The Forgotten Donna: A Second Chance Chapter 06

The Forgotten Donna: A Second Chance Chapter 06

The Lucchese Family could make most problems disappear by morning. Bodies vanished. Witnesses changed their minds. Bank records learned to behave.

Eve did not disappear like a problem.

By dawn, Damian’s phones were ringing nonstop. The first call came from the dock union. A winter shipment was being held because the emergency medical fund Eve had quietly managed was locked behind trust authorization. The second came from San Lorenzo’s accountant in Tuscany, who refused to release quarterly numbers without Mrs. Lucchese’s signature. The third came from a city councilman who wanted to know whether the Luccheses still had a stable family structure or if he should start taking meetings elsewhere.

Matteo stood in Damian’s office with three folders under one arm. “You should see this.”

Damian did not ask if it was bad. Good news did not make Matteo pale.

The first folder was Serena’s travel history. Monaco had only been the pretty version. Five years ago, after running from the wedding, she had gone from Monaco to Marseille, then to Palermo, where she met Adrian Rossi, heir to the Rossi crew. She had not run because she was afraid of marrying Damian. She had run with a stolen Vega ledger containing port schedules, payoffs, and names of men who would kill to keep those pages buried.

The second folder held medical records. Serena was pregnant, but the dates did not belong to Damian. They did not even come

close.

The third folder was thinner. That made it worse.

“The guard who hit Eve confessed,” Matteo said. “Serena paid him through one of Mrs. Vega’s shell accounts. He thought he was just knocking Eve down, making it look like panic. He didn’t know she was pregnant.”

Damian’s hand closed around the arm of his chair until the leather creaked. “Where is he?”

“Alive. For now.”

“Keep him that way until he signs a statement. After that, I don’t care if he prays.”

Matteo nodded, then placed one more envelope on the desk. “There’s more.”

The envelope contained notes from Eve’s old meetings, contracts Damian had signed without reading, records of payments she had routed when Lucchese accounts were under federal watch. He had assumed Matteo handled those problems. Matteo had assumed Damian knew Eve was doing it.

She had saved the winery he had given Serena as a trophy.

She had negotiated peace with the dockworkers after Damian threatened to break the strike with guns.

She had kept Rafael Vega’s gambling debts from pulling both families into a war, then let her parents call her useless at dinner.

Damian flipped through the pages until one line stopped him cold.

Emergency contingency: if I die or become unreachable, protect child first. Do not contact Damian unless necessary.

He read it twice.

Then a third time.

Matteo spoke carefully. “Boss, there’s something else you need to know. When Eve was brought to St. Anne’s, the ER was short- staffed because you had everyone sent upstairs for Serena. One nurse stayed with Eve off the books. She said Eve begged her to save the baby and keep the pregnancy sealed because, in her words, if you knew, the child wouldn’t be safe.”

Damian stood so fast the chair hit the wall.

He found Serena in the east parlor, still wearing white silk, still surrounded by her mother, two maids, and a doctor who looked as if he wanted to be anywhere else. She rose when she saw him.

“Damian, thank God. They’ve been saying horrible things. I need you to tell them I still under your protection.”

“You’re under investigation.”

Her face went blank. “Don’t be cruel.”

“Cruel was leaving Eve on the floor after you paid a guard to hurt her. Cruel was coming back pregnant with a Rossi child and trying to put my name on it. Cruel was stealing your family’s ledger and hiding behind the woman you helped erase.”

Mrs. Vega let out a thin gasp. Rafael stood near the window, suddenly very interested in the snow outside.

Serena looked from one face to another and realized no one was stepping in front of her. “I did what I had to do, Adrian was going to ruin me. The Rossis would have used that baby to own me, and Dad would have thrown the to them to save the ledger. Damian, you don’t understand what it’s like to be a woman in this world. You either get chosen or you get sold. I chose the man strong enough to protect me.”

Damian’s jaw tightened. “You chose to burn Eve for cover.”

“She already had your name,” Serena snapped. “She had the house, the ring, the quiet little life. I had nothing. She should have given it back five years ago. It was mine first.”

“No,” Damian said. “It was never yours. You ran.”

Serena’s eyes filled again, but the tears no longer looked pretty. “If you cut me loose, the Rossis will come for me.”

“Then call Adrian.”

“Damian-”

“You don’t get to use my wife as a shield anymore.”

He left her there and ordered every Lucchese guard removed from her door.

By evening, Rafael and Mrs. Vega were in his office, trying to salvage what they could. Rafael blamed Serena’s fear. Mrs. Vega blamed Eve’s silence. Neither of them blamed themselves.

“Eve should have come to us,” her mother insisted. “If she knew Serena was in trouble, why did she let it go this far?”

Damian looked at the woman who had thrown divorce papers at her injured daughter and understood, with a cold disgust that spread through him slowly, why Eve had stopped asking to be loved.

“She came to you for twenty-eight years,” he said. “You just weren’t listening.”

After they left, Matteo returned with one small plastic bag. Inside was a silver earring. Damian knew it at once. He had given Eve the pair on their first anniversary. Hidden inside was a tracker, old-fashioned, short-range, the kind of thing he once justified

as protection.

“We picked it up from a courier leaving JFK,” Matteo said. “Signal says Lisbon. Could be real. Could be bait.”

Damian turned the earring over in his palm. Eve had known about the tracker. Of course she had. She had not been the quiet girl in the corner. She had been quiet because everyone else kept talking over her.

“Book the jet,” he said.

Matteo gave him a long look. “If she set bait, she won’t be where the signal says.”

“I know.”

“And if she is there, you can’t drag her home.”

That landed harder than Damian wanted to admit.

He slipped the earring into his pocket. “I’m not going to drag her.”

For once, he meant it.