Chapter 2 - THE MAN WHO WASN'T A WAITER|
“Because the man standing behind you isn't a waiter.”
Dominic didn't move.
For three terrible seconds, his dark eyes remained fixed on mine.
Then his hand tightened gently around my bandaged fingers.
“Where?” he asked.
“Near the service corridor,” I whispered.
“Gray catering jacket, black gloves, and a silver watch on his right wrist.”
Dominic's expression didn't change, but something dangerous entered his eyes.
“How do you know?”
“I saw him two nights ago outside the florist's warehouse.”
“He was talking to Dante Moretti.”
That name changed everything.
Dominic's thumb stopped moving against my wrist.
“Are you certain?”
I nodded.
“Clara, listen carefully.”
His voice was so quiet that nobody standing three feet away could have heard him.
“Whatever happens next, you stay beside me.”
Before I could answer, Dominic smiled.
It was the strangest smile I'd ever seen.
Cold, controlled, and completely unlike the man who had just been examining my injured hands.
He leaned closer and kissed my forehead.
To the two hundred wedding guests watching us, it probably looked like a loving husband greeting his wife.
But his lips barely moved against my hair.
“Marco, northwest corridor.”
One of his security men immediately touched his earpiece.
“Understood.”
“Luca, cover the bride.”
A second guard moved toward Isabella, Dominic's younger sister.
She stood beneath an enormous arrangement of pink roses, laughing with her new husband, Adrian Bell.
Neither of them knew that a man carrying a gun had entered their wedding reception.
Neither knew that the next sixty seconds could destroy their lives.
Dominic turned toward Aunt Beatrice.
“Clara will be sitting beside me.”
Beatrice lifted her chin.
“Dominic, darling, we already discussed the seating arrangements.”
“No,” he replied.
“You discussed them.”
She opened her mouth, but he wasn't looking at her anymore.
His attention had shifted toward the stranger.
I followed his gaze without turning my head.
The man was moving.
He had abandoned the champagne station and was walking slowly toward the enormous wedding cake.
His right hand disappeared beneath his jacket.
My heart slammed against my ribs.
“Dominic.”
“I see him.”
Then something happened that nobody expected.
Isabella stepped directly into the stranger's path.
She was smiling.
“Excuse me, could you bring another bottle of champagne to our table?”
The man stopped.
His face tightened.
And I saw his hand close around something beneath his jacket.
“ISABELLA!”
My scream tore through the ballroom.
Every head turned.
I dropped the pitcher.
Crystal shattered against the marble floor.
Before the stranger could move, Dominic pushed me behind a thick stone column and shouted one word.
“DOWN!”
The first gunshot exploded through the ballroom.
Women screamed.
A chandelier trembled.
A champagne bottle shattered behind the head table, spraying glass across white linen.
Dominic's men moved immediately.
Marco tackled Isabella to the floor.
Luca fired toward the service corridor.
But the stranger wasn't aiming at Dominic.
He was aiming at Isabella.
I realized it a heartbeat before Dominic did.
“HE WANTS YOUR SISTER!”
Dominic turned.
The gunman fired again.
A bullet struck the gold chair where Isabella had been standing moments earlier.
Then Adrian grabbed his new wife's arm and dragged her behind the cake table.
The stranger tried to follow.
Dominic intercepted him.
I'd never seen my husband move like that.
One moment he stood beside me.
The next, he had crossed half the ballroom and slammed the gunman's wrist against a marble pillar.
The pistol hit the floor.
Dominic drove the man backward.
Two guards rushed forward and restrained him before he could reach for another weapon.
It was over in less than twenty seconds.
But the silence afterward was worse than the gunfire.
People crouched beneath tables.
Broken glass covered the floor.
A little girl in a pink flower-girl dress sobbed against her mother's shoulder.
And Isabella sat trembling beside the ruined wedding cake.
Dominic stood over the captured gunman.
“Who sent you?”
The stranger spat blood onto the marble.
Dominic crouched.
“Look at me.”
The man stared at him.
“You weren't supposed to be here yet,” he muttered.
Dominic's face went still.
“Who told you my arrival time?”
The stranger said nothing.
Then his eyes moved.
Not toward the exits.
Not toward the guards.
Toward the head table.
I followed his gaze.
Aunt Beatrice was standing beside the towering floral centerpiece.
Her face had gone pale.
For one brief second, she looked directly at the gunman.
And he smiled.
A sick feeling spread through my stomach.
Dominic noticed.
