Chapter 5 - THE NANNY'S SECRET
Maya did not answer any calls.
By midnight, Luca's security team found her abandoned car near the Hudson River.
Her phone was inside.
Her apartment was empty.
But the security camera across the street captured something useful.
A woman leaving Maya's building with a red suitcase.
Norah recognized the coat.
Bianca Vale.
"She lied," Norah said.
Luca watched the footage again.
"Maybe."
"She was helping Sebastian."
"Maybe."
Norah turned on him.
"You keep saying maybe."
"Because certainty gets people killed."
She crossed her arms.
"You married the wrong woman if you wanted someone who obeys quietly."
His eyes met hers.
"I didn't marry you for obedience."
The room went quiet.
Leo appeared in the doorway.
"Are you fighting?"
Norah immediately softened.
"No."
Luca crouched.
"We're solving a problem."
Leo looked at him seriously.
"Grown-ups call it fighting when they don't want kids to know."
Norah laughed.
Luca sighed.
"Bed."
Leo pointed at Norah.
"She reads the dragon story."
Luca looked at Norah.
"Apparently you're assigned."
She smiled.
"Apparently."
After Leo fell asleep, Norah returned to the library.
Bianca was there.
Security had found her at a train station.
She looked exhausted.
"I didn't take Maya," Bianca said.
Norah sat opposite her.
"Then why were you at her building?"
"Because Sebastian told me to follow her."
"And?"
"She gave me something."
Bianca pulled a small envelope from her coat.
Inside was a flash drive.
Norah stared at it.
"Why give this to me?"
Bianca's eyes filled with tears.
"Because I realized too late that Sebastian wasn't paying me to spy on you. He was paying me to make sure you never found this."
Luca took the drive.
His technician opened it on an isolated system.
One folder.
Three files.
A video.
An account ledger.
And a scanned letter.
Norah opened the letter first.
It was from Leo's mother, Elena Castellano.
If anything happens to me, do not trust the people who say my death was an accident. Account 714 is not only about money. It is about leverage. Someone is using the accounts to control people who owe them.
Norah's skin prickled.
The video began.
Elena appeared on screen.
She looked tired.
She was speaking to someone off camera.
"If Luca finds this, tell him I tried."
Norah looked at Luca.
His face had gone blank.
Elena continued.
"The person behind Account 714 has access to his family, his company, and his enemies. They don't need to kill Luca. They only need to make him dependent on the wrong people."
The video cut.
A second clip started.
Sebastian Crane walked into frame.
Norah stopped breathing.
He was younger, but unmistakable.
He was speaking with Martin Bellini.
On the table between them was a file.
The label read: NORAH BENNETT.
Luca stared at the screen.
Norah could barely hear herself.
"They planned my marriage."
The room was silent.
Sebastian had not simply manipulated her after they met.
Someone had chosen her.
Someone had studied her.
Someone had known she was the analyst who could eventually expose Account 714.
The final frame showed a date.
Three days before Norah met Sebastian for the first time.
Then a second name appeared beneath his.
Luca Castellano.
Norah turned slowly.
"Why is your name on their file?"
Luca did not answer.
Because he was staring at something else.
The date beneath his name was twenty-three years old.
And the note beside it said:
Future marriage asset.
The original birth record was stored in a county archive under a sealed court order.
Luca had the authority to access it.
Norah read the document twice.
Then she looked at him.
"Leo's father is listed as deceased."
"He is."
"But the original record has another name."
Luca's eyes narrowed.
The name belonged to a man who had disappeared twelve years earlier after testifying against Martin Bellini.
Norah felt the pieces move again.
"Elena was protecting Leo from more than Account 714."
Luca nodded slowly.
"She knew his biological father was a witness."
"And if Bellini learned that Leo was his son..."
"They could use him to force the father out of hiding."
Norah looked at the dates.
"The amendment happened after the witness disappeared."
Luca's mother entered the room.
"Because Elena believed someone had found him."
Norah looked up.
"Did they?"
The older woman shook her head.
"No. He vanished completely."
For the first time, Norah understood the depth of the protection network.
Account 714 had not only moved money.
It had moved identities.
That was why Luca's father had hidden it.
That was why Bellini wanted it.
