Chapter 2 - THE BRIDE WHO REFUSED TO LEAVE
“The baby's coming.”
Jonathan Moretti had faced armed men without flinching, buried his younger brother without shedding a tear in public, and built an empire that made powerful people lower their voices when he entered a room.
But those three words from Meline frightened him more than anything he had ever heard.
“Enzo!” he shouted. “Bring the car!”
Meline doubled over beside her bucket of roses.
“Don't,” she whispered when Jonathan reached for her. “Please don't make a scene.”
“You're having contractions.”
“I've had them before. They stop.”
“Not always.”
Across the sidewalk, Vivien Bianke stood in her wedding gown, watching her future husband support another woman carrying what might be his child.
Her expression was perfectly controlled.
Her hands weren't.
They were trembling beneath her white satin gloves.
“Jonathan,” she said, “we need to discuss this privately.”
He looked at her.
“Not now.”
“My father is waiting at the cathedral.”
“Then he can keep waiting.”
“Do you have any idea what you're doing?”
Jonathan lifted Meline's flower bucket away from the curb.
“For the first time in eight months, I'm trying to do something right.”
Meline pressed her fingers against his arm.
“Please. I don't want to go to your house.”
“I'm taking you to the hospital.”
Her eyes widened.
“No.”
Jonathan stopped.
“Why?”
“Because last time I went to the hospital, someone found out before I even got home.”
A terrible silence followed.
“What happened?” Jonathan asked.
Meline stared at the sidewalk.
“Marco was waiting outside my apartment. He knew what the doctor had said. He knew how far along I was.”
Jonathan felt the familiar coldness of anger spread through him.
“What did he want?”
“He told me to stop telling people the baby was yours.”
Vivien stepped forward.
“Jonathan, you cannot seriously believe every accusation this woman makes.”
Meline raised her head.
“I'm not asking you to believe me.”
She looked directly at Jonathan.
“I'm asking you to leave me alone.”
Another contraction tightened across her stomach.
This time she couldn't hide the pain.
Enzo appeared with the black sedan.
Jonathan opened the rear door.
“There's a hospital six minutes away.”
Meline hesitated.
Then she whispered, “Only if you promise Marco won't come near me.”
Jonathan met her eyes.
“He won't.”
For the first time since he'd stepped onto that sidewalk, she allowed him to help her.
At Rhode Island Hospital, a nurse took one look at Meline and called for a wheelchair.
Jonathan stayed close, but when Meline was asked whether she wanted him in the examination room, she shook her head.
“No.”
The answer hurt.
He accepted it.
“I'll be outside.”
Vivien stood beside the reception desk, holding her veil over one arm.
She looked painfully out of place beneath the fluorescent lights.
“Do you understand how humiliating this is?” she asked.
Jonathan turned.
“Humiliating?”
“Our guests are arriving. Photographers are waiting. My father's associates have flown in from three countries.”
“And Meline might be having my daughter.”
Vivien lowered her voice.
“Might. You keep forgetting that word.”
Jonathan studied her.
“Why did your father know about her before we were engaged?”
Vivien looked away.
“He had concerns.”
“About what?”
“About your judgment.”
Jonathan gave a humorless laugh.
“And Marco volunteered to explain it?”
“He showed my father information about her contact with federal investigators.”
“What information?”
“I never saw all of it.”
“Then how did you know she was dangerous?”
“Because I trusted the people who told me.”
The words hung between them.
Jonathan recognized them immediately.
Eight months earlier, he'd said almost exactly the same thing to Meline.
He'd trusted Marco.
And he'd never asked Meline to explain.
A nurse approached.
“Mr. Moretti?”
Jonathan turned.
“Is she all right?”
“Her contractions have slowed. We don't believe she's in active labor yet, but we'd like to monitor her. She's dehydrated, and her blood pressure needs attention.”
Jonathan exhaled.
“Can I see her?”
“She asked for you.”
Vivien stiffened.
Jonathan followed the nurse.
Meline lay beneath a thin hospital blanket, one hand resting protectively over her stomach.
A fetal monitor made a steady, reassuring sound beside her.
Jonathan stopped at the foot of the bed.
