared at me, perhaps surprised that the sentence was true. Then she turned sharply and walked out. Rosa closed the door behind her.

'Well,' Rosa said, 'that was unpleasant.'

'Please make sure the security cameras saved it.'

'I already asked.'

I hugged her before I could stop myself. She patted my back, pretending not to notice that I was shaking.

Alexander returned just before dinner. I heard his car on the gravel and the familiar rhythm of his shoes crossing the entrance hall. He found me in the conservatory, where I had been sorting photographs into a box. Most were ordinary: our second wedding, a trip to the coast, the day he came home from physical therapy without a cane. I had decided to keep the photographs that belonged to my own memories, not the public image of our marriage.

'Olivia was here,' he said without greeting.

'Yes.'

'You upset her.'

I looked up. 'She came to my house and told me your family needed an heir.'

'Her pregnancy is difficult. She needs support.'

'Then support her without asking me to participate.'

He sighed. 'Why does every conversation become a fight?'

'Because you keep arriving with an accusation instead of a question.'

He stared at the photographs. 'Are you packing?'

'I'm sorting.'

'Claire.'

'Alexander.'

He crouched in front of me, his broad hands resting on his knees. The scars from the accident were still visible at his collar. 'I know I've hurt you. I know this looks terrible. But I love you.'

'I believe you feel something you call love.'

'What is that supposed to mean?'

'It means I need more than words.'

'I nearly died for you.'

I closed the box. 'And I will always be grateful you saved my life. But you don't get to spend that sacrifice like currency every time you betray me.'

He recoiled as though I had struck him. For a moment, I saw the angry man from our first marriage, the one who believed an injury to his pride justified any response. Then he looked away and took a breath.

'You're right,' he said quietly.

I waited. There was more truth to tell, and he knew it.

'Olivia and I were together once after we separated,' he said. 'Before we remarried. I should have told you. When she said she was pregnant, I panicked. I didn't want to lose you again.'

'You already had the chance to tell me at the hospital.'

'I was ashamed.'

'You told me her pregnancy relieved me of the pressure to have children.'

He shut his eyes. 'I know. It was cruel.'

'It was.'

'I can't undo it.'

'No.'

He reached toward my hand, then stopped. 'What can I do now?'

'Tell Olivia the truth about your marriage. Stop letting Russo manage my life. And give me time without following me.'

'You think Russo is following you?'

I watched his face carefully. The surprise looked genuine. 'A black SUV followed me to work. It belongs to his office.'

Alexander stood. 'I'll handle it.'

'No threats. No violence. I want to know why, not hear that someone disappeared.'

He looked at me for a long moment. 'All right.'

It was the first time I had asked him for a peaceful solution to something that frightened me. Whether he could deliver one remained to be seen.

That evening, Daniel sent an update. The driver would arrive at ten the following night. Nina would meet me after the first transfer. The safe address would be shared only once I reached it. I packed lightly: identification, medical documents, a few clothes, my grandmother's photograph, and the ultrasound image. I left the expensive jewelry in its velvet cases.

At eight the next morning, Alexander received a call in his study. I was in the hallway when I heard him answer.

'Dr. Shaw?'

I froze.

He listened. 'I'm sorry, who is this about?'

My heart began to pound. I had asked the clinic not to share information. Had someone forged an authorization? Had the Moretti family used its influence? I stepped toward the door, ready to confront him, then stopped when his voice changed.

'Pregnant?' he repeated.

The silence that followed seemed endless.

'No. That can't be right. Claire and I—' He broke off. 'Eight weeks?'

I gripped the doorframe.

The doctor had not called to discuss my health, as I learned later. A clerical assistant at the independent clinic had received a fraudulent records request bearing my forged signature. Dr. Shaw's office called the number listed on the request to verify it, not knowing that the number belonged to Alexander's private line. By saying my name and asking whether he had submitted the authorization, the assistant had given away the one fact I had protected.

Alexander emerged from the study with the phone still in his hand. His face was white.

'Claire.'

I looked at him without answering.

