Burned Out of the Moretti Name Chapter 08

Burned Out of the Moretti Name Chapter 08

For the next few days, Lorenzo barely slept.

He spent his days in the study, going over the fire reports until the details blurred together. At night, he drifted to the family’s private club. Not for company, but because it was one of the few places quiet

enough to sit with his thoughts.

He drank too much.

A few men who had known him for years stayed nearby, saying little. At some point, one of them quietly

sent Bianca a message.

She arrived less than half an hour later.

Lorenzo was slumped into the corner of the leather sofa, shirt collar open, a glass hanging loose in one hand. When he looked up and saw her in the doorway, something in his face shifted.

He was on his feet before the mistake caught up to him. He crossed the room, pulled Bianca into his arms, and buried his face against her shoulder.

“Sofia…”

Bianca froze.

But Lorenzo held on, his voice rough with drink and grief.

“You came back.”

His grip tightened.

“Don’t leave again.”

Bianca’s whole expression changed.

She shoved him away.

“Look at me,” she snapped, fresh tears spilling down her face. “I’m not her.”

Bianca stood rigid, shaking with humiliation and anger.

“So that’s what I am to you,” she said, voice unsteady. “Just a face you can mistake in the dark.”

Lorenzo said nothing.

She wiped at her cheeks and tried again, softer this time.

“I came because they said you weren’t eating. Because they said you weren’t sleeping. I thought maybe

you needed someone.”

He set the untouched glass down.

“I didn’t ask for you.”

He didn’t raise his voice.

“Leave.”

She stared at him, waiting for something to soften.

Nothing did.

A moment later, she turned and walked out.

No one tried to stop her.

One of the older men reached for the bottle, poured Lorenzo another drink, then thought better of it and

set it aside.

Lorenzo leaned back and closed his eyes.

He had all the facts in front of him, yet he still could not force himself to believe them. Not completely.

Every report pointed to the same conclusion. Every detail fit too neatly.

And still, some part of him kept resisting it. There had to be something missing.

So later that night, when he returned to the estate, he gave new instructions.

Nothing public. Nothing reckless.

He wanted quiet inquiries into Sofia’s mother, old family contacts, dormant accounts, property records, and travel routes that would never appear in the usual places.

Not because he had proof she was alive.

Because until he found something final, something he could not argue with, he was not going to stop

looking.

I had not left Italy after all.

My mother had arranged everything for me: a new name, a small apartment, and a position with a friend’s company in the north.

Far from Naples. Far from the coast. Far from the life that had nearly buried me with it.

The city was anonymous in the best possible way.

No one knew who I had been. No one knew whose wife I had once been.

I was just another woman starting over.

The work was steady and demanding. Most days, it carried me from morning to evening without leaving

much room for the past

And when thoughts of Lorenzo did come, they no longer cut the way they once had

What I felt most often now was distance.

For the first time in years, my days belonged only to me.

One evening, I came home to find my mother in the kitchen, a cup of tea cooling untouched beside her

She looked up as I walked in.

“He’s still asking questions,” she said.

I set my bag down. “About me?”

She nodded once. “Quietly. Not enough to draw attention, but enough.”

I took the chair across from her and said nothing.

“He won’t find you through me,” she added. “But you should know he hasn’t let it go.”

That didn’t surprise me.

Lorenzo had never accepted loss easily.

My mother studied me for a moment.

“Do you regret it?”

“No.”

The answer came easily.

What I had done was cruel, perhaps. Final, certainly,

But staying would have been crueler.

My mother reached across the table and laid her hand over mine.

“Then that’s enough.”

I nodded, but something bitter still rose in me.

Only now, when I was gone, had he learned what it meant to value me

I wanted nothing more to do with him, and I wanted even less for my child to have a man like him as a father.