Chapter 7
For a second, all I heard was the lake hitting the dock.
Soft.
Steady.
Cruel, because the world had no right to sound peaceful after that.
“My father ordered your father followed,” Alessandro repeated, his voice rough. “But the file does not say he ordered the crash.”
I stood too fast.
The tea spilled across the boards.
“You want that to matter?”
“Yes,” he said. “And no.”
My eyes burned.
“My father died.”
“I know.”
“Your father’s men were there.”
“Yes.”
“And you brought me to his hotel room knowing who I was.”
His face tightened like every word struck exactly where it should.
“Yes.”
I stepped back.
“I need to be alone.”
He nodded.
But pain moved through his eyes.
“Of course.”
He left me on the dock.
No argument.
No defense.
No hand reaching.
The restraint should have comforted me.
Instead, it gave me room to fall apart.
I sat there until cold crept through my coat and into my bones.
Inside my body, a life no bigger than a seed existed because of one night with a man whose family had stalked my father to his death.
I pressed both hands over my stomach.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered.
I did not know who I was apologizing to.
The baby.
My father.
Myself.
Maybe all three.
Agent Donovan found me later.
She sat beside me without asking questions.
I liked that about her.
After a while, she said, “The file is more complicated than Alessandro’s text made it sound.”
“I don’t want complicated.”
“No one does.”
“Did Lorenzo Vitali kill my father?”
“We don’t have proof of that.”
“But?”
“But Lorenzo ordered surveillance because your father had evidence against several men, including Vitali-linked companies. The crash was executed by Dominic Rafe under orders from Victor Sloane.”
“Sloane worked for Lorenzo?”
“Sloane worked with him. There’s a difference legally.”
“Not morally.”
She looked at me.
“No. Not morally.”
I wiped my face.
“Did Alessandro know before today?”
“No.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I watched his reaction when the file opened.”
“That is not evidence.”
“No,” she said. “But I’ve interviewed liars for fifteen years. His shock was not performance.”
I wanted that to help.
It did not.
Not enough.
“Can I leave?”
“Yes.”
That surprised me.
She continued.
“But I would strongly advise against leaving protection. You can relocate to another safe site without him.”
I looked toward the house.
Through the window, I saw Alessandro standing in the kitchen.
Alone.
One hand braced on the counter.
Head bowed.
For the first time, I wondered what it felt like to inherit a kingdom built partly from sins you did not commit but still benefited from.
Then I hated myself for wondering.
My father was dead.
Sympathy for Alessandro felt like betrayal.
“I don’t know what to do,” I whispered.
Agent Donovan’s voice softened.
“You don’t have to decide your whole life tonight. Just the next safe step.”
The next safe step.
I slept in Isabella’s blue room with a chair wedged under the door.
No one commented.
In the morning, I woke to voices in the hall.
A woman.
Angry.
Controlled.
“You should have called me before bringing her here.”
Alessandro answered quietly.
“She asked for no family.”
“She is carrying your child.”
“She is a person before that.”
A pause.
Then the woman said, “You sound like Mama.”
I opened the door.
Alessandro turned immediately.
So did the woman.
She was younger than him, maybe thirty.
Dark hair.
Sharp eyes.
A cream coat that probably cost more than my car.
She looked me over.
Not cruelly.
Assessing.
“Elizabeth Monroe,” she said.
I folded my arms.
“And you are the family member I said I didn’t want here.”
Her eyebrows lifted.
Then she smiled faintly.
“I deserved that.”
Alessandro stepped forward.
“My sister, Lucia. She should not have come.”
Lucia ignored him.
“I came because someone inside our security registry pinged this property at dawn.”
Alessandro went still.
“What?”
She handed him a tablet.
“This house is no longer invisible.”
My stomach dropped.
Agent Donovan appeared behind me.
“Who accessed it?”
Lucia looked at me.
“That is the problem. The access came from an old Vitali family account.”
Alessandro’s face darkened.
“My father.”
