Chapter 1 - Take Nothing Tied to My Name
Hazel ripped the ruby ring from her finger and whispered, “Then I’ll take nothing.”
Mateo Lombardi entered the foyer and saw the faded brown overnight bag on the marble table.
Its leather handle carried a tiny burned mark.
M.L.
Mateo stopped.
The bag had belonged to him before it ever belonged to Hazel.
Six hours earlier, Hazel Brooks had been staring at two pink lines.
She had taken the first pregnancy test because she was late.
She had taken the second because she did not believe the first.
Then she had sat on the closed toilet lid in Mateo Lombardi’s penthouse, one hand covering her mouth and the other resting against a stomach that looked exactly as it had the day before.
Pregnant.
The word frightened her.
Then it made her laugh.
Then cry.
And finally smile.
Mateo Lombardi was going to be a father.
She spent most of that afternoon trying to decide how to tell him.
She rejected every elaborate idea.
Mateo hated surprises. He distrusted anything wrapped in ribbon. He had once opened a birthday present from her with the suspicion of a man dismantling a bomb.
So she decided on food.
That was how everything important between them had started.
Hazel had come to the Lombardi estate two years earlier as a chef with a battered suitcase, an impressive résumé, and enough unpaid bills to make pride a luxury.
Mateo had barely looked at her during the interview.
“Can you cook?”
“Yes.”
“Can you keep your mouth shut?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
Three months later, he had appeared in her kitchen at two in the morning after a meeting that left blood on his cuff.
She made him coffee.
He stayed.
After that, midnight became theirs.
Coffee became conversation.
Conversation became trust.
Trust became stolen kisses in the pantry.
And six months ago, Mateo had stopped pretending he only visited the kitchen because he was hungry.
Hazel knew what kind of man he was.
She was not naïve.
Men lowered their voices when they spoke his name. Police detectives watched his businesses. Rival families measured their decisions by whether those decisions would anger Mateo Lombardi.
But Hazel had known another man.
The man who remembered she hated lilies.
The man who learned to make grilled cheese because she got the flu.
The man who kissed the stretch marks on her stomach after she admitted an old boyfriend had mocked them.
“You never hide from me,” Mateo had whispered that night.
Hazel had believed him.
That was why she planned to tell him about the baby over dinner.
Instead, at seven seventeen, the front doors opened.
Mateo walked in wearing a white shirt stained with blood.
Hazel dropped the spoon in her hand.
“Mateo?”
He did not answer.
Three of his men entered behind him.
Dante Russo.
Enzo Carbone.
And Victor Hale.
All three avoided Hazel’s eyes.
That frightened her more than the blood.
“Whose blood is that?”
Mateo removed his jacket.
“Not mine.”
Hazel’s pulse jumped.
“Where is Caleb?”
Silence.
She already knew.
Her younger brother had disappeared two days earlier.
Caleb Brooks had spent most of his adult life losing wars with himself. Pills first. Then gambling. Then people who promised easy money to a desperate man.
Hazel had paid his debts twice.
The third time, Mateo had stopped her.
“He needs consequences,” Mateo had said.
“He needs help.”
“He needs both.”
Hazel had begged Mateo to give Caleb legitimate work.
Eventually Mateo agreed.
Warehouse inventory. Nothing important, Hazel had been told.
Apparently that had been a lie.
“Where is my brother?”
“Alive,” Mateo said.
Hazel exhaled.
“Thank God.”
“For now.”
Her relief disappeared.
Mateo told her about the missing half million.
The copied shipment records.
The encrypted messages to Moretti intermediaries.
The security codes Caleb should never have known.
Hazel stared at him.
“No.”
“We have the records.”
“Then Caleb did something stupid.”
“Something treacherous.”
“He’s an addict.”
“That does not make him incapable of betrayal.”
“I didn’t say it did.”
Mateo watched her.
That look was different.
Hazel felt it before she understood it.
