Chapter 15 - The Woman Who Was Supposed to Be Dead
Giulietta caught Matteo by the collar before the guards could move him.
“What part?”
Elena stepped forward.
“Giulietta, not here.”
“Here is where everyone decided my life for me. Here is perfect.”
Matteo’s breathing was shallow now, but his eyes were bright.
“Elena spent twenty years hiding because of me. Vincent spent six years dead because of me. Preston nearly married you because of me.”
Giulietta tightened her grip.
“Congratulations. You’re poison with good tailoring.”
He laughed and winced.
“But I am not the secret.”
Elena’s gun lowered.
That scared Giulietta more than if she had raised it.
Luca moved beside her.
“Mom?”
Elena closed her eyes for one second.
Matteo saw it.
His smile widened.
“Tell them.”
Elena opened her eyes.
“Vincent was your father in every way that mattered.”
Giulietta went still.
Wrong sentence.
People only said that when the biological answer was different.
“No.”
Elena’s lips parted.
“Giulietta—”
“No.”
Matteo leaned against the men holding him.
“Twenty-nine years ago, before Vincent married Elena, the Marconis and Hales were trying to stop a war.”
Warren had been brought down the tunnel under guard. He stopped at the doorway.
Matteo saw him.
Perfect timing.
Of course.
Giulietta followed Matteo’s gaze.
Warren looked confused.
Then he saw Elena.
His face changed.
Not recognition from a photograph.
Recognition from memory.
Elena whispered, “Warren.”
He grabbed the doorframe.
“No.”
Giulietta’s heart struck hard once.
Then again.
She looked between them.
“You know each other.”
Warren’s mouth opened.
Nothing came out.
Matteo answered for him.
“They knew each other very well.”
Elena raised the gun again.
“Enough.”
Giulietta put a hand on the barrel and pushed it down.
“No. I have had enough people deciding what I can handle.”
She looked at Warren.
“What happened?”
Warren shook his head.
“Elena was engaged to Vincent.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“We met before the engagement became public.”
Luca whispered, “Jesus.”
Elena’s face hardened.
“It lasted weeks. I ended it.”
Giulietta’s breathing became audible.
“And then?”
Elena looked at her daughter.
“I found out I was pregnant.”
Warren stepped backward as if somebody had hit him.
“What?”
Elena’s eyes filled.
“I never told you.”
Warren’s face drained.
Giulietta’s hand went to the ring she had shoved into her dress pocket hours earlier.
Her fingers closed around the metal.
Matteo started laughing.
“You see why Vincent kept it buried? His heir was a Hale by blood.”
Preston appeared behind Warren under guard.
He had heard enough.
His eyes moved from Giulietta to his father.
Then back.
“No,” Preston said.
Giulietta looked at him.
The implications arrived one after another.
Warren.
Preston.
The marriage.
Her stomach turned.
Elena stepped toward her.
“Giulietta, I swear Vincent knew before he married me. He chose you. He raised you. He never treated you as anything but his daughter.”
“That is not what I asked.”
Her voice came out flat.
She turned to Warren.
“Did you know?”
He shook his head.
“No.”
“Did Preston?”
“No.”
Preston looked sick.
Matteo coughed blood into his hand.
Then he said, very softly:
“Ask Elena why the DNA report in Vincent’s ledger is dated three months ago.”
Everyone stopped.
Giulietta looked down at the scorched ledger.
A corner of a sealed white envelope protruded from the inner pocket.
Stamped across it in black letters:
PATERNITY CONFIRMATION - CONFIDENTIAL.
She bent down and pulled it free.
Elena whispered her name.
Giulietta tore the envelope open.
One page.
Two names.
Probability of paternity: 99.98%.
Her eyes moved to the tested father.
WARREN HALE.
Giulietta looked up.
Warren had one hand over his mouth.
Preston stood frozen behind him.
And Matteo, bleeding between two guards, whispered the sentence that turned the wedding into something far worse than war.
“Congratulations, Giulietta.”
May you like
He smiled.
“You almost married your brother.”
