Chapter 4 - The Bride Who Refused to Stay in the Penthouse
Lorenzo woke in a private hospital room to the sound of Clara arguing with three armed men.
“No.”
“Mrs. Moretti—”
“I know what my last name is. Move.”
“Boss gave orders—”
“Your boss is unconscious.”
“Not anymore.”
Clara turned.
Lorenzo was awake.
He looked terrible.
That gave her satisfaction she immediately felt guilty for.
His left shoulder was bandaged.
His skin was pale.
An IV ran into his arm.
Silas sat near the window, exhausted and furious.
Lorenzo looked at the men blocking Clara.
“Leave.”
They disappeared instantly.
Clara stared at him.
“That is disturbing.”
“What?”
“Three adult men just moved like somebody pressed a button.”
His mouth twitched.
“How long?”
“Six hours.”
“Shooter?”
“Gone.”
“Silas?”
The security chief stood.
“We recovered the weapon from an alley. Serial removed. No usable prints.”
“The envelope?”
Silas glanced toward Clara.
She had not told Lorenzo yet.
She handed it to him.
He read the sentence.
His face changed.
YOUR FATHER SHOULD HAVE KEPT HIS SECRET BURIED.
“Carlo,” Lorenzo said.
“You think your uncle ordered this?”
“He is one possibility.”
“One?”
“The bullet was aimed at you,” Silas said.
Clara looked at him.
“How do you know?”
“Trajectory.”
“And the note?”
“Could have been meant to make us believe the attack was about Daniel.”
Lorenzo pushed himself upright and winced.
Clara reacted before she could stop herself.
“Don’t.”
His eyes moved to her.
“You are giving me medical instructions?”
“I watched you bleed on a sidewalk.”
“That sounds almost concerned.”
“I am concerned.”
Something softened in his face.
Clara immediately added, “If you die four minutes into our marriage, Serena will spend six years litigating the contract.”
“Of course.”
“Do not look pleased.”
“I’m not.”
He looked extremely pleased.
The doctor arrived and ruined the argument.
The bullet had passed through the top of Lorenzo’s shoulder without breaking bone.
He was lucky.
Clara thought lucky was a strange word for getting shot outside your own wedding.
By evening, Lorenzo had been discharged against medical advice.
Naturally.
Clara expected him to insist she and Maya move into his penthouse.
He did.
She refused.
“The shooter knew where the wedding was,” Lorenzo said.
“So did every courthouse clerk and reporter in Manhattan.”
“My penthouse is secure.”
“It is also yours.”
“You are my wife.”
“Contract wife.”
“Legally, there is no category for that.”
“Emotionally, there is.”
He stood beside the black SUV with his injured arm in a sling.
Rain had started again.
Clara folded her arms.
“I am not living in a glass tower surrounded by men who call you boss.”
“The contract requires a shared primary residence.”
“The contract also says residence must be mutually agreed.”
Lorenzo glared.
Serena had insisted on that sentence.
Clara had bought her wine.
Maya stepped from the hospital entrance.
“I found a place.”
Both adults looked at her.
“What?” Clara asked.
Maya held up her phone.
“Brownstone. Brooklyn Heights. Four bedrooms. Private garage. Security system. Twenty minutes from my school if traffic doesn’t ruin civilization.”
Lorenzo stared.
“You were searching real estate?”
“You two argue slowly.”
Clara looked at the listing.
Elegant but not ridiculous.
Lorenzo took the phone.
“The windows are exposed.”
“Normal people have windows,” Maya said.
“No underground parking.”
“Normal people park.”
“Security entrance is one door.”
“Normal people use doors.”
Lorenzo looked at Clara.
“Your sister has strong opinions.”
“She learned from me.”
He sighed.
They moved in two days later.
Technically, Lorenzo bought the brownstone.
Clara refused until Serena added a clause stating that Clara owed nothing if the marriage ended.
Lorenzo accused both women of treating every act of generosity like a hostage negotiation.
Serena replied:
“With you, it usually is.”
The brownstone changed things.
At the penthouse, Lorenzo had staff.
