Married to the Monster They Said Was Dead Chapter 11

Married to the Monster They Said Was Dead Chapter 11

We tripled the security on Cesare’s transfer.

Armored transport, decoy routes, Lorenzo’s most loyal men flanking every door.

Alessio wanted us afraid.

So we refused to give him the satisfaction—but we weren’t reckless.

Not with a fragile old man’s life.

Cesare arrived safely.

On his second day, lucid for an hour, he recognized his son.

“Boy,” Cesare rasped, his cloudy eyes focusing with effort.

“You look like your mother.”

Lorenzo sat at the bedside, holding the old man’s fragile hand, and for the first time since I’d known him, he wept.

No sound.

No sobs.

Just tears tracking silently down a face carved from stone, while his father patted his hand and murmured confused, tender words.

I watched from the doorway, my chest aching.

I’d witnessed hundreds of patient reunions.

This one broke me.

I stepped into the hall to give them privacy—and nearly collided with a woman I didn’t recognize.

Tall, immaculate, sharp-cheekboned, with the cold beauty of someone who treated her own face like an investment.

“You must be the new wife,” she said, extending a manicured hand.

“Mirella Fontana.

Lorenzo’s ex-fiancée.”

I shook it, my expression neutral.

“I wasn’t aware Lorenzo had an ex-fiancée.”

“Before the ambush.

We were engaged eight months.” Her smile was polished and rehearsed.

“I ended things when he was declared incapacitated.

Seemed pointless to wait for a man who’d never wake.”

“And yet here you are.”

Her smile tightened a fraction.

“I heard about his miraculous recovery.

I wanted to see it for myself.”

“You’ve seen it.

The exit is down the hall.”

Something flickered in her eyes—surprise, perhaps, at being dismissed so efficiently.

She recovered fast.

“I’m not here to cause trouble.

Lorenzo and I have history.

What you two have is a contract.

What we had was real.”

I leaned against the wall and crossed my arms.

“If it was real, you wouldn’t have left him to rot for four years.

If it was real, you’d have noticed something was wrong.

If it was real, you’d be ashamed to stand here right now.” I straightened.

“But you’re not ashamed.

You’re calculating.

Which tells me everything I need to know about what you had.”

Her composure cracked—a flash of fury, quickly buried.

“We’ll see how long your little fairy tale lasts when the war comes for you.

You’re a surgeon, sweetheart.

Not a soldier.

You have no idea what this world does to women who don’t belong in it.” She smoothed her coat.

“Alessio sends his regards.”

She turned on her heel and walked away, her heels echoing down the corridor.

Alessio.

So Mirella was his too.

Of course she was.

I pulled out my phone and texted Lorenzo’s head of security: Background on Mirella Fontana.

Focus on any link to Alessio Conti.

Priority.

The reply came in thirty seconds: On it.

When I returned to the room, Lorenzo was at the window, his father dozing peacefully.

He turned, and something in my face made him tense.

“What happened?”

“Your ex-fiancée is in the building.

Mirella Fontana.

She came with a message from Alessio.”

Lorenzo’s face went blank.

“Mirella left me three weeks after the ambush.

Told the family it was ‘too painful to watch.’

She was living with a rival lieutenant within the month.”

“She’s back because you’re back.

And because Alessio needs someone close to you who isn’t me.”

“Obviously.” He sat heavily.

“What did she say?”

“That what you and I have is a contract.

That this world will eat me alive.”

Lorenzo looked at me steadily.

“And what did you say?”

“That if it were real, she wouldn’t have left.”

Something warm crossed his expression.

“Adriana Greco.

Defending my honor.”

“Don’t let it go to your head.

I was mostly defending my own.”

He stood and crossed to me, stopping close enough that I had to tilt my chin up.

“For the record—what Mirella and I had was convenient.

Families aligned.

Power consolidated.

I was twenty-six and didn’t know the difference.”

“And now?”

His hand found my waist, drawing me closer.

“Now I know exactly what the difference is.”

He kissed me—not carefully this time.

Certain.

A man who’d decided.

When we separated, my cheeks were flushed.

“We’re in a hospital.”

“I own a wing of it.”

I laughed—a real, unguarded laugh that surprised us both.

From the bed, Cesare’s groggy voice drifted over: “Is that your girl, boy?

She’s got fire.”

Lorenzo smiled—the fullest smile I’d ever seen on him.

“Yeah, Dad.

She does.”

But that night, my security contact called instead of texting.

And what he told me made my blood run cold.

Mirella Fontana hadn’t just reconnected with Alessio.

She’d been seen entering the courthouse where our annulment hearing would be held—two days before any of us were scheduled to arrive.

Meeting privately with the judge.

The hearing was already fixed.

And we had thirty-six hours to unfix it.