Black Opal’s Three Tests of True Love Chapter 01

Every morning, I’d post photos of myself showing off my latest Hermès bag on Instagram.

By nightfall, I was behind the wheel of my car, driving rideshares across the city.

Two passengers slipped into the backseat.

The moment a familiar voice drifted forward, my hands froze on the steering wheel.

“When do you plan on telling Odessa that she’s the Moretti family’s long-lost youngest daughter? Telling her that your family runs one of the most powerful syndicates in New York’s underworld?”

“And that her father isn’t dead, and her mother was never sick?”

My brother, Alaric, replied, “When we found her, we agreed on a five-year trial to see how much she was willing to sacrifice for this family. Three days left. Let’s wait until after her twenty-fifth birthday.”

“What about you? When does your gold-digger test wrap up?”

Leandro Voss, my boyfriend, let out a cold scoff.

“If she returns every gift I’ve given her over the years, without me having to ask, I’ll marry her.”

“If she can’t, there’s no way in hell the Voss family lets a gold-digger through the front door.”

I clamped my mouth shut, biting hard on my lip and not making a single sound.

The car glided into a private estate on the North Shore of Long Island. Before stepping out, Alaric glanced at me through the driver’s window.

“Take him to the Upper East Side in Manhattan first.”

I swallowed hard and kept my head down. “Got it, Al.”

Alaric stopped in his tracks.

—

“Your voice…”

I lowered my head further, grateful for the mask hiding my face.

“What is it?” Leandro asked from the back seat.

Alaric took a breath, trying to shake off the alcohol. He must have decided he’d misheard.

After all, as far as he knew, his little sister was back at Leandro’s penthouse, opening expensive gifts and posting pictures on Instagram. Why would she be out driving strangers around New York?

He chuckled and shook his head.

“Careful with the nicknames. We don’t know each other that well.”

I watched him walk through the gates of that heavily guarded fortress.

The Moretti estate on the North Shore of Long Island.

A place I hadn’t even dared to imagine before.

“Do rich people live here?” I masked my voice, pretending to make idle conversation.

Leandro laughed, dripping with disdain.

“You get the best view of the bay right from the terrace. What do you think? Places like this aren’t just about money.”

I caught the contempt in his eyes in the rearview mirror.

He clearly assumed I was just another woman trying to get close to someone rich.

I stayed silent for the rest of the drive.

He pulled out his phone and sent a voice note.

“Babe, heading back soon. Go to sleep, don’t wait up.”

My phone buzzed against my leg instantly.

He glanced up at the sound, then went back to scrolling as if nothing had happened.

My knuckles turned white around the wheel.

After dropping him off at his Upper East Side townhouse, I had barely cleared the block before my phone rang.

“Odessa, where are you? You’re not home.”

I picked up, digging my fingernails hard into my thigh to steady my voice.

“A friend went through a bad breakup. I’m staying over at her place.”

Leandro hummed softly, told me to get home early tomorrow, and hung up.

My mind went blank. I drove straight toward Calvary Cemetery in Queens.

My father was buried there.

At least, that was what I had believed.

The story I was told couldn’t have been more different from their reality.

Five years ago, when I finally reunited with my family, they wept in my arms. They told me the Moretti family had gone bankrupt, that they were barely scraping by on odd jobs. I held their hands and swore I’d shoulder the household bills, promising they’d never have to worry about money again.

A year ago, right after I found out I was pregnant, Alaric told me Dad had suffered a fatal accident at a construction site.

“That’s impossible!”

I had stumbled into the hospital in a daze. The news crushed me, and the world went dark.

I miscarried right there.

Over those agonizing days, Leandro stayed by my bedside, his eyes bloodshot with exhaustion.

“Odessa, we can have another baby. Take care of yourself first, or your dad will worry about you from up there.”

Yet I couldn’t pull myself together.

Because Alaric told me Dad had taken that dangerous shift just to help pay off my student loans—and it cost him his life.

I even considered downing an entire bottle of sleeping pills to follow him into the dark.

Now, standing before the headstone and staring at the familiar portrait, a wave of sickening irony washed over me.

I grabbed a shovel, pried the stone back, and pulled out the urn.

“I must’ve misheard, right?”

My voice echoed through the desolate graveyard.

I had to have misheard.

The fake poverty, the tests—it had to be a cruel joke.

Yet when I cracked the urn open, there was nothing inside but pebbles and dirt.

No body. No fatal accident.

Nothing but a calculated trial designed to dissect my devotion.

My mouth fell open, but words failed me.

All that slipped out was a hollow, broken laugh.

So.

Leandro could stand by and watch me drown in grief until I lost our baby, without ever uttering a single word of truth.

And Alaric.

He could watch me reach for a bottle of sleeping pills in raw guilt, and still keep up the lie.

A copper taste rose in the back of my throat.

I was done playing their game.

If they wanted to keep running their twisted little tests, they could do it without me.