Chapter 5 - Unraveling the Past
The discovery of the photographs blew the lid off the carefully maintained security of the Duca estate. For the next forty-eight hours, the mansion felt less like a home and more like a bunker under siege. Marco interrogated the staff one by one, while Lorenzo threw himself into tracing the origin of the delivery, working late into the night behind locked doors.
I refused to cower in my room. If I was going to be hunted, I wanted to understand the rules of the game. Late on the second night, finding the main study empty, I bypassed the locked main entrance and used a service corridor to access Lorenzo’s private archive room—a secure vault where old financial ledgers and family records were kept.
The room was cold, smelling of old paper and leather. Rows of heavy metal filing cabinets lined the walls. I began pulling files marked with the names of the previous six women who had supposedly fled.
As I opened the fourth file, belonging to a woman named Elena Vance who had vanished from the estate three years ago, a folded document slipped out and fluttered to the floor.
I knelt down to pick it up, and my breath caught in my throat. It wasn't a personal letter. It was a financial asset transfer record—bearing my late father’s signature.
My father had died five years ago, leaving behind a modest bakery business and a mountain of complicated debt that had taken me years to untangle. But according to these documents, his debt hadn't been an accident. It had been systematically engineered by a shell corporation tied directly to the Duca syndicate—and specifically, managed by Ethan Cole, my toxic ex-fiancé, acting as a proxy legal consultant.
“What are you looking for, Amelia?”
I jumped, dropping the papers as Lorenzo stepped out from the shadows of the vault’s inner alcove. The dim overhead light cast harsh shadows across his face, highlighting the deep exhaustion etched into his features.
“My father,” I whispered, my voice trembling as I pointed at the ledger on the floor. “My father’s business, my family debt... Ethan didn't just happen to walk into my life three years ago, did he? He was a plant. Or an operative working through your corporate network.”
Lorenzo closed his eyes slowly, taking a deep, heavy breath. When he opened them, all the walls were down.
“Your father uncovered an illegal money-laundering scheme running through Midwest supply chains,” Lorenzo said, his voice raw and heavy with guilt. “Ethan Cole was working for a faction within my own organization trying to usurp my authority. When your father refused to cooperate, they targeted him, manipulated his debts, and planned to use your bakery as a front.”
“And the marriage?” I asked, tears stinging my eyes. “Was I just a pawn in your war? A convenient bride brought in to check a box?”
“No,” Lorenzo stepped forward, his massive frame radiating an intense, desperate sincerity. “Rosa didn't bring you here because of a ledger. She brought you because you were the only person in Chicago who didn't bow, didn't flatter, and didn't run away. But the men who want me dead—the ones using Ethan as their mouthpiece—found out about you. They sent those photographs because they want to break you, Amelia. They want you to run, just like the others, so I’m left completely alone.”
I looked at the towering mafia boss—a man who could crush a man’s skull with his bare hands, yet stood before me looking terrified that I would walk away.
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I reached out, my hand resting gently against his warm cheek. His stubble was rough beneath my palm, and I felt him lean instinctively into my touch, a shudder running through his massive frame.
“I’m not running, Lorenzo,” I whispered fiercely. “If they want a war, let’s show them what happens when a plus-size baker from Milwaukee gets angry.”
