Chapter 5 - THE BABY CHANGED THE RULES
Z
Vincent doubled the security before sunset.
I hated him for it.
I also slept better.
That contradiction followed me everywhere.
Two guards outside my bedroom.
Cameras covering the property.
A doctor secretly brought to the house.
Food inspected before it reached the kitchen.
Nobody entered without Marco’s approval.
It was suffocating.
It was also necessary.
Dr. Helen Park arrived just after six.
She had been my obstetrician for two years, back when Vincent and I had started quietly trying for a child.
Vincent hadn’t known I kept seeing her after we stopped discussing pregnancy.
There had been no fertility treatments.
No injections.
No IVF.
Just months of disappointment followed by a miracle neither of us expected.
Dr. Park performed an ultrasound in one of the guest rooms.
Vincent stood by the window.
I had told him he could stay.
I regretted it immediately.
The room darkened.
The screen flickered.
Then the tiny shape appeared.
A little curve.
A heartbeat.
Fast.
Bright.
Alive.
Vincent stopped breathing.
Dr. Park smiled.
“Everything looks appropriate for eight weeks and five days.”
I stared at the screen.
The sound filled the room.
A tiny galloping rhythm.
I had heard it once before.
Alone.
This time, I looked at Vincent.
His eyes were wet.
He turned his face away as though ashamed.
That nearly broke me.
After Dr. Park left, he remained in the room.
“Claire.”
I sat up.
“If you tell me you’re sorry again, I may throw something.”
“I wasn’t going to.”
“Good.”
“I was going to ask whether I can have a picture.”
That silenced me.
There were several ultrasound prints on the table.
I gave him one.
He held it like something sacred.
For three years, Vincent had given me diamonds I rarely wore.
A Cartier bracelet.
A house in Lake Geneva.
A vintage Mercedes I eventually returned because I preferred driving myself.
I had never seen him look at anything the way he looked at a blurry black-and-white picture worth approximately fifty cents.
“I don’t know how to do this,” he admitted.
“Being a father?”
“Being afraid all the time.”
I looked at him.
“Welcome to pregnancy.”
His mouth twitched.
Then the humor disappeared.
“Angelo will use the baby.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I know him.”
“And I know you.”
He looked at me.
“That’s exactly what scares me.”
Before he could answer, Marco knocked.
The digitized recording had been verified.
It was authentic.
More importantly, the black notebook contained transaction codes matching accounts still active today.
Angelo had been using the same hidden financial network for more than three decades.
It tied him to bribery, extortion, and at least three shell companies currently under federal investigation.
“We can give it to the authorities,” I said.
Vincent’s expression became complicated.
“You can.”
“So can you.”
“I would destroy half my family.”
“Maybe half your family needs destroying.”
His eyebrows rose.
I folded my arms.
“You married a Bennett. We’re judgmental when nervous.”
“You’re not married to me anymore.”
The words landed harder than either of us expected.
I looked away.
Vincent continued quietly.
“You’re right.”
“About which part?”
“Angelo.”
He walked toward the window.
“For years I told myself I could control the organization better than the men before me. Keep certain things out. Protect businesses. Stop worse people from taking over.”
“And did you?”
“Sometimes.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“No.”
He turned.
“It isn’t.”
There it was.
The part of Vincent I had always struggled with.
He never described himself as a good man.
He believed good men rarely survived in his world.
But he had rules.
No drugs sold through Moretti businesses.
No trafficking.
No violence against families.
No extortion of small businesses.
He had pushed the organization toward legitimate real estate, transportation, construction, and hospitality.
It still wasn’t clean.
I had never pretended otherwise.
Now there was a child.
Our child.
The gray areas felt darker.
“If we survive this,” I said, “I won’t raise a baby inside a war.”
Vincent’s face tightened.
“I know.”
“No guns at breakfast. No armed men at school. No teaching our child that fear equals respect.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
I stepped closer.
“What are you willing to give up?”
He stared at me.
Everything changed in his eyes.
I suddenly remembered our bargain.
One favor.
Someday.
I could ask him for anything.
He knew what I was thinking.
“You still have it,” he said.
“The favor?”
“Yes.”
“You wouldn’t refuse?”
“I gave my word.”
“Even if I asked for something impossible?”
Vincent’s voice lowered.
“Especially then.”
I didn’t use it.
Not yet.
Instead, we agreed to turn copies of the evidence over to Samuel Hawthorne, who would arrange contact with a federal prosecutor through my father’s old network.
Vincent wanted Angelo arrested.
Legally.
That surprised me.
“Why not handle him your way?”
“Because my way created Angelo.”
That answer stayed with me.
Late that night, I woke from a nightmare.
Someone was standing outside my bedroom.
My heart jumped.
Then I recognized the silhouette.
Vincent.
He was sitting in a chair in the hallway.
Not inside.
Outside.
Respecting the locked door.
“What are you doing?”
“Nothing.”
“At two in the morning?”
“Yes.”
“You’re terrible at lying.”
“So are you.”
I leaned against the doorway.
He held the ultrasound picture.
“You’ve been staring at that?”
“No.”
“Vincent.”
“Maybe.”
For the first time in weeks, I laughed.
The sound surprised both of us.
His face softened.
Then an explosion shattered the night.
The windows shook.
Alarms screamed.
Vincent was on his feet before I understood what happened.
A second blast erupted near the front gate.
Marco’s voice thundered downstairs.
Vincent grabbed my shoulders.
“Shoes. Coat. Now.”
Smoke rose outside.
Men shouted.
Somebody had breached the property.
Vincent pushed me toward the hidden staircase behind the library.
I stopped.
“What about you?”
“I’ll follow.”
“That means no.”
“Claire—”
I grabbed his wrist.
“Don’t make our child grow up hearing stories about a father who died because he thought he had to be invincible.”
His eyes locked on mine.
For one second, war disappeared.
There was only us.
Then he nodded.
And came with me.
May you like
Behind us, someone fired into the house.
The bullet struck the wall exactly where Vincent had been standing.
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