“What?” he asked me.
I swallowed.
“He looked at your aunt.”
Beatrice immediately stepped forward.
“How dare you!”
Every face turned toward her.
“This woman has already ruined Isabella's wedding!”
Her voice shook with outrage.
“She screamed like a lunatic, caused a panic, and now she's accusing me?”
Dominic rose slowly.
“Beatrice.”
“No!”
She pointed at me.
“Ever since you married that girl, everything has gone wrong!”
I looked at the bandages around my fingertips.
Forty nights of sewing.
Forty nights of hoping I might finally become part of this family.
And even after I'd helped save Isabella's life, Beatrice was still trying to make me the enemy.
“I'm not accusing anyone,” I said softly.
“I'm telling Dominic what I saw.”
Beatrice laughed bitterly.
“Of course you are.”
“Anything to make yourself important.”
Dominic took one step toward her.
“Enough.”
His voice wasn't loud.
It didn't need to be.
The entire ballroom went silent.
“My wife noticed an armed stranger in a room full of people who were too busy humiliating her to pay attention.”
His eyes moved across the relatives gathered around the head table.
“She warned me.”
“She warned my security team.”
“And because of her, my sister is alive.”
Beatrice's lips parted.
Dominic continued.
“So before another person in this room says one disrespectful word about Clara, understand something.”
He took my injured hand and raised it gently.
“This woman is my wife.”
“Not my employee.”
“Not a guest you tolerate.”
“And certainly not someone you order to serve drinks.”
Nobody spoke.
I could hear the soft ringing in my ears from the gunshots.
Then Isabella appeared beside us.
Her ivory wedding gown shimmered beneath the chandeliers.
Ten thousand pearls caught the light as she approached.
Her eyes were filled with tears.
“Clara?”
I turned.
She looked at my hands.
Then she looked down at her dress.
“Dominic said you repaired it.”
I couldn't find my voice.
Isabella reached for my wrist.
“All of it?”
I nodded.
Her face crumpled.
“But they told me the restoration studio fixed it.”
Something inside me twisted.
“What restoration studio?”
Isabella looked toward Beatrice.
“Aunt Beatrice said she arranged everything.”
The older woman's expression changed instantly.
“Well, I supervised the process.”
Isabella shook her head.
“You told me you paid twenty thousand dollars for the repairs.”
The room went very quiet.
Twenty thousand dollars.
I'd never received a penny.
I hadn't even asked for one.
Dominic turned toward his aunt.
“Where did that money go?”
Beatrice took a step backward.
“That is hardly important right now.”
Dominic's jaw tightened.
“Where?”
She opened her mouth.
But before she could answer, Marco approached with the captured gunman's jacket.
“Boss, we searched him.”
He held up a folded piece of paper inside a transparent evidence sleeve.
It was a printed seating chart.
The same chart that had placed me beside the kitchen.
Except one name was circled in red.
ISABELLA CORETTI.
And beneath it, written in black ink, were four words.
WAIT UNTIL DOMINIC LEAVES.
Dominic stared at the message.
“Who prepared this seating chart?”
The wedding coordinator, a small woman with shaking hands, stepped forward.
“Mrs. Beatrice Coretti gave me the final version yesterday.”
All eyes turned toward his aunt.
Beatrice stumbled against the table.
“I didn't write that!”
Dominic looked at Marco.
“Take her phone.”
Her face drained of color.
“You can't do that!”
Marco approached.
Beatrice clutched her purse.
Then something small slipped from its open pocket.
A silver key card landed on the marble floor.
I recognized the hotel logo immediately.
It belonged to the private service entrance.
The very entrance the gunman had used.
Dominic bent down and picked it up.
His eyes lifted toward his aunt.
“Beatrice.”
His voice was frighteningly calm.
“Tell me why the man who tried to kill my sister had access to a door only our family was supposed to use.”
For the first time in my six months as Dominic Coretti's wife, Aunt Beatrice had nothing to say.
But as the guards escorted the gunman away, he twisted his head toward me.
His expression was almost amused.
“You think that was the only gun?”
My breath caught.
He leaned against Marco's grip.
“Ask your husband what happened to the first woman who tried to save a Coretti.”
Dominic went rigid.
And I knew, before anyone spoke another word, that my husband's family was hiding something far worse than a stolen wedding dress payment.
Because the gunman hadn't mentioned Isabella.
May you like
He had looked directly at me.
And Dominic suddenly looked like a man who had just heard a ghost speak.
