Chapter 2 - The Other Woman Was Never the Real Betrayal
Dante spent the next forty-eight hours tearing through everything he thought he knew.
He questioned security.
He questioned drivers.
He questioned staff.
He questioned Vivian.
She cried.
She lied.
Then she cried again.
“I swear nothing happened.”
Dante stared at her.
“You were on my bed.”
“I was waiting for you.”
“Why?”
She swallowed.
“You told me to come.”
“I did not.”
“I have messages.”
She showed him her phone.
Dante took it.
The messages were real.
But something felt wrong.
He knew his own texting patterns.
The punctuation.
The shorthand.
The phrases.
He would never have written them.
Someone had impersonated him.
Dante handed the phone back.
“Who gave you this number?”
Vivian hesitated.
“My sister.”
“Name.”
“Lydia.”
Dante’s expression hardened.
Lydia Cross.
A woman who had worked for the Moretti family for seven years.
An accountant.
A quiet one.
Almost invisible.
He called his head of security.
“Bring Lydia to me.”
“She’s gone.”
Dante went still.
“When?”
“Yesterday morning.”
“After Emma left?”
“Yes.”
Everything suddenly connected.
Vivian had not been the beginning.
She had been bait.
And Emma’s disappearance had been the real objective.
Dante returned to the bedroom.
He picked up Emma’s ring.
He remembered their wedding day.
Emma had laughed because his tie was crooked.
“You’re supposed to be the intimidating one,” she had said.
“I am.”
“No. You look nervous.”
“I’m marrying you.”
“You’re nervous?”
“I’m terrified.”
She had laughed.
Three years later, the memory hurt more than any bullet.
Dante had believed providing Emma with luxury, security, and a powerful name was enough.
He had failed to notice the small things.
Her silence.
Her late-night work.
The way she stopped asking where he went.
The way she had started locking her own files.
The way she looked at him as though she were slowly preparing to let him go.
He had mistaken her patience for permanence.
Now she was gone.
And he had no idea where she was.
Meanwhile, at the blue house, I had started preparing a nursery.
I bought a white crib.
A rocking chair.
Tiny clothes.
A yellow blanket.
It felt strange buying everything alone.
Then one afternoon, someone knocked.
I froze.
No one knew my address.
I reached for the concealed panic button beneath the kitchen counter.
The door opened.
Miriam stood outside.
“You forgot something.”
She held a package.
Inside was my mother’s old necklace.
I stared at it.
“I thought I lost this.”
“Your father left it with me years ago.”
I frowned.
“My father?”
Miriam nodded.
“There’s a letter.”
I opened the envelope.
The handwriting was unmistakable.
My father.
“Emma,
There are things about Dante’s family you were never supposed to know.
If the day comes when you no longer feel safe, trust Miriam.
Do not trust the Moretti accounts.
And whatever happens, never let anyone convince you that your child is a bargaining chip.
Your mother would have wanted you to know that.”
I read it twice.
Then again.
“Dad knew?”
Miriam nodded.
“He suspected the Moretti family was involved in something much bigger.”
“What?”
“Money laundering. Blackmail. Political manipulation.”
I felt sick.
“And Dante?”
“We don’t know.”
Before I could ask more, my phone rang.
Unknown number.
I answered.
A woman whispered,
“Your husband didn’t betray you.”
I stood perfectly still.
“Who is this?”
“You need to understand what happened that night.”
“Who are you?”
A pause.
“Someone who owes your father a debt.”
The call ended.
I looked at Miriam.
She had heard everything.
“What do you think?”
She was pale.
“I think someone wants you to survive.”
“Why?”
“Because they need you to expose something.”
That night, I barely slept.
At dawn, another message arrived.
A photograph.
Dante standing outside a bank.
Beside him was a man I didn’t recognize.
The caption read:
Ask him about the Bellmont Account.
I stared.
I knew that name.
I had seen it in the financial records I copied.
The Bellmont Account had received nearly eight million dollars over eighteen months.
I had assumed it was a construction expense.
Now I wasn’t so sure.
I called Miriam.
“Pull everything on Bellmont.”
“Already doing it.”
Three hours later, she called back.
“There is no company.”
“What?”
“No Bellmont Corporation. No Bellmont Trust. No Bellmont Foundation.”
My pulse raced.
“Then what is it?”
“I don’t know.”
A second later, an email arrived.
One attachment.
A bank statement.
The account holder was Dante Moretti.
But there was a beneficiary.
Emma Moretti.
My name.
I stared at the document in disbelief.
I had never opened that account.
Dante had.
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And suddenly, the question wasn’t whether my husband had cheated.
It was why my name had been attached to millions of dollars I knew nothing about.
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