That was why people were willing to kill for it.
Later that afternoon, Leo sat beside Norah in the garden.
He was drawing a family picture.
There were four figures.
Luca.
Norah.
Leo.
And Elena.
Norah pointed at the page.
"Who's this?"
"Mom."
"And me?"
"You."
"What am I doing?"
Leo looked at her as if the answer were obvious.
"Staying."
Her eyes burned.
She hugged him.
"I think I can do that."
From the terrace, Luca watched them.
His mother stood beside him.
"She loves him," she said.
Luca nodded.
"Yes."
"And you?"
He did not answer.
His mother smiled.
"You have your father's problem."
"What problem?"
"You mistake fear for responsibility."
Luca looked at Norah.
"I'm trying not to."
That evening, he found Norah in the library.
"Leo drew a picture of us."
"I saw."
"He put you in the family."
Norah smiled.
"He's persuasive."
Luca stepped closer.
"So are you."
Their eyes met.
Then his phone rang.
The caller ID showed an old number that had been disconnected eight years earlier.
Elena's number.
Luca answered.
Nobody spoke.
Then a woman's voice whispered:
"Don't trust the woman who came back."
The call ended.
Luca stared at the phone.
Norah felt the room turn cold.
Bianca's flash drive contained more than the letter.
There was a recording of a conversation between Sebastian and an unidentified woman.
Norah listened twice.
The woman said, "If she marries Castellano, the boy becomes accessible."
Sebastian answered, "Only if the marriage becomes permanent."
Norah felt sick.
They had planned around Leo.
The marriage proposal had been bait.
But Luca had changed the equation by giving Norah real choice.
She looked at him.
"They wanted me to become attached to Leo."
"Yes."
"Then they wanted to use me to reach him."
"Yes."
Norah stood.
"I won't let them."
Luca caught her wrist gently.
"You don't have to prove anything."
"I know."
She looked down at his hand.
"That's why I can choose to fight."
He released her.
The recording continued.
The woman mentioned a date.
The date was six weeks in the future.
The exact date their temporary marriage agreement would expire.
Norah's stomach tightened.
"They've been planning around the contract."
Luca nodded.
"They expected you to leave."
"And if I did?"
"They would move against Leo after you were gone."
Norah stared at him.
"Then the six-week deadline wasn't about us."
"No."
"It was theirs."
Luca's jaw tightened.
"They expected the household to be unstable when the marriage ended."
Norah smiled coldly.
"Then let's disappoint them."
He looked at her.
"How?"
"We stay married."
His expression changed.
"For Leo?"
She shook her head.
"Not only for Leo."
The silence between them became charged.
Norah realized she was no longer pretending.
She liked waking up in this house.
She liked Leo's questions.
She liked arguing with Luca.
She liked the way he asked before touching her.
Most of all, she liked the woman she was becoming here.
A woman who could choose.
A woman who could say yes without being trapped.
"We'll stay married," she said.
Luca looked at her for a long moment.
"Then I will spend the rest of those six weeks trying not to fall in love with you."
Norah's heart stumbled.
"You might be too late."
That night, Luca found Norah standing outside Leo's bedroom.
The boy was asleep.
"You should rest," he said.
"So should you."
"I'm not good at it."
"I noticed."
He leaned against the doorframe.
"Norah."
She looked at him.
"What?"
"When you said we'd stay married, did you mean it?"
She understood the question beneath the question.
"Yes."
His shoulders relaxed slightly.
"Even after the danger is gone?"
"Especially then."
For a moment, the mafia boss who terrified half of New York looked almost uncertain.
Norah smiled.
"You're allowed to be happy, you know."
"I don't remember how."
"We'll practice."
Norah returned to the study after midnight and found the marriage agreement on the desk.
She read the clause about the six-week term again.
It had once looked like freedom.
Now it looked like a countdown.
She took a pen and crossed out the final date.
Luca appeared in the doorway.
"What are you doing?"
"Editing."
He came closer.
"That's my contract."
"Our contract."
She handed him the page.
"I don't want an expiration date."
He looked at her for a long moment.
Then he took the pen and crossed out the same line.
"Neither do I."
May you like
The paper suddenly felt insignificant.
The choice was not.
