Chapter 3 - THE NAME ON MY SON’S ULTRASOUND
The medical residence was not a residence.
It was a private clinic disguised as a villa.
Of course it was.
Stone walls.
Cypress trees.
Security cameras.
Two doctors waiting when we arrived.
I almost refused to enter until Sofia’s car appeared behind us.
She jumped out before the vehicle stopped completely.
“Elena!”
I barely had time to open my arms before she wrapped herself around me.
Then she looked over my shoulder and saw Vittorio approaching.
Her expression transformed.
Sofia Marchetti was five feet four and had once threatened a landlord with a rolling pin.
Vittorio Ricci controlled armed men across northern Italy.
I would still have placed money on Sofia.
“You.”
Vittorio stopped.
“Yes.”
She slapped him.
Every man near the entrance froze.
I froze.
Sofia pointed at him.
“That was for making her think you were dead.”
“I didn’t tell her I was dead.”
She slapped him again.
“That was for being technical.”
Antonio looked toward the trees.
Vittorio touched his cheek.
“Have you finished?”
“No.”
“Sofia.”
I caught her arm.
“Doctor first.”
She glared at Vittorio.
“Later.”
He nodded.
“Fair.”
The examination lasted nearly forty minutes.
Blood pressure elevated but not dangerous.
No contractions.
No bleeding.
The baby’s heartbeat steady.
The ultrasound showed him curled sideways with one hand near his face.
I watched the screen.
Even after every terrifying thing that night, my son remained inside me doing what he had always done.
Growing.
The physician, Dr. Lucia Ferraro, smiled.
“He seems unimpressed by organized crime.”
I stared at her.
She looked toward Vittorio.
“Your reputation is exhausting.”
I almost laughed.
Vittorio stood near the door.
Not beside the examination bed.
I had told him he could remain if he stayed there.
He obeyed.
When the screen shifted, the baby kicked.
Vittorio’s face changed.
I saw it.
He had not been at the first ultrasound.
Or the second.
He had never heard the heartbeat before tonight.
Pain entered his expression so completely I had to look away.
Dr. Ferraro printed three images.
She gave all three to me.
Not one to Vittorio.
I noticed.
So did he.
Good doctor.
Afterward, Sofia and I were given a bedroom suite.
Vittorio waited in the sitting room.
He had changed out of the suit jacket I still wore.
Someone brought me clean clothes.
I refused until Sofia checked every drawer as though expecting hidden assassins.
Then we sat.
Vittorio remained standing.
I held the ultrasound photographs.
“Start.”
He looked at me.
“With what?”
“Your name.”
His face tightened.
“Vittorio Alessandro Ricci.”
I stared.
“Alessandro was real?”
“My middle name.”
That hurt in a strange way.
He had not invented every syllable.
Just almost everything around it.
“Visconti?”
“My mother’s maiden name.”
“So you built a false identity out of pieces of your real one.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
He glanced at Sofia.
I said:
“She stays.”
“I assumed.”
Good.
Vittorio sat opposite us.
“Eight months before I met you, my father was killed.”
I went still.
“Assassinated?”
“Yes.”
“By Francesca’s family?”
“I thought so.”
Thought.
Interesting.
“Her father is Lorenzo Bellandi.”
Even I knew that name.
Banking.
Construction.
Ports.
Rumors.
“The Ricci and Bellandi families had been rivals for thirty years,” Vittorio continued. “After my father died, evidence pointed toward Bellandi.”
“What evidence?”
“A payment to the shooter.”
“Was it real?”
“I don’t know anymore.”
He looked exhausted.
“For several months I stepped away from public life while I investigated people inside my own organization.”
“So you became Alessandro.”
“Yes.”
“A shipping manager.”
“I actually worked.”
Sofia snorted.
“Congratulations.”
Vittorio almost smiled.
“I used one of our smaller subsidiaries under a false employment profile. No security visible. No family residences. No formal schedule.”
“And then you met me.”
“Yes.”
“How?”
He looked at me.
“At a laundromat.”
I remembered.
My washing machine had broken.
He had been standing beside a machine reading instructions like they were written in ancient Greek.
I helped him.
He bought me coffee.
Then tea.
Then six months became a life.
“At first,” Vittorio said, “you were simply someone outside everything.”
My stomach tightened.
“Simply?”
“That came out wrong.”
“Very.”
He leaned forward.
“You were the first person in years who spoke to me without calculating what my name could give them.”
“Because you gave me the wrong name.”
“Yes.”
At least he understood irony.
“I should have told you.”
“When?”
“Much earlier.”
“When?”
His jaw tightened.
“The night I realized I loved you.”
The room went silent.
My chest hurt.
Sofia looked at me.
I looked at the ultrasound.
Not him.
“You never said that.”
“I know.”
“You said you cared.”
“Yes.”
“You said you were happy.”
“Yes.”
“You said we should take a trip to Como in spring.”
His eyes closed.
“Yes.”
“But love?”
“I was afraid saying it would make the lie worse.”
I laughed bitterly.
“That ship sailed somewhere around fake employment.”
He almost smiled.
Then stopped.
