Chapter 2 - The Heartbeat Leo Couldn't Ignore
“Danny wouldn't threaten me.”
Chloe said it for the fourth time.
Leo did not respond.
They were inside his Manhattan penthouse now, sixty floors above the city. Marco stood at the dining table with three laptops open.
Chloe paced.
Leo watched her.
“Sit.”
“Stop ordering me around.”
“You've walked approximately a mile.”
“I am stressed.”
“You're pregnant.”
“I continue to know that.”
Marco wisely looked at his laptop.
The bakery footage played again.
Danny entered at 10:14.
Bradley appeared at 10:19.
Danny never approached Chloe.
Instead he stood near the rear exit for seven minutes, watching Bradley.
Then he disappeared.
At 10:27, Bradley moved close enough to Chloe's purse to touch the ultrasound envelope.
The camera angle failed to show whether he had written the message.
“Call Danny,” Chloe said.
“I did.”
“And?”
“Disconnected.”
Her anger vanished.
“What?”
Leo's phone vibrated.
He answered.
Listened.
His eyes changed.
“Where?”
A pause.
“Don't touch anything.”
He ended the call.
Chloe knew.
“What happened?”
“Danny's apartment is empty.”
“Empty how?”
“No clothes. No laptop. Passport gone.”
“He left?”
“It appears so.”
“Then he's safe.”
Leo said nothing.
“Leo.”
“Maybe.”
The word frightened her.
She grabbed her coat.
“Where are you going?”
“To find him.”
“No.”
“Danny is my brother.”
“And someone knows about the pregnancy.”
“He would never hurt me.”
“This isn't only about what Danny would do.”
Leo moved closer.
“Someone knew where you would be this morning. Someone knew you had an ultrasound. Someone knew the gestational age.”
Chloe remembered the number.
“Bradley couldn't know.”
“Exactly.”
“So someone told him.”
“Or someone told the person using him.”
She stared at Leo.
“Using him for what?”
Leo looked toward Marco.
Marco closed one laptop.
That tiny action told Chloe there was something she had not been meant to see.
“What is it?”
“Nothing confirmed,” Leo said.
“Show me.”
“Chloe.”
“Show me.”
Marco glanced at Leo.
Leo nodded.
A photograph appeared.
Bradley sat inside a restaurant.
Across from him was an older man with silver hair.
Chloe didn't recognize him.
Leo did.
His face went cold.
“Who is that?”
“Victor Salerno.”
“Should I know that name?”
“No.”
“That means yes.”
Leo turned away.
Chloe followed.
“What does he want?”
Leo finally answered.
“My position.”
“Your company?”
“More than the company.”
She understood.
Leo's legitimate empire—shipping, property, hospitality—was only the visible structure.
Beneath it existed decades of alliances, favors, debts and loyalties.
A child changed succession.
And succession changed power.
“The baby.”
Leo's silence answered.
Chloe covered her stomach.
For the first time, the pregnancy felt visible in a way no sweater could hide.
“Was this why you wanted an heir?”
Leo looked at her sharply.
“No.”
“You said the families wanted one.”
“They did.”
“And now they're fighting over my child before it's even born?”
“Our child.”
The correction came instantly.
Chloe stopped.
Leo did too.
It was the first time he had said it that way.
Not the child.
Not my heir.
Our child.
Neither spoke for several seconds.
Then Marco's phone rang.
He answered.
“Bellini.”
His expression tightened.
“Send it.”
A message appeared on the laptop.
One photograph.
Danny.
Sitting in a chair.
Alive.
Holding today's newspaper.
Chloe lunged toward the screen.
Beneath the photograph was a message.
TELL MORETTI THE CONTRACT BELONGS TO US NOW.
“What contract?” Chloe whispered.
Leo's face revealed something she had never seen before.
Recognition.
She turned toward him.
“You know.”
“No.”
“You know what they mean.”
Leo stared at the message.
“There's only one contract involving you that matters.”
“The surrogacy agreement.”
“Yes.”
Marco began typing.
“Who has copies?”
“Me. Chloe. Attorneys.”
“And the clinic,” Chloe said.
Leo shook his head.
“They have medical consent forms, not the private agreement.”
Chloe suddenly remembered something.
“The original.”
Leo looked at her.
“What?”
“The night we signed the preliminary agreement, your attorney brought two versions.”
“Yes.”
“One had an extra page.”
Leo became still.
“What extra page?”
“I don't know. I never read it.”
“You signed something you didn't read?”
“I didn't sign that version. Your father came into the room.”
“My father?”
“Yes.”
Leo's father, Antonio Moretti, had died three months earlier.
Chloe had met him exactly twice.
The second time had been the night the agreement was prepared.
Antonio had looked at her for a long moment.
Then he had taken one copy of the contract from the attorney.
“This isn't necessary,” he had said.
He removed a page.
Folded it.
Put it inside his jacket.
Chloe had assumed it was a legal correction.
Now Leo looked pale.
“My father removed a page?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn't you tell me?”
“Because I thought you knew.”
Leo crossed the room.
He opened a locked drawer beneath his desk.
Inside sat a leather document case.
He removed the original contract.
Turned pages.
Stopped.
A clean cut remained along the binding.
One page had been removed.
Marco stared.
Leo read the preceding paragraph.
Then the paragraph after it.
His jaw tightened.
“This numbering jumps from Section Eleven to Section Thirteen.”
Chloe's pulse quickened.
“What was Section Twelve?”
“I don't know.”
A sound came from the penthouse entrance.
Three knocks.
Marco reached beneath his jacket.
Leo moved automatically in front of Chloe.
The elevator was private.
No visitor could reach this floor without authorization.
Another knock.
Then silence.
Marco approached the door.
“Who is it?”
No answer.
He checked the security screen.
Empty hallway.
Chloe felt the baby flutter.
Marco opened the door.
No one stood outside.
Only a white envelope lay on the floor.
Leo picked it up.
On the front was his name in handwriting he recognized.
His father’s handwriting.
Inside was the missing page.
And beneath Section Twelve, Antonio Moretti had written one sentence by hand:
IF CHLOE BECOMES PREGNANT, DO NOT LET HER LEARN WHO SHE REALLY IS.
May you like
Leo looked up.
Chloe had already read it.
