Chapter 2 - THE MAN WHO CAME HOME BLEEDING
Elio returned at 2:17 in the morning.
I knew because the estate alarm chirped once.
Then voices.
Running footsteps.
A door slammed.
I came into the hallway barefoot.
Bruno appeared first.
“Go back to your room.”
“No.”
“Janevra.”
First time.
Not Mrs. Vieira.
My name.
Then Elio stepped through the front entrance.
His white shirt was stained dark near his shoulder.
My stomach dropped.
“What happened?”
“Nothing.”
I stared.
“You’re bleeding.”
“I noticed.”
Two men helped him toward the study.
I followed.
Bruno blocked me.
“Doctor is coming.”
“Then move.”
“This is not—”
“I am his wife.”
The words surprised both of us.
Bruno moved.
---
It was not life-threatening.
A bullet had grazed Elio’s upper shoulder after his vehicle was forced into a barrier near Lower Wacker Drive.
No graphic wound.
No cinematic surgery on a kitchen table.
A physician arrived through the private entrance, cleaned it, closed it, and informed Elio that refusing a hospital was stupid.
Elio responded:
“Noted.”
The physician looked at me.
“Make sure he rests.”
I almost laughed.
“Apparently you have confused me with someone he listens to.”
For the first time that night, Elio smiled.
Small.
Real.
It transformed his entire face.
Then disappeared.
---
When everyone left, I remained in the study.
Elio sat on the leather sofa, shirt open, bandage crossing his shoulder.
“Go to bed.”
“No.”
“Janevra.”
“Who did it?”
“We don’t know.”
“Who moved the money?”
“We don’t know.”
“My father?”
His expression changed.
Not enough.
Enough.
I stared.
“You think my father is involved.”
“I think your father knows more than he has told either of us.”
“Why?”
“The transfers originated through Moretti-controlled port accounts.”
I went cold.
“Then ask him.”
“I did.”
“And?”
“He blamed me.”
Of course.
Elio leaned back carefully.
“The documents show my authorization code.”
“Could it have been stolen?”
“Yes.”
“By whom?”
“Only six people had enough access.”
“Bruno?”
“Yes.”
“Daario?”
Elio looked at me.
“Yes.”
There.
Daario.
The cousin who called me breeding stock at my own wedding.
I had never trusted him.
Elio did.
Or had.
---
“What happens now?”
Elio looked toward the fire.
“If federal investigators conclude the transfer is connected to other Santoro transactions, they may try to build a financial case.”
“Against you?”
“Yes.”
“And inside your organization?”
A pause.
“Men follow stability.”
Meaning if Elio looked weak, others would move.
The assassination attempt confirmed it.
I sat across from him.
“What do you need?”
His eyes lifted.
“Nothing.”
I laughed.
“Of course.”
He frowned.
“You are not getting involved.”
“I already am.”
“No.”
“My father controls half the entities you’re investigating.”
“Exactly why you stay out.”
I leaned forward.
“You married me because I connected you to those entities.”
His jaw tightened.
“You cannot use me as an alliance when convenient and declare me irrelevant when the alliance becomes dangerous.”
He looked away.
That meant I was right.
Good.
I stood.
“My father keeps historical port records at the Moretti archive.”
Elio’s expression changed.
“What archive?”
“At the family foundation building.”
“Why would you know that?”
“Because unlike everyone else in this world, I occasionally read things that aren’t financial statements.”
He stared.
I continued:
“My mother ran the Moretti cultural foundation before she became ill.”
A memory tightened my throat.
“She cataloged everything. Property transfers. Donations. Art. Original deeds. Shipping-company records that were historically tied to donated collections.”
Elio frowned.
“Why?”
“Tax documentation.”
He almost smiled.
“Of course.”
“If those transferred funds originated through an old entity or authority chain, the archive may contain records your digital systems don’t.”
Elio became serious.
“No.”
I stared.
“You didn’t even consider it.”
“I considered it.”
“No, you dismissed me.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
He stood.
Pain crossed his face.
He ignored it.
“Because someone tried to put a bullet through my car tonight.”
His voice lowered.
“And I will not send my twenty-two-year-old wife walking into her father’s archive while I am trying to determine whether her father is the man who ordered it.”
Silence.
There it was.
Not contempt.
Fear.
For me.
I whispered:
“You care.”
Elio’s expression shut down instantly.
Mistake.
I had named it.
He turned away.
“Go to bed.”
I almost smiled.
Coward.
But I went.
Because for the first time since our wedding night, I did not feel like furniture in his house.
May you like
I felt like the one thing he was trying hardest not to lose.
---