“I can pay for everything,” he said.
Her expression changed.
“That's the first thing you want to tell me?”
“No. I just—”
“You always knew how to solve problems with money.”
He lowered his eyes.
“Apparently, I didn't even manage that.”
Meline looked toward the window.
“The baby's doing okay,” she said. “The doctor wants me to rest.”
“Good.”
“She's measuring a little small.”
Jonathan's throat tightened.
“Is that dangerous?”
“They're watching her.”
He pulled up a chair.
Meline watched him sit.
“You don't have to stay.”
“I know.”
“Your wedding—”
“Isn't happening today.”
She turned sharply.
“Jonathan.”
“I've asked Enzo to tell the cathedral.”
“That doesn't change what happened between us.”
“I know that, too.”
For several moments neither spoke.
Then Jonathan noticed something lying beside her purse.
An old silver wristwatch.
Its leather strap had been repaired with a thin piece of dark thread.
He recognized it immediately.
“That was Luca's.”
Meline reached for it.
“He gave it to me after his funeral.”
Jonathan frowned.
“After his funeral?”
She looked up.
“I mean before. A week before he died.”
Jonathan's eyes narrowed slightly.
His brother had worn that watch almost every day.
“He told me it didn't work anymore,” Meline explained. “He said I should keep it until he found someone who could repair it.”
“Why didn't you tell me?”
“You weren't exactly speaking to me after everything happened.”
Jonathan picked up the watch carefully.
The hands were frozen at 4:17.
He remembered that number.
Luca had been found dead at approximately four seventeen in the morning.
“You kept it all this time?”
Meline nodded.
“I tried selling it once.”
Jonathan looked at her.
She gave a sad smile.
“The pawnshop offered thirty dollars. Luca would've laughed.”
Jonathan opened the watch's cracked leather strap.
There, hidden beneath the stitching, was a narrow strip of blue fabric.
He frowned.
“Did Luca put this here?”
“I don't know.”
Jonathan pulled it free.
Three numbers had been written on the fabric in faded black ink.
417\.
Then two letters.
MB.
Jonathan felt his stomach tighten.
Marco Bellini.
His closest friend.
The man who had told him Luca's death was an accident.
Outside the hospital room, Vivien was speaking sharply into her phone.
“No, Father. He hasn't changed his mind.”
A pause.
“I know what was agreed.”
She turned and saw Jonathan.
“I have to go.”
She ended the call.
Jonathan held up the blue fabric.
“Have you ever seen this?”
Vivien stared at it.
“No.”
“Think carefully.”
“I said no.”
“Luca left it inside his watch.”
Something flickered in her eyes.
Jonathan caught it.
“You know what MB means?”
Vivien folded her arms.
“Plenty of things.”
“Marco Bellini.”
Her face changed.
“Jonathan, you need to stop digging into things that cannot be undone.”
He stepped closer.
“What things?”
Vivien glanced toward Meline's room.
Then she lowered her voice.
“You think Marco betrayed you because he stole forty thousand dollars?”
“Didn't he?”
“Of course he did. But that isn't the part you should be afraid of.”
Jonathan waited.
Vivien's expression softened for the first time that morning.
“I didn't want to marry you because my father demanded it,” she whispered. “I wanted to believe this marriage could keep both our families alive.”
“Alive from whom?”
She looked down at the watch.
“Your brother figured that out before he died.”
Jonathan felt the hallway tilt beneath him.
Vivien reached into her small white bridal purse.
She removed a folded piece of paper.
It was an old funeral program.
Luca Moretti's photograph appeared on the front.
And across the back, in Luca's unmistakable handwriting, were six words.
IF I DIE, DON'T TRUST MARCO.
Jonathan looked at Vivien.
“Where did you get this?”
Her eyes filled with tears.
“From my father.”
“Why didn't you tell me?”
“Because he told me what happened to the last person who tried.”
Jonathan stared at her.
“Who?”
Vivien looked toward Meline's hospital room.
Then she whispered something that changed everything.
“Your brother didn't die in that accident because he lost control of his car, Jonathan.”
May you like
She swallowed.
“He was driving to meet Meline.”
