MY MAFIA HUSBAND SPENT 13 DAYS IN PARIS WITH HIS FIRST LOVE

The first time Emily Carter held her daughter, she was too weak to lift her own head from the hospital pillow.

The second time, she promised herself that no man would ever make Grace feel unwanted.

Now, nine days later, she sat in the narrow bedroom of her little Lincoln Park townhouse, watching the infant sleep in a bassinet beside her bed.

The house was nothing like the Moretti mansion.

There were no marble columns.

No private security checkpoint.

No chandelier that cost more than most families earned in five years.

The kitchen had white cabinets, an old wooden dining table, and a window overlooking a small backyard.

The staircase creaked.

The second-floor bathroom needed new tile.

And the heater made an annoying clicking sound whenever it turned on.

Emily loved every inch of it.

She had purchased the property before marrying Vincent, using money her grandmother had left her and savings from her career in architectural restoration.

For years, she had rented it to a family friend while living in the mansion.

Now it was the only place where she wanted to raise her daughter.

Grace stirred.

Emily leaned over the bassinet and carefully lifted her.

"Hey, beautiful girl."

The baby opened her dark eyes.

They were Vincent's eyes.

That was the cruelest part.

Even though Emily had spent nine months carrying Grace, enduring the nausea, the swollen ankles, the sleepless nights, and finally the terrible pain of childbirth, her daughter had arrived looking remarkably like the man who hadn't bothered to come home.

Emily kissed her tiny forehead.

"You're going to be okay."

She wasn't entirely sure whether she was speaking to Grace or herself.

Her phone vibrated on the bedside table.

Rachel Kim.

Emily answered quietly.

"Did he call you?"

"Yes."

"Was he angry?"

Rachel hesitated.

"He sounded devastated."

Emily looked at Grace.

"That's interesting."

"Emily."

"What?"

"You don't have to pretend you don't care."

Emily smiled sadly.

"I'm not pretending."

She adjusted the blanket around Grace.

"I cared for years, Rachel. Every missed birthday, every canceled dinner, every time Sophia called and he walked out of the room to answer."

Her throat tightened.

"I just don't have anything left."

Rachel was silent for a moment.

Then she asked, "Are you eating?"

Emily laughed softly.

"That sounds like something my mother would ask."

"Then answer like I'm your mother."

"Margaret sent enough food to feed a baseball team. I had soup an hour ago."

"Good."

Rachel paused.

"Vincent wants to see Grace."

Emily closed her eyes.

There it was.

The thing she had known was coming.

Vincent Moretti had finally discovered he was a father, and now he wanted access to the child he'd abandoned before she was born.

"He can see her," Emily said.

Rachel sounded surprised.

"Are you sure?"

"I'm not going to punish my daughter because her father hurt me."

"That's generous."

"No. It's necessary."

Emily looked down at Grace's sleeping face.

"But he doesn't get to walk into this house and start making decisions. He doesn't get to bring armed men into her nursery. And he doesn't get to pretend we are still a family."

"I'll prepare an interim parenting arrangement."

"Thank you."

"One more thing."

Emily waited.

"Are you certain you want the divorce?"

For a few seconds, the only sound was Grace's quiet breathing.

Then Emily answered.

"I was certain when the doctor told me I was hemorrhaging and I realized I might die without ever seeing Vincent again."

Rachel didn't speak.

Emily remembered that night with painful clarity.

Four days after Vincent left for Paris, she had been sitting in the mansion's upstairs bedroom when the contractions began.

At first, she had tried to remain calm.

Her doctor had explained what early labor might feel like.

She knew babies sometimes arrived before their due dates.

She had packed her hospital bag weeks earlier.

But when the contractions became regular and sharp, fear crept through her.

She called Vincent.

No answer.

She called again.

No answer.

She sent a message.

Vincent, I think I'm in labor. Please call me.

Twenty minutes later, another contraction doubled her over.

She called again.

His phone went to voicemail.

Finally, she contacted Anthony.

"Mr. Bell, I need Vincent."

"Mrs. Moretti, he's in a meeting."

"I'm having contractions."

"I understand."

"No, I don't think you do. The baby is coming."

Anthony sighed.

"I'll make sure he receives the message."

Emily waited.

Thirty minutes passed.

She called again.

This time Anthony sounded impatient.

"Mrs. Moretti, Mr. Moretti is handling something important in Paris."

Emily gripped the kitchen counter.

"I'm having his child."

A long silence followed.

Then Anthony replied, "I'll notify him."

He never called back.

Margaret found her sitting on the bedroom floor shortly afterward, one hand pressed against her stomach.

"Oh, sweetheart."

Those two words were enough to make Emily cry.

Margaret helped her downstairs and insisted on calling an ambulance.