“Six months ago, one of my men found photographs.”
My hand tightened around the ultrasound.
“Of what?”
“You.”
Cold moved through me.
“Leaving your apartment. Going to work. Meeting Sofia.”
Sofia swore.
Vittorio continued.
“Someone had discovered Alessandro’s connection to you.”
“And you left.”
“Yes.”
“You could have told me.”
“If I told you who I was, you became valuable.”
“I was already valuable to you.”
His face broke.
“Yes.”
“Then why did you think disappearing made me safer?”
“Because the surveillance stopped three days after I left.”
I stared.
That answer mattered.
Not enough.
But it meant his decision had evidence behind it.
“I arranged to have you watched from a distance.”
My anger returned.
“You what?”
“Security only.”
“You had men watching me?”
“Until I confirmed the threat was gone.”
“Without telling me.”
“Yes.”
Sofia muttered, “That sounds illegal.”
“It probably was.”
Vittorio looked at me.
“I was wrong.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Because I keep finding more things I was wrong about.”
Fair.
I asked:
“How long?”
“Six weeks.”
My blood chilled.
“You stopped watching after six weeks?”
“Yes.”
“I was pregnant.”
His face changed.
“I know that now.”
“Did none of your men notice?”
“I ordered them not to approach, enter your apartment, access medical records, or interfere with your life.”
“So they watched me leave home.”
“Yes.”
“I wore coats.”
Winter.
Loose uniforms.
Morning sickness I hid at work.
No reason they would know.
Vittorio rubbed one hand over his face.
“When the surveillance risk disappeared, I wanted to return.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“Because Lorenzo Bellandi proposed a truce.”
There.
Francesca.
“The engagement.”
Vittorio nodded.
“The Bellandis wanted a marriage alliance.”
I laughed.
“How romantic.”
“It was never romantic.”
“Did Francesca know?”
“Yes.”
“Did she know about me?”
Silence.
My stomach tightened.
“Vittorio.”
“Yes.”
I stood too quickly.
Sofia caught my arm.
“You told your fiancée about me?”
“Not everything.”
“What did you tell her?”
“That before our agreement, there had been someone.”
“Someone.”
“I was trying to keep your identity out of it.”
“And today she recognized me?”
“She recognized my reaction.”
That made sense.
Francesca had not known my face.
She knew there had been a woman.
Then I looked at the photograph on Antonio’s phone.
Francesca trapped in a car beside her father.
“She called Lorenzo when she found out about the baby.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Vittorio looked toward the window.
“Because our engagement contract included a succession clause.”
I stared.
“A what?”
“If Francesca and I married and had a son, Ricci and Bellandi interests would eventually pass through that child under a joint holding structure.”
Sofia looked horrified.
“You people write merger agreements for unborn babies?”
Vittorio’s face hardened.
“I did not draft it.”
“You agreed.”
“Yes.”
I touched my belly.
“And now my son exists.”
“Yes.”
“What does that change?”
Vittorio’s eyes met mine.
“Everything.”
“How?”
“My biological son would supersede any future child of the political marriage in several Ricci family trusts.”
I felt sick.
“He’s not even born.”
“I know.”
“He’s not an heir.”
“To me, he is my son.”
“To them?”
Vittorio went quiet.
“To them, he is control.”
There it was.
Money.
Shares.
Ports.
Family holdings.
Men with guns looking at a fetus like a corporate vote.
I stood.
“No.”
Vittorio frowned.
“No what?”
“My baby is not going into your trusts.”
“Elena—”
“No Ricci inheritance.”
“You cannot decide that tonight.”
“I can decide I will not let men hunt him because he owns something before he knows how to walk.”
Vittorio stood too.
“You are right.”
That stopped me.
“What?”
“I said you are right.”
His eyes hardened.
“I will change the succession structure.”
“Can you?”
“Yes.”
“Then do it.”
“I will.”
Sofia looked suspicious.
“How quickly?”
“My lawyers can begin tonight.”
I stared at Vittorio.
“Not because I forgive you.”
“I know.”
“Not because you get rights over my pregnancy.”
“I know.”
“You change it because your world endangered him.”
“Yes.”
No argument.
Then his phone rang.
Antonio.
Vittorio answered.
His face changed halfway through the call.
“Where?”
Silence.
“Alive?”
Another silence.
Then:
“Bring her here.”
He hung up.
“Francesca?”
Vittorio nodded.
“She escaped.”
“From her father?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
Something almost resembling admiration crossed his face.
“She stabbed the driver with one of her engagement-ring pins.”
Sofia stared.
“I may like her.”
I did not.
Not yet.
Vittorio continued.
“She says Lorenzo did not order the attack at Stellato.”
“Then who did?”
“She doesn’t know.”
“But those men called my son the Ricci heir.”
“Yes.”
I felt cold again.
Francesca had called Lorenzo.
Lorenzo had taken Francesca.
But apparently someone else had already been watching.
Someone who knew my identity.
My workplace.
My pregnancy.
And Vittorio’s secret relationship.
May you like
Which meant the danger had not entered Stellato because Francesca made one phone call.
It had been waiting much longer.