Drivers.
Chefs.
Housekeepers.
People appearing before he needed them.
In Brooklyn, Clara insisted on fewer employees.
One housekeeper came three days a week.
Security stayed outside.
Lorenzo discovered the refrigerator did not magically refill.
On their third morning, Clara walked into the kitchen and found him staring at an empty coffee container.
“What?”
“There is no coffee.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because you finished it.”
He looked genuinely confused.
“You knew that.”
“Of course.”
“Then why didn’t you replace it?”
Clara stared.
“Because I am not your staff.”
He looked at the empty container.
Then at her.
“Where does coffee come from?”
She laughed so hard she had to sit down.
By the end of the week, Lorenzo had learned where the grocery store was.
He still sent Silas.
Clara considered it partial progress.
But beneath the ordinary moments, the investigation continued.
Vincent Marino was alive.
He had retired to New Jersey.
Silas found him after three days.
Marino refused to meet Lorenzo.
He agreed to speak with Clara.
That surprised everyone.
“Why me?” Clara asked.
Silas answered, “He knew your father.”
The meeting happened in Serena’s office.
Marino entered using a cane.
He was seventy-three.
His face looked older than his age.
When he saw Clara, tears immediately filled his eyes.
“You look like Daniel around the mouth.”
Clara’s throat tightened.
“You knew him well?”
“Well enough.”
Lorenzo waited in another room because Marino refused to speak if he was present.
That irritated him immensely.
Clara enjoyed telling him to wait.
Marino sat.
“Your father saved my life once.”
“How?”
“The warehouse fire.”
Clara leaned forward.
“I thought two men died.”
“They did. I should have been the third.”
Marino explained.
Carlo Moretti had ordered him to disable part of the fire suppression system.
Marino believed the warehouse would be empty.
Carlo told him the fire would happen at midnight.
Instead it began at ten-thirty.
Two employees remained inside.
Daniel pulled Marino out when smoke trapped him near the maintenance corridor.
“That is how he knew it was deliberate,” Marino said.
“You told him.”
“Yes.”
“Then why didn’t he report it?”
“I begged him not to.”
Clara closed her eyes.
Of course.
Another frightened man.
Another secret handed to Daniel.
“Carlo threatened your family?”
“My son.”
Marino looked down.
“He was fourteen.”
“What about Lorenzo’s mother?”
Marino’s hands began shaking.
“I worked on her car.”
Clara felt cold.
“What did Carlo ask you to do?”
“I didn’t know he wanted her dead.”
“What did he ask?”
“To replace a brake line.”
“With a defective one?”
“No.”
Marino swallowed.
“To weaken it enough that it would fail under pressure.”
Clara stared.
“That sounds exactly like wanting her dead.”
“He told me he wanted to frighten Anthony. Cause an accident at low speed. He said Isabella would be driving in the city.”
“But she went to Westchester.”
“Yes.”
“And died.”
Marino covered his face.
“I have carried that for fifteen years.”
Clara had no sympathy ready.
Not yet.
“Did Anthony know?”
“Not immediately.”
“When did he find out?”
“After the warehouse fire. Daniel found my name in Carlo’s records.”
“And told Anthony?”
“Yes.”
“What did Anthony do?”
Marino laughed bitterly.
“What mafia men do.”
Clara’s stomach turned.
“He killed Carlo?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Family.”
One word.
The Moretti curse.
Family justified everything.
Even protecting your wife’s killer.
“Anthony confronted him,” Marino continued. “Carlo denied ordering Isabella’s death. Said he only wanted leverage. Anthony couldn’t prove more.”
“So Anthony protected his brother.”
“Yes.”
Clara thought about Lorenzo.
About the way he believed his father knew everything.
Anthony had known enough.
Not enough to stop Carlo.
Enough to hide the truth.
“What happened to my father?”
Marino looked at her.
“He wanted to go to the police.”
Clara’s heart pounded.
“When?”
“Five years ago.”
“He died sixteen months ago.”
“I know.”
“What stopped him?”
“Anthony was dead by then. Carlo controlled the files.”
