Page 80 of The Hidden Heir

“Luca, let me explain⁠—”

“You took my wife out of the house without my consent?”

“Hold on,” I cut in. “We can explain. We had Elias and David with us. I wasn’t on my own.”

“I’m talking to Victor!” Luca shouts, his voice thundering across the room.

His tone cuts directly through my heart, leaving me speechless and trembling. The look on his face and the heavy way he’s breathing show that his self-control is slowly slipping away, and if I’m not careful, the flood gates might open. I don’t know what will happen when they do. This startling intensity is a side of Luca I’ve never seen before.

Victor, on the other hand, appears incredibly calm, like he’s familiar seeing Luca display this kind of rage.

“It was something that we both needed to be involved in,” Victor tells Luca, “because it concerns her, too.”

“Raymond is in a private clinic,” Luca replies. “Even after what I did to him, he still swore he didn’t betray me, and I believed him. Maybe a little too late, but I believed him.”

“What did you do?” Victor gasps, his eyes wide with horror.

“My cousin couldn’t have betrayed me. I had my people go through his entire life with a fine-tooth comb, which only leaves you, Victor, as the traitor in my organization. And I’ve been wracking my brain for the past couple of hours, trying to figure out a way to handle this⁠—”

“Luca, stop,” Victor says. “Stop. It’s not what you think.”

“I came home, determined to call you, to get you to come back here so we could talk.” He pauses and glances down at his bloodied and bruised knuckles. Raymond’s face must’ve been on the receiving end of that, and the thought unfurls another wave of crippling nausea in the back of my throat. “Only to learn that you’d taken my wife out of the house without my permission.”

“We had security,” Victor says. “Take a fucking minute, Luca, and listen to what I have to say.”

A minute passes in deafening silence. The tension feels heavy on my shoulders, making me want to crumble. But I keep my chin up, determined not to show any fear, regardless of the outcome. This is the man I love, the person I’ve already fallen for, even this version of him… It’s still Luca.

If I fear him, I break my own heart.

“Are you the man who betrayed me, Victor?” Luca asks.

“No, I think Stefano is.”

The words roll off Victor’s tongue with a certain degree of kindness, but it’s not enough to soften the blow. It still hits Luca in the chest, knocking the air out of his lungs. For a hot second, his rage is replaced with shock—a blank stare lingering between us as the words begin to sink in.

“Do you think I’m an idiot?” Luca snaps.

“No, I’m telling you that I had my suspicions before, and now we have a certain degree of certainty,” Victor replies.

I take a step forward, determined to get everything out in the open before Luca loses his grip again. Victor is one of the few truly loyal people by his side. He cannot lose him, and neither can I.

“Luca, we went to the medical examiner’s office. We talked to the police detective who handled Stefano’s case, too,” I say. “There’s enough for the authorities to reassess the nightclub bombing and to declare Stefano a missing person, not deceased.”

“How in the fuck is that possible?”

“Because the chief medical examiner went over his colleague’s findings at our request and concluded that the body they initially identified as Stefano wasn’t Stefano at all,” Victor explains.

Luca shakes his head, eager to reject the possibility. “No. That’s crazy. It’s preposterous. It doesn’t make any sense.” He pauses and turns to look at me, fury flashing in his eyes. “Is this your attempt to get out of our marriage, Valentina? Are you and Victor trying to cook something up to get rid of me, too?”

“Oh, my God,” I whisper, realizing how far his suspicions have unraveled.

In his defense, Occam’s Razor would apply. Victor is most likely the traitor, and Stefano is very much dead. But Victor and I saw the files. We heard an expert in his field confirm the crazy theory.

“That’s not what any of this is about,” I say. “Luca, please, listen to us. Stefano is likely still alive.”

“Or the effort to undermine me and destroy what’s left of my family has finally taken a sinister turn.”

Victor groans with frustration. “Then fucking kill me, Luca. Right now.”