Betrayed at the Altar, I Married a Powerful Rival novel · Chapter 5 of 24

Chapter 5: The Gate At Night

Dario's headlights swung across the front lawn at nine that night.

I was in the front hall with a mug of tea, still in the charcoal suit, and I saw them through the glass.

Two of the Orsini guards were already moving down the steps.

The car stopped at the gate, and Dario got out alone.

He had left the Ruggeri soldiers in the car, and he held both hands out from his sides where everyone could see them.

"Let him in," I said.

One of the housemaids on the staircase gasped and covered her mouth.

The cook came out of the kitchen drying her hands.

By the time I opened the front door, six people were watching from the hall behind me.

Dario came up the gravel slowly.

He looked tired, and there was a bruise under his left eye that hadn't been there at the meeting.

"Gianna," he said, and stopped one step below me. "Thank God."

"Why are you here?"

"To take you home."

"I'm home."

"Don't say that." His voice cracked. "Valentina is a mess. The boss is furious. They think you did it to humiliate them. But if you come back tonight and say you were helping her, he'll let it go."

"Say I was helping her."

"Say you gave her the drawings. Say it was a gift."

"It wasn't a gift."

"It's a small thing, Gianna."

"It was three months of my life."

"And I'll make it up to you." He took the last step and reached for my arm. "I told you I'd come for you. A year, two at the most. You never had to marry him. It was just a ceremony."

I stepped back out of his reach.

"Dario, I signed a book," I said. "Two capos witnessed it, and the names are in the Family records. Same as yours and Valentina's."

"It doesn't count."

"You told me that morning it counted for her."

He flinched.

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