Marino looked sick.
“Carlo told Daniel if he talked, East River would collect the debt from you.”
The fake debt.
The threat disguised as paperwork.
“Did Carlo kill my father?”
“I don’t know.”
Clara wanted certainty.
Life kept giving her worse answers.
“Daniel died of a heart attack,” Marino said. “But the week before he died, he called me.”
Clara stopped breathing.
“What did he say?”
“He said he had finally found something that could bring Carlo down.”
“What?”
“He wouldn't tell me.”
“Did anyone know?”
“Someone must have.”
After Marino left, Clara sat alone in Serena’s office.
Lorenzo entered without his jacket.
His injured shoulder made one side of his shirt sit awkwardly.
“What did he say?”
Clara handed him the recording.
She had insisted Marino agree to be recorded.
Lorenzo listened.
When Isabella’s name appeared, his face became stone.
He said nothing until the end.
Then he stood at the window.
“My father knew.”
“Yes.”
“He protected Carlo.”
“Yes.”
The word hurt him.
Clara could see it.
“Why?”
“Marino said family.”
Lorenzo laughed.
A terrible sound.
“My father used to say blood was the only loyalty you could trust.”
“Was he right?”
“No.”
He looked at Clara.
“Apparently blood is what killed my mother.”
For several minutes neither spoke.
Then Lorenzo asked, “Do you want to know something pathetic?”
“Probably.”
“My mother hated guns.”
Clara waited.
“She wouldn’t allow them at dinner.”
“That seems reasonable.”
“She made my father leave his weapon in a locked box before entering the dining room.”
A faint smile appeared on Lorenzo’s face.
“He pretended to hate it.”
“But?”
“He always did it.”
Clara tried to imagine Anthony Moretti obeying his wife like a normal husband.
“She wanted you out.”
“Yes.”
“She wanted your father out.”
“Yes.”
“And now you run everything he was supposed to leave.”
Lorenzo’s smile vanished.
Clara immediately regretted the cruelty.
But Lorenzo nodded.
“I know.”
The words stayed between them.
That night, Clara found him in the brownstone kitchen at two in the morning.
He was sitting in darkness.
No security.
No phone.
No bourbon.
Just a man.
She turned on one lamp.
“You okay?”
“No.”
Again, honesty.
Clara opened the refrigerator.
“Want anything?”
“Do we have coffee?”
“It is two in the morning.”
“That wasn’t the question.”
She made tea.
He looked betrayed.
“You will survive.”
They sat across from each other.
Clara said, “I miss my father.”
Lorenzo looked up.
“He frustrated me constantly.”
She smiled sadly.
“He used to leave cabinet doors open. Every cabinet. I thought I would kill him.”
“My mother sang.”
“Badly?”
“Terribly.”
Clara laughed softly.
Lorenzo looked at her for a long moment.
“Thank you.”
“For tea?”
“For not pretending I shouldn't care because my family is terrible.”
“You are allowed to love people who failed you.”
His eyes changed.
Clara realized too late how intimate the sentence sounded.
She stood.
“I’m going to bed.”
“Clara.”
She stopped.
“Why did you really sign the contract?”
“I told you.”
“The evidence.”
“Yes.”
“Nothing else?”
“Do you need your ego fed before sleep?”
His mouth moved.
“Apparently not.”
She walked upstairs.
The next morning, Lorenzo received a call.
Carlo Moretti wanted a family meeting.
He had been in Florida for months.
He was returning to New York.
And he had heard Lorenzo was asking questions about Isabella.
Clara expected Lorenzo to tell her to stay home.
Instead he entered the kitchen and placed the meeting information in front of her.
“Six tonight.”
She looked at him.
“You’re telling me?”
“The contract says I do.”
“It says you have to share information, not invite me into mafia meetings.”
“I’m learning.”
Clara picked up the paper.
“Do you want me there?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because Carlo is dangerous.”
“Then yes.”
“Clara.”
“You married the wrong woman.”
His gray eyes held hers.
May you like
Slowly, unwillingly, Lorenzo smiled.
“I am beginning to understand that.”
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