“I thought his accounts were dead,” Lucia said.
“So did I.”
Lorenzo Vitali had died two years earlier.
Apparently, dead men still had passwords.
Or someone wanted us to think so.
Agent Donovan took the tablet.
“We move again.”
I laughed.
It came out brittle.
“Of course we do.”
Alessandro looked at me.
“I’m sorry.”
“I am so tired of men being sorry after danger finds me.”
He accepted that without flinching.
Lucia watched me carefully.
“You should come to the city compound.”
“No.”
“It is the safest place.”
“I said no family.”
Lucia’s eyes flashed.
“And whoever accessed this place used family credentials. Which means the danger may already be inside us.”
“That does not make me want to walk deeper in.”
She stopped.
Then nodded once.
“Fair.”
I did not expect that.
Lucia turned to Agent Donovan.
“There is another option. Mama’s clinic.”
Alessandro looked up sharply.
“No.”
Lucia faced him.
“It has medical staff, private rooms, old security, and no direct link to your current operations.”
“It is closed.”
“It can open.”
“What clinic?” I asked.
Lucia’s expression softened slightly.
“Our mother funded a women’s clinic under another foundation. For domestic violence survivors, undocumented women, girls who needed care without men asking questions.”
That hit something tender in me.
A Vitali woman had built a place for women to be safe from men.
Maybe Isabella had understood more than anyone.
Alessandro looked at me.
“It is your choice.”
I hated how much that sentence kept mattering.
“Is there a doctor?”
“Yes,” Lucia said. “And private rooms.”
“Can Agent Donovan secure it?”
“Yes,” Donovan said after a beat. “If we move quietly.”
“Then we go.”
Within an hour, we were packed.
This time, I carried my own bags, and nobody tried to stop me.
Lucia rode with Agent Donovan.
Alessandro drove behind us.
The clinic sat in a quiet neighborhood behind a closed community center.
No sign.
No grand entrance.
Just a side door, brick walls, and a courtyard with overgrown flowers.
Inside, the air smelled like lemon cleaner and old paper.
Rooms lined the hall.
Exam rooms.
Counseling rooms.
A small nursery with empty cribs.
My throat tightened.
Women had come here afraid.
Women had left here alive.
I wanted to believe that could still happen.
Dr. Ruiz met us there.
Lucia moved through the building giving orders.
Alessandro stayed near the entrance, speaking with Agent Donovan.
Then I heard Lucia snap.
“You cannot keep punishing yourself instead of helping her.”
Alessandro’s voice was low.
“My father’s shadow is already on her life.”
“Then stand between it and her. Do not become another shadow.”
I stepped back before they saw me listening.
That evening, Dr. Ruiz did an ultrasound.
Too early for much.
A small flicker.
A tiny pulse.
The room went silent.
My hand flew to my mouth.
“That’s the heartbeat,” Dr. Ruiz said softly.
A sound broke out of me.
Half laugh.
Half sob.
Alessandro was not in the room.
I had not invited him.
But later, when I stepped into the hallway, he stood near the window.
He looked at the printout in my hand but did not ask.
I walked toward him.
Stopped.
Then held it out.
His hands shook when he took it.
For the first time since I met Alessandro Vitali, his power vanished completely.
He looked at the tiny blur on the paper like it had undone him.
“May I?” he whispered.
I nodded.
He touched the edge of the image.
Not the center.
Not possessive.
Almost reverent.
Then his eyes filled.
“I will spend my life making sure this child never pays for my father’s sins.”
I looked at him.
“And mine?”
His voice broke.
“Yours first.”
Before I could answer, alarms sounded through the clinic.
Lucia ran into the hall.
“Back entrance!”
Agent Donovan drew her weapon.
Alessandro shoved the ultrasound gently back into my hands.
“Stay behind me.”
This time, I did not argue.
May you like
Because at the end of the hallway, painted across the clinic door in fresh red letters, were five words.
MONROE BLOOD ENDS WITH HER.