At the hospital, a nurse asked whether her husband was coming.

Emily nodded.

"He's overseas, but he'll be here."

She believed it.

Even after everything, she believed Vincent would come.

He was the kind of man who could have a private jet prepared in an hour.

He could cross the Atlantic whenever he wanted.

He simply needed to know.

Rachel arrived just after midnight.

By then, Emily's contractions were coming hard and fast.

"Where's Vincent?" Rachel demanded.

Emily shook her head.

"I can't reach him."

Rachel tried herself.

Nothing.

Then she called Anthony.

He answered.

"This isn't a good time."

Rachel stepped into the hallway.

"Listen carefully. Emily is in labor. Your boss's daughter is about to be born. I don't care if he's having dinner with the president of France. Put him on the phone."

Anthony's reply was cold.

"Mr. Moretti is unavailable."

Rachel almost shouted.

"Then make him available."

The call ended.

Two hours later, Grace entered the world.

She weighed six pounds, eleven ounces.

She cried immediately.

The doctor placed her on Emily's chest.

For one extraordinary moment, the entire room disappeared.

Emily saw only the little girl in her arms.

"Hi, sweetheart," she whispered.

"I'm your mommy."

Then the bleeding began.

At first, Emily thought the nurses were simply cleaning up after delivery.

But the doctor's expression changed.

A nurse pressed firmly against her abdomen.

Another nurse called for medication.

Emily became dizzy.

She heard someone say her blood pressure was falling.

Then another voice.

"We need blood ready."

Rachel took Grace from her.

"Emily, look at me."

Emily tried.

The room was spinning.

"Take care of her," she whispered.

"Stop that."

"Rachel, promise me."

Her friend squeezed her hand.

"You're going to be here to take care of her yourself."

Emily remembered the ceiling lights moving overhead.

She remembered being frightened.

And she remembered one devastating thought.

Vincent doesn't even know she's here.

The doctors controlled the hemorrhage after emergency treatment and a blood transfusion.

Emily survived.

But recovery was slow.

She needed help walking.

Her body ached.

She cried unexpectedly when the nurses brought Grace into her room.

For three days, Rachel and Margaret took turns staying with her.

Vincent never called.

On the second morning, Rachel showed Emily a photograph she had found online.

It had been posted by someone attending a private Paris charity dinner.

Vincent stood beside Sophia Bennett beneath an enormous crystal chandelier.

Sophia wore a silver evening gown.

One hand rested against Vincent's chest.

He wasn't looking at the camera.

He was looking down at Sophia.

The expression on his face was one Emily recognized immediately.

Tenderness.

She had spent years longing for him to look at her like that.

Now she understood why he rarely did.

Emily had stared at the photograph for almost a minute.

Then she'd handed the phone back.

"Can you help me find a divorce attorney?"

Rachel had been her friend since college and now practiced family law.

She didn't answer immediately.

"Em, I'm an attorney."

"I know."

"Are you sure?"

Emily looked toward her sleeping daughter.

"Yes."

That afternoon, she called the tenant who had been renting her townhouse.

The lease had ended, and the woman was preparing to move into a new apartment.

Emily asked whether she could take possession earlier than planned.

The tenant agreed.

Two days later, movers began carrying Emily's belongings out of the mansion.

She had never cried once during the packing.

Not until she dismantled the nursery.

She had personally chosen the rocking chair where she imagined Vincent holding Grace.

She'd chosen the curtains because they softened the morning light.

She had pictured family photographs above the crib.

But the room had become a monument to a future that would never happen.

When the movers carried the crib away, Emily finally sat down on the floor and wept.

Not because she wanted Vincent back.

Because she was grieving the father she'd imagined her daughter would have.

Now, sitting in her townhouse, Emily looked at Grace and made herself a promise.

Whatever happened next, she would never beg Vincent Moretti for love again.

Across the city, Vincent was discovering exactly what Emily had endured.

At 6:15 a.m., he summoned Anthony to his private office.

His security chief, Nico DeLuca, stood beside the door.

Vincent had barely slept.

The photograph of Grace lay on his desk.

"Give me every call record from the last fourteen days," Vincent ordered.

Anthony adjusted his tie.

"Sir, the overseas communications were routed through several—"

"All of them."

"Of course."

"And bring me the hospital reports."

Anthony froze.

"What hospital reports?"

Vincent stood.

"The reports you were sent when my wife was in labor."

Anthony looked toward Nico.

Vincent noticed.

"Nico, stay."

Anthony swallowed.

"There were several messages."

"How many?"

"I'm not certain."

Vincent walked around the desk.

"Then become certain."

Within an hour, Nico's technical team retrieved the communications archive from the company's secure phone system.

