Chapter 4
Ethan laughed.
But the sound had changed.
“An old doctor tells a bitter ex-wife what she wants to hear and now I’m guilty?”
Alessandra looked at him.
“Why did you know there was a second test?”
His smile disappeared.
Luca turned.
Ethan realized it.
Too late.
He lifted his chin.
“Because I handled schedules.”
“No.”
Luca stepped closer.
“I never told anyone except Hale.”
Ethan shrugged.
“Then Hale told me.”
Alessandra watched.
“He came to me because he was afraid.”
Ethan’s eyes narrowed.
“Of what?”
“Of the people who paid him.”
Vanessa laughed sharply.
“Paid him?”
She looked around.
“Listen to this.”
Her voice became openly contemptuous.
“She comes back with a little boy, a costume army, and a doctor’s ghost story.”
Alessandra stared.
Vanessa continued.
“You know what I remember?”
She stepped closer.
“I remember you crying in a bathroom because your body couldn’t do what mine could.”
Luca’s head snapped toward her.
Vanessa smiled.
“Oh, don’t look shocked.”
She pointed toward Alessandra.
“She spent years acting like some tragic saint.”
Alessandra’s face did not move.
Vanessa’s voice grew crueler.
“You were broken.”
“You knew it.”
“Luca knew it.”
“Everyone knew it.”
Tobin looked up at his mother.
Alessandra immediately rested her hand against his head.
Vanessa saw.
And continued deliberately.
“That’s why this little performance is so pathetic.”
She looked at Tobin.
“Your mother needed a child so badly she built her whole new identity around finally proving she could make one.”
Luca stepped forward.
“Stop.”
Vanessa ignored him.
“What?”
She looked directly at Tobin.
“You want to know why Luca said she’d never be a mother?”
Alessandra moved.
One step.
The room changed.
Vanessa stopped.
Not afraid enough to back down.
But aware.
Alessandra’s voice came quietly.
“One more sentence to my son.”
Vanessa smiled.
“There’s the threat.”
She looked around at the capos.
“See?”
“Dress her in black.”
“Put a ring on her finger.”
“She’s still the same desperate woman who couldn’t survive being told no.”
One of Alessandra’s men stepped forward.
She raised one finger.
He stopped.
That gesture silenced the room more effectively than shouting.
Luca noticed.
So did Vanessa.
Power.
Real.
Not borrowed.
Alessandra looked at Luca.
“I don’t need her apology.”
Then at Ethan.
“I need Hale.”
Luca’s voice became low.
“He’s alive?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
Alessandra looked toward one of her capos.
The man nodded.
“He’s outside.”
Ethan’s face changed.
Vanessa’s did too.
Alessandra had not walked into this restaurant hoping something would happen.
She had come prepared for it.
Dr. Warren Hale entered five minutes later.
Seventy now.
Thin.
Nervous.
Ethan smirked.
“There he is.”
“Your miracle witness.”
Hale looked at him.
Fear remained.
But shame sat beside it.
Luca stepped forward.
“Whose test was abnormal?”
Hale swallowed.
“Yours.”
Silence.
Luca’s face went empty.
Hale continued.
“Low count.”
“Not sterile.”
“But significantly reduced.”
Luca looked toward Alessandra.
She did not rescue him from the humiliation.
He deserved to hear it.
Hale’s voice shook.
“Alessandra’s results were normal.”
Vanessa’s fingers tightened around her engagement ring.
Luca turned toward Ethan.
“You told me the opposite.”
Ethan laughed.
“What would you have preferred?”
He spread his arms.
“For every capo in Chicago to whisper that Luca Moretti couldn’t get his wife pregnant?”
Luca stared.
Ethan’s arrogance returned completely.
“I protected you.”
“You lied.”
“I saved your reputation.”
“You destroyed my marriage.”
Ethan smirked.
“No.”
Then he looked at Alessandra.
“You did that yourself.”
The sentence landed.
Luca’s face changed.
Alessandra saw it.
Ethan continued.
“I gave you a lie.”
His smile widened.
“You were the one desperate enough to believe it.”
Luca’s hands closed.
Ethan leaned closer.
“Go ahead.”
“Hit me.”
“Make the whole restaurant forget the part where you chose your pride over your wife.”
Luca stopped.
Because Ethan was right about one thing.
A lie only worked because Luca had accepted it.
Then Hale whispered:
“Ethan wasn’t the person who first asked me to change the story.”
Everyone turned.
Ethan’s smile vanished.
Vanessa’s eyes hardened.
Luca looked at Hale.
“Who was?”
Hale swallowed.
May you like
“Vanessa.”
And according to Hale, she had been planning to enter Luca’s life long before his divorce was final.
