Chapter 1 - THE GREEN LIGHT
Eleven days before Leon Moretti was supposed to marry Isabella Russo, a seven-year-old girl found the one thing no one was ever supposed to place inside his private study.
A recorder.
It was barely larger than a matchbox, hidden beneath the desk where Leon conducted the most sensitive business of the Moretti organization.
A tiny green light blinked.
Recording.
The person who found it was Sophie Carter, the daughter of Leon’s housekeeper, Evelyn. Sophie had entered the study looking for a blue crayon she had lost the day before.
When Leon asked whether she had seen anyone put the device there, Sophie hesitated.
Then she whispered two words.
“Miss Bella.”
Isabella Russo.
Leon’s fiancée.
The woman who slept beside him.
The woman he intended to marry in eleven days.
Sophie explained that she had seen Isabella kneeling behind Leon’s desk the previous afternoon. Isabella had taken something black from her purse, attached it beneath the desk, and called someone.
Leon immediately checked the estate’s secondary surveillance system—one Isabella did not know existed.
The footage confirmed everything.
At 4:17 p.m., Isabella entered the study in the cream coat Leon had bought her in Milan. She checked the room, knelt behind his desk, and planted the recorder.
Then Leon heard her speak.
“It’s done. The recorder is in.”
Someone answered.
Isabella smiled.
“After the wedding, the entire Moretti empire is ours. Accounts, territory, names. Everything.”
Then came the sentence that cut deeper than betrayal.
“He trusts me, darling.”
Leon froze the video on Isabella’s smiling face.
But Sophie had more to tell him.
She had seen the man Isabella was working with.
He had visited the estate before.
He was someone Leon trusted.
Someone with access to his home, his money, and his family.
Leon looked at the recorder and made a decision.
Isabella would not know she had been discovered.
The wedding would continue.
The invitations would remain.
The flowers would arrive.
And Isabella Russo would walk toward him believing she had successfully deceived one of New York’s most dangerous men.
Because Leon no longer wanted only to know why Isabella had betrayed him.
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He wanted to know who intended to be waiting for his empire after she became his wife.
And this time, Leon would be listening.