The report was seventeen pages long.

Vincent read every one.

There were seven attempted calls from Emily's phone during labor.

Three from Margaret.

Four from Rachel.

Two from the hospital's administrative office.

There were additional calls after Grace was born.

And another series of urgent messages during Emily's hemorrhage.

Vincent stared at one recorded entry.

Mrs. Moretti experienced severe postpartum bleeding. Family representative urgently requested.

Time: 3:48 a.m., Chicago.

Vincent calculated the difference.

He had been in Paris.

At that exact time, Sophia had been asleep in the adjoining hotel suite.

He had been awake, sitting on a balcony with a glass of whiskey, looking across the Seine.

His phone had been switched to silent.

Not because he was sleeping.

Because he'd told Anthony he didn't want to be disturbed.

Vincent turned another page.

One message from Rachel had been marked:

Do not forward. Handled locally.

His signature appeared nowhere.

Anthony's authorization code did.

Vincent looked up.

"You knew she nearly died."

Anthony's face went pale.

"I received notification that the situation had been stabilized."

"Before or after?"

"Sir?"

"Before or after you decided not to tell me?"

Anthony didn't answer.

Vincent felt an old, familiar rage rising.

The kind of rage that had made him feared throughout Chicago.

But underneath it was something far worse.

Guilt.

"You should have told me," Vincent said.

"Yes."

"But I should never have made it possible for you to keep something like this from me."

Anthony blinked.

Vincent pointed toward the door.

"You're suspended from all company systems while Nico reviews every message and authorization you handled during my absence."

Anthony straightened.

"Vincent, I have served this family for twelve years."

"And my daughter has been alive for nine days."

The words landed between them.

Vincent's voice became deadly quiet.

"Get out."

After Anthony left, Nico remained.

"Sir, there's something else."

Vincent looked at him.

Nico placed a tablet on the desk.

"An image is circulating online."

It showed Vincent and Sophia outside their Paris hotel.

Sophia was smiling against his shoulder.

The photograph had been taken on his final night in France.

The caption read:

Some love stories don't end just because someone else gets married.

The post had already been shared thousands of times.

Vincent stared.

"Did Sophia post this?"

"It came from an account managed by her publicist."

Vincent's hands curled into fists.

"Take a screenshot and preserve the metadata. Don't contact her account."

"Yes, sir."

"Get Rachel Kim on the phone."

Nico hesitated.

"Sir, there's another issue."

He placed a second document before Vincent.

"While you were in Paris, someone authorized a fourteen-million-dollar transfer from the Moretti Family Foundation."

Vincent frowned.

"To whom?"

"A construction vendor called Bellweather Development."

"I don't recognize it."

"Neither does our independent auditor."

Vincent read the approval page.

Then his expression changed.

There were two electronic authorizations.

One carried Anthony Bell's credentials.

The second carried a digital signature under the name:

Emily Carter Moretti.

Vincent stared at it.

"Emily doesn't authorize foundation transfers without reviewing the underlying contracts."

"That's what concerned me."

"When was this signed?"

Nico pointed toward the timestamp.

Vincent read it.

8:17 p.m.

Nine days earlier.

The night Grace was born.

He checked the hospital timeline.

Emily had been receiving emergency treatment after delivering their daughter.

Yet according to the foundation's records, she had approved a fourteen-million-dollar transaction from her personal device during that same period.

Vincent looked at Nico.

"That's impossible."

"I agree."

Vincent turned the document over.

Attached to the authorization was a scanned signature.

Emily Carter Moretti.

It looked genuine.

Almost.

Because Vincent recognized something the forger hadn't.

Emily's signature had changed during pregnancy.

Her swollen fingers made it uncomfortable to write, and for the last three months she'd been signing documents with a shorter flourish.

But the signature on this page was the one she used years earlier.

Before Grace.

Before the pregnancy.

Before someone decided to use her name.

Vincent reached for his phone.

"Find out who Bellweather Development belongs to."

Nico nodded.

"And Vincent?"

"What?"

"The account receiving the money isn't in Chicago."

"Where?"

Nico turned the tablet.

"Paris."

Vincent stared at the address.

Then at the foundation's payment description.

Acquisition and renovation of Maison Lumière Gallery.

He knew that name.

Sophia had mentioned it repeatedly during their thirteen days together.

It was the gallery she claimed she was desperately trying to save from bankruptcy.

Vincent leaned back.

For the first time, he wondered whether Sophia had truly needed him in Paris.

Or whether somebody had needed him away from Chicago.

And at 8:42 a.m., while Emily was feeding Grace in her little townhouse, Rachel received a confidential message from a former employee of the Moretti Family Foundation.

You need to examine the payments approved during Emily's hospitalization.