Suspicion.
Not of Caleb.
Of her.
“You think I knew.”
“I think I don’t know what you knew.”
Her throat tightened.
“You know me.”
Mateo’s expression barely changed.
“Do I?”
Two words.
Six months erased by two words.
Hazel looked at the man whose heartbeat she had fallen asleep listening to.
Then her hand almost moved toward her stomach.
She stopped it.
Not like this.
She would not tell him while he looked at her as though she were evidence.
Mateo gestured toward the table.
Her old overnight bag waited there.
“What is that?”
“Your belongings.”
Hazel stared at it.
“You packed my things?”
“I had Maria do it.”
“You’re throwing me out.”
“Moretti knows your name.”
“So?”
“So you cannot stay here.”
A bitter laugh escaped her.
“Is this protection?”
“It’s survival.”
“No. Survival would be telling me what’s happening and letting me decide.”
“I don’t have time to argue.”
“You never do when someone else’s life is being decided.”
Mateo stepped closer.
“Hazel.”
She backed away.
That stopped him.
For months she had moved toward him instinctively.
Now she was retreating.
Mateo looked almost wounded by it.
Good, she thought.
Let something hurt him.
Her fingers touched the ruby ring he had given her.
Not an engagement ring.
Mateo had been clear about that.
But it had belonged to his grandmother.
The pendant at Hazel’s throat had belonged to his mother.
She removed both.
Mateo frowned.
“Take your jewelry.”
Hazel placed the ring on the table.
Then the pendant.
“I said take them.”
“No.”
“They’re yours.”
“They came from you.”
“I gave them to you.”
“And now you’re telling me I may have betrayed you.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to.”
Mateo’s jaw flexed.
“Take them.”
Hazel looked at him.
“Why?”
“Because I want you protected.”
“With diamonds?”
“With assets nobody can freeze.”
She almost smiled at the absurdity.
Even now, Mateo thought like a man preparing for war.
Hazel thought like a woman whose heart had just been broken.
“You don’t trust me enough to let me stand beside you,” she said. “I’m not leaving here wearing proof that I once belonged in your bed.”
Pain flickered across his face.
Then vanished.
“Take nothing tied to my name.”
The room went silent.
Mateo seemed to realize what he had said only after the words existed between them.
Hazel nodded.
Calmly.
“All right.”
“Hazel—”
“I understand.”
She picked up the bag.
Her hand settled over her stomach.
This time she did not stop it.
Mateo glanced down.
For one terrifying second, Hazel thought he understood.
But his eyes returned to hers.
He didn’t.
Their child was six weeks old and already caught between two people who had forgotten how to trust each other.
Mateo lifted one hand.
Perhaps he meant to touch her.
He stopped halfway.
That hesitation destroyed whatever remained.
Hazel walked past him.
“Hazel.”
She stopped at the door without turning.
“If I find out you had nothing to do with Caleb—”
She closed her eyes.
If.
That single word finished what his accusation had begun.
“Don’t worry,” she said.
“I won’t take anything tied to your name.”
Then she left.
Twenty minutes later, Mateo stood alone beside the table.
The ruby caught the chandelier light.
Dante entered.
“We found Caleb’s burner phone.”
Mateo turned.
“And?”
“There’s something wrong.”
Dante placed the phone on the table.
“The messages to Moretti were sent with Caleb’s account.”
“We know.”
“No.” Dante swallowed. “You don’t understand.”
He opened the metadata.
Mateo read the location.
Then read it again.
The messages had not been sent from Caleb’s apartment.
They had been sent from inside Mateo’s estate.
And according to the timestamp, Caleb had been unconscious in Lombardi custody when the last one was transmitted.
Mateo looked toward the door Hazel had walked through.
Dante lowered his voice.
“There’s someone else inside this house.”
A floorboard creaked upstairs.
May you like
Mateo slowly raised his head.
Someone was standing outside Hazel’s empty bedroom.
