Chapter 4 - THE HEARTBEAT HE NEVER EXPECTED TO HEAR
Z
“Adrien.”
He did not answer immediately.
For three horrifying seconds, I thought the bullet had entered his chest.
Then his hand pressed against the back of my head.
“I’m fine.”
“You’re bleeding.”
“Glass.”
The bullet had struck a metal shelf behind us and sent a jagged piece of glass across his shoulder.
By the standards of Adrien Moretti’s world, it was nothing.
To me, it was enough.
Ten minutes later I was inside an armored SUV with June beside me and Adrien across from us while Luca coordinated three vehicles through back roads.
Adrien’s white shirt was red near his shoulder.
“You need a hospital.”
“So do you.”
“I’m not hurt.”
“You hit the floor hard.”
“I’m pregnant, Adrien. Not made of glass.”
His jaw flexed.
“That isn’t what I meant.”
June looked between us.
“This marriage seems relaxing.”
Neither of us answered.
The safe house was not a house.
It was a stone estate hidden behind twelve-foot gates overlooking the Hudson.
Vanessa waited inside.
When she saw me, relief crossed her face.
When she saw Adrien’s shoulder, irritation followed.
“Did you get shot?”
“No.”
“Almost?”
“Yes.”
“Of course.”
June looked at me.
“I like her.”
A private physician arrived twenty minutes later.
He cleaned Adrien’s shoulder while another doctor examined me upstairs.
I insisted on privacy.
Adrien stayed outside the bedroom.
That mattered.
Six months earlier he would have entered without thinking, not because he wanted to control me but because Adrien had spent his entire adult life believing doors were things that opened when he approached.
Tonight he waited.
The doctor checked my blood pressure.
Then she brought out a portable ultrasound.
“You’re approximately eleven weeks?”
“Almost twelve.”
“We’ll check the heartbeat after the fall.”
My mouth went dry.
She placed gel against my stomach.
The machine crackled.
Then the room filled with the fastest, smallest sound I had ever heard.
A heartbeat.
My baby.
My eyes immediately filled.
The doctor smiled.
“Strong.”
Outside the bedroom, something hit the floor.
I turned.
The door was open three inches.
Adrien stood in the hallway.
A coffee cup lay broken beside his shoes.
He wasn’t looking at me.
He was staring at the ultrasound monitor.
The doctor glanced at me.
I should have been angry.
Instead I whispered, “It’s okay.”
Adrien entered as though the room belonged to someone else.
Slowly.
Carefully.
He stopped several feet from the bed.
“That’s…”
“Your child,” the doctor said.
Adrien’s eyes closed.
He had known I was pregnant.
Knowing was different from hearing.
The heartbeat continued.
Fast.
Alive.
Real.
When Adrien opened his eyes again, they were wet.
I had seen my husband bury his father without crying.
I had seen him stand beside his brother’s coffin with his hands locked behind his back because emotion was dangerous in front of enemies.
I had never seen tears in his eyes.
Until our child’s heartbeat filled that room.
“Can I?” he asked.
I didn’t understand.
Then he looked toward my hand.
I extended it.
Adrien held it.
He didn’t squeeze.
He simply wrapped his fingers around mine while staring at the screen.
Later, after the doctor left, we sat across from each other in the library.
No bodyguards.
No Luca.
No Vanessa.
No excuses.
Adrien placed my wedding ring on the table between us.
He had carried it in his pocket.
“I did not have an affair.”
“I believe you.”
His eyes lifted.
“But you abandoned our marriage anyway.”
The words landed harder than shouting.
I continued.
“You stopped coming home. You stopped talking to me. Every answer became classified, dangerous, or something I shouldn’t worry about.”
“I thought I was keeping you away from the business.”
“You kept me away from you.”
Silence.
“I ate dinner alone four nights last week.”
Adrien looked down.
“You missed my birthday lunch with June.”
“I was dealing with—”
“I know.”
I shook my head.
“There is always a reason. That’s the problem.”
He said nothing.
“When I got that photograph, Adrien, I believed it because I hadn’t felt like your wife in almost a year.”
His expression tightened.
“That’s on me.”
I stared at him.
No defense.
No argument.
Just four words.
“That’s on me.”
He leaned forward.
“I thought if I handled every threat before you saw it, you could have a normal life.”
“A normal life?”
A bitter laugh escaped me.
“I have three armed men downstairs.”
“I know.”
“My best friend’s bookstore has bullet holes.”
“I know.”
“Our unborn child has enemies.”
His face went still.
“I know.”
“So stop protecting me with ignorance.”
Adrien looked at me for a long time.
Then he nodded.
“Okay.”
I blinked.
“Okay?”
“You want everything.”
“I want the truth.”
“Then you get everything.”
He walked to the door and called Luca and Vanessa.
For the next two hours, Adrien told me secrets he had hidden throughout our marriage.
The shell companies.
The attempted takeover.
The money Vanessa found.
The names of the six people who knew about their hotel meeting.
One name caught my attention.
Salvatore Rizzi.
Adrien’s godfather.
The man who had toasted at our wedding.
The man who sent flowers every anniversary.
The man who called me principessa and kissed both my cheeks at Christmas.
“He knew about Vanessa?” I asked.
Adrien nodded.
“Salvatore handled several shipping companies before Vanessa discovered the losses.”
Vanessa opened a folder.
“And three shell corporations connect indirectly to one of his advisers.”
Adrien’s expression remained skeptical.
“Salvatore served my father for thirty years.”
Vanessa looked at him.
“That doesn’t make him innocent.”
“No.”
But I could hear what Adrien didn’t say.
It made betrayal difficult to imagine.
Luca entered before anyone could continue.
He carried a recovered phone.
“One of the shooters dropped this.”
Adrien stood.
“Anything useful?”
“One outgoing message made fifteen minutes before the bookstore attack.”
“To whom?”
“We don’t have the number registered.”
Luca looked at me.
“But we recovered the message.”
He placed the phone on the table.
Adrien read it first.
His face changed.
I took it from him.
The message contained only seven words.
IF SHE SURVIVES, TAKE THE CHILD AFTER BIRTH.
For several seconds nobody moved.
Then Adrien spoke.
His voice had become frighteningly quiet.
“They’re not trying to scare Elena away from me.”
Vanessa looked up.
“No.”
Adrien’s gaze settled on my stomach.
“They want my child.”
That night, for the first time since leaving him, I understood why Adrien had spent years believing fear could keep people safe.
Because I felt it too.
But fear also made something else very clear.
Running was no longer enough.
Whoever had destroyed my anniversary, invaded my medical records and fired into June’s bookstore believed I was simply Adrien Moretti’s vulnerable wife.
May you like
They were wrong.
And if they wanted my child, they were about to learn exactly how wrong.
