Chapter 3 - The Fifty-Dollar Bride Was Part of Their Plan|
I had spent eleven days believing my father sold me because he was desperate.
Now I was staring at a photograph suggesting that my marriage had been arranged for reasons far more sinister than gambling debts.
Vincent stood beside me, studying the screen.
The photograph had been taken outside the Black Orchid Casino, a private gambling club on Chicago's West Side.
My father stood near the entrance wearing his usual stained brown jacket.
Lorenzo Moretti stood beside him.
They were shaking hands.
I recognized the expression on my father's face.
I had seen it every time he won money at the racetrack.
Greed.
"Why would Lorenzo know my father?" I whispered.
Vincent typed on his phone.
Your father claimed he approached my people through a debt collector. I never met him before the wedding.
I stared at him.
"Then why did you agree to marry me?"
His fingers hovered over the screen.
For several seconds, he didn't answer.
Then he typed.
Because Lorenzo told me your father intended to sell you to someone worse.
My stomach tightened.
Vincent continued.
He said the debt collectors wanted you delivered to a man who had hurt women before. I paid the debt and insisted you be brought here instead.
I looked up at him.
"You married me to protect me?"
He shook his head slightly.
I thought marriage would give you legal and social protection from those men. I was wrong to think I could make that decision for you.
I stared at the words.
It wasn't an apology that erased what had happened.
Nothing could erase the humiliation of standing in a borrowed wedding dress while my father accepted money for me.
But for the first time, I wondered whether Vincent had been manipulated too.
"How much did you really pay?"
Vincent looked uncomfortable.
The debt settlement was fifty thousand dollars. Lorenzo handled it.
My heart stopped.
"Fifty thousand?"
He nodded.
"My father told me fifty."
Vincent's expression darkened.
I remembered Tyler laughing.
You're worth fifty bucks, sis.
I had believed him.
For eleven days, those words had followed me everywhere.
Now I realized that somewhere between Lorenzo and my father, forty-nine thousand nine hundred and fifty dollars had vanished.
Or perhaps the entire transaction had been a performance.
Vincent moved to the computer and opened an encrypted folder.
Inside were bank records, property documents, and photographs.
He turned the monitor toward me.
A transfer had been made two days before our wedding.
Fifty thousand dollars.
The receiving account belonged to a company called Westbridge Holdings.
I had never heard of it.
But one name appeared repeatedly on the documents.
Tyler.
My brother.
I felt sick.
"Tyler owns this company?"
Vincent shook his head.
He's listed as an authorized representative. Someone else controls it.
"Who?"
Before he could answer, the monitor flashed.
Another message.
MIDNIGHT. WEST CONSERVATORY. SEND THE GIRL ALONE.
Vincent slammed the laptop shut.
His face changed in an instant.
The frightened man from the dining room vanished.
In his place stood the Mafia boss everyone feared.
He grabbed a notebook from the desk and wrote in thick black letters.
YOU ARE NOT GOING.
I shook my head.
"If someone knows what happened, we need answers."
He wrote again.
THEY WANT TO USE YOU TO CONTROL ME.
"Then let them think it's working."
His eyes widened.
I surprised myself with the words.
Eleven days earlier, I had barely dared to speak at dinner.
Now I was considering walking into a trap inside a mansion full of armed guards.
But something had changed.
I had survived my father.
I had survived Tyler.
And I was tired of being treated like an object that men could exchange.
Vincent placed his hands on my shoulders.
He waited until I was looking directly at him.
Then he silently formed the words.
Please don't.
I felt my throat tighten.
Nobody had ever begged me to stay safe.
My father gave orders.
My brother demanded money.
My employers shouted instructions.
But Vincent Moretti looked genuinely terrified at the possibility of losing me.
I took his phone.
Then we go together.
He stared at the message.
After a long moment, he nodded.
At eleven forty-five, we left the hidden security room.
Vincent had changed into a dark shirt and concealed a small radio transmitter beneath his collar.
He handed me a watch with a vibrating emergency alert.
Then he typed.
If anything feels wrong, press the button twice. My security team will come.
"Which security team?"
His expression grew grim.
The two people I still trust.
I wanted to ask who they were.
But before I could, he took my hand.
We walked through the silent mansion toward the west conservatory.
Moonlight poured through its glass ceiling.
White roses lined the marble pathway.
Near the fountain stood a man with his back to us.
He wore a gray coat.
My heart began pounding.
I knew those shoulders.
That thinning hair.
That familiar, careless posture.
"Dad?"
The man turned.
My father smiled.
"Well, look at you, sweetheart."
I froze.
He glanced at Vincent, then back at me.
"Married into money, and you couldn't even send your old man a little something?"
I felt sick.
"You planned this?"
He laughed.
"Don't act so surprised."
Vincent stepped forward.
But my father raised a hand.
"Careful, Moretti. You don't want to hear what I know about your accident?"
Vincent stopped.
My father smiled wider.
Then he looked directly at me.
"Your husband wasn't born deaf, sweetheart."
He reached into his coat and removed a photograph.
It showed Vincent as a boy, standing beside an older woman.
His mother.
And on the back of the photograph, written in faded blue ink, were five words.
ARTHUR BELLAMY KNOWS THE TRUTH.
My father leaned closer.
"Want to know the really funny part?"
I couldn't move.
May you like
He pointed at Vincent.
"That man has been paying someone to keep himself deaf for fifteen years."
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