Chapter 3

But he had forgotten one thing.

I could forgive many things. Betrayal wasn’t one of them.

Luca knew that. He had known it long before he put a ring on my finger.

Yet he had kissed my forehead and told me to eat while another woman waited for him.

I looked at the wedding photograph on the sideboard. His cheek rested against my temple, his eyes closed. Everyone who saw it said the same thing.

That man worships you.

I used to believe them.

Now I wondered whether he had already been lying to me when it was taken.

When had this started?

A week ago? A month? Long enough for her to feel at home in our bedroom?

I sat down before my legs could give out.

The soup had stopped steaming. A thin film had formed on the surface, and I found myself staring at it while I tried to slow my breathing.

I reached for my phone and called my parents.

“Can you come over?”

My mother heard something in my voice.

“Dora? What happened?”

“Please. Both of you.”

They arrived less than half an hour later.

My father’s driver escorted them upstairs, then went back down to wait in the car. My mother came straight to me, still wearing her coat.

“What is it, sweetheart?”

I tried to answer calmly.

Instead, everything came out at once.

The forum. The Maserati blocking both spaces. Luca cooking dinner. His supposed emergency at the docks.

The earring. The new replies.

My mother sat beside me as I showed them my phone. My father remained standing, reading over her shoulder.

When I finished, he took the phone and scrolled through the exchange again.

“Dora,” he said carefully, “are you sure there isn’t another explanation?”

I looked up at him.

He glanced at the earring on the table.

“I’m asking because I know how he treats you. We’ve all seen it.”

My mother’s hand tightened around mine.

“Think about his work,” my father continued. “A call from the docks can mean anything. A missing shipment. A territory dispute. If another crew was involved, he might genuinely have needed to go.”

“And the post?” I asked.

“Anonymous men bragging on a forum. We don’t know who wrote it.”

My mother let go of my hand and struck the table with her palm.

“Oh, for God’s sake.”

My father stopped.

“The man tries blocking two parking spaces. Luca blocks our daughter’s space.”

She pointed at my phone.

“Dora comes upstairs without calling. The man complains that his wife came upstairs without calling.”

Then she pointed toward the front door.

“He invents an emergency and leaves. The man says he invented an emergency and left.”

Finally, she picked up the earring.

“And she finds this under their bed. How many more coincidences do you need?”

My father rubbed a hand over his mouth.

“He’s spent seven years putting her first.”

“Yes,” my mother said. “And apparently he thought that would keep her from asking questions.”

“I’m not defending him.”

“Then stop making his excuses for him.”

My father lowered himself into the chair across from me. He set the phone down carefully.

For a moment, no one spoke.

My mother was looking toward the kitchen now, at the apron Luca had left hanging beside the door.

“The nerve of him.”

Her voice had gone quiet, which somehow made it worse.

“He came to our house and begged us to trust him.”

I remembered.

My father had opposed the match. Luca had been rising fast within the Moretti family, and everyone knew what he would eventually inherit.

My parents understood that life too well to want it for me.

For three days, Luca had come to their house and waited whenever my parents refused to see him. He left only when I begged him to get some sleep.

On the third evening, my mother finally opened the door.

He had looked exhausted. His shirt was creased, his jaw dark with stubble.

When she asked why she should trust her daughter to a man whose enemies might one day come looking for her, he had taken her hands and asked her to hear him out.

“I know what you’re afraid of,” he had told her. “But I swear I will never make her regret choosing me.”

My mother had cried when she told me about it afterward.

Now she put the earring down as though it disgusted her.

“Two years,” she said. “Two years of marriage, and he brings another woman into your home.”

I wanted to be as angry as she was.

The anger was there, but I kept getting caught on things I couldn’t understand.

Because my father was right about one thing.

Luca had been good to me.

Not just when people were watching. Not just when there was something to gain.

I remembered waking sick in the middle of the night and finding him sitting beside the bed, waiting for my fever to break. I remembered how he called whenever a meeting ran late because he knew I would stay awake.

Those things had happened. So had tonight.

I couldn’t make them fit together.

Luca was young, handsome, and powerful. Women had pursued him before we married, and our wedding rings hadn’t discouraged all of them.

He had never seemed interested.

Once, the daughter of one of the most powerful bosses on the East Coast had decided she wanted him.

She had made no effort to hide it.

At a dinner attended by several family bosses, she told him that marrying her would give the Morettis access to her father’s dockside operations and allies who could secure his position for years.

All he had to do was leave me.

Luca refused her in front of everyone.

Her father took it as an insult. Deals collapsed. Other families stopped returning calls. For a while, even men who had known Luca since childhood advised him to reconsider.

He never asked me to step aside.

He came home one night, loosened his tie, and found me sitting awake in the living room.

I had heard enough to know what his refusal was costing him.

“You could lose everything,” I told him.

He crouched in front of me and took my hands.

“I can rebuild a business. I can find new allies.”

Then he looked straight at me.

“You’re the one thing I’m not willing to lose.”

I had believed him because he had already proved it.

That was what hurt now.

I hadn’t trusted him on pretty words alone. He had chosen me when it cost him something.

Who was she? What had changed?

Across the table, my father leaned forward.

“Dora. What do you want to do?”

My mother turned to me, and I realized they were both waiting.

For the first time since finding the earring, I knew my answer.

“I want to catch him with her.”

My father held my gaze.

My mother nodded immediately.

“All right. How?”

I picked up my phone.

After a dispute between the families turned violent, Luca had set up location sharing on our phones.

I had never used it to check up on him.

Now I found the app.