'You're pregnant?'

I said nothing.

'Is it mine?'

The question landed like a slap. I took one step back. 'You don't get to ask me that.'

His expression collapsed. 'I didn't mean—'

'You did. It was the first thing you thought.'

'Claire, please. I was shocked.'

'You were shocked because you thought you knew everything about my body.'

He reached for the wall as if he needed something solid. 'Why didn't you tell me?'

I felt the baby as a fact inside me, not yet a movement, not yet a visible curve, but a promise I had made to protect. 'Because I was standing outside a hospital room when you told another woman you would hide her pregnancy from me.'

He covered his face. 'Oh, God.'

'Because you told me I couldn't have children as if that made your betrayal easier to accept. Because I wanted one piece of my life that you hadn't already negotiated with somebody else.'

'I would never hurt our child.'

'You hurt the child's mother.'

He lowered his hands. There were tears in his eyes, and once I would have crossed the room to wipe them away. I stayed where I was.

'I'm going to be a father,' he whispered.

'You were already going to be a father, Alexander. You just thought the baby would belong to Olivia.'

He flinched. 'Please don't shut me out.'

'I need space.'

'I can give you space. Anything. Just don't leave.'

The words were so close to the promises he had made before our second wedding that I felt the old grief rise like water in a locked room. 'You don't understand. Space isn't something you give me. It's something I have the right to take.'

He stepped aside. I walked past him and went upstairs. For the next hour, I heard doors opening and closing below, voices rising, a car leaving too fast. I called Dr. Shaw's office and learned about the forged request. Daniel confirmed that the document had come from Russo's legal team.

'He knows,' I told my brother.

'I know. We intercepted a call from the clinic about the authorization. The plan stays in place, but we move carefully. Don't argue with him again today.'

'He asked if the baby was his.'

Daniel was silent for a moment. 'I'm sorry.'

'I don't want apologies for him.'

'Then I won't offer any. I'll be there tomorrow.'

At dusk, Alexander knocked on my bedroom door. I had locked it. He didn't try the handle.

'Claire, I've dismissed Russo pending an investigation,' he said through the wood. 'I didn't authorize him to follow you or request your records. I've called an independent lawyer. I know that doesn't repair what I did.'

I sat on the floor beside my suitcase, listening.

'I want to be there for the baby,' he continued. 'But I know I have to earn the right to be trusted. I won't force you to talk tonight.'

His footsteps receded. I waited until the hall was quiet before allowing myself to cry. Part of me wanted to believe him. Another part remembered that he had sounded sincere every time before.

At nine the following night, I dressed in dark jeans and a gray sweater. Rosa met me at the service stairs. She had discovered my suitcase but had not asked questions. Instead, she handed me a paper bag filled with sandwiches and a thermos of ginger tea.

'For the road,' she said.

'You could lose your job.'

'I've worked for men who thought their money made them gods,' she answered. 'I'll find another job.'

I hugged her tightly. 'Thank you.'

She pulled back, her eyes wet. 'Go while you still can.'

I walked toward the service gate carrying everything I had chosen to keep. Behind me, the mansion glowed gold against the dark trees. It was beautiful. It had never felt less like home.

Then my phone rang.

Alexander.

I let it ring. A message followed: Claire, don't go to the service gate. Someone has given Olivia your route. Russo isn't working alone.

I stopped beneath the trees. Ahead, headlights flashed once beyond the gate, the signal Daniel's driver had promised to use.

A second vehicle rolled out of the darkness behind it.

And from the open window, a familiar woman's voice called my name.

'Claire,' Olivia said sweetly. 'We need to talk about which baby gets to be a Moretti.'

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END OF CHAPTERS 1-3

TITLE: THE MAFIA BOSS CRAWLED NINE THOUSAND STEPS TO WIN HIS EX-WIFE BACK—BUT WHEN SHE FOUND HIS FORMER MISTRESS PREGNANT, SHE HID HER OWN BABY AND PLANNED A DISAPPEARANCE THAT WOULD DESTROY HIS EMPIRE