CHAPTER 2 – THE WOMAN HE WAS SUPPOSED TO MARRY
CHAPTER 2 – THE WOMAN HE WAS SUPPOSED TO MARRY
Charlotte Ashford smiled before she even reached them.
The smile was flawless.
Expensive.
Practiced.
The kind worn by women who had spent their entire lives learning that weakness was never displayed in public.
"Marcus," she said softly, brushing an invisible piece of lint from his sleeve. "I've been looking everywhere for you."
Then she noticed Maya.
Her smile remained.
Only her eyes changed.
They slid down to Maya's swollen belly.
Paused.
Returned to her face.
In that single second, Charlotte understood far more than anyone wanted her to.
"...I see."
Silence settled over the boutique.
Marcus never took his eyes off Maya.
"This isn't the place," he said.
Charlotte laughed lightly, though the sound carried an edge sharp enough to cut glass.
"No?"
She turned toward Maya.
"I'm Charlotte Ashford."
"I know who you are."
"I'm sure you do."
The Ashfords and the Valentinos had dominated New York's underground financial empire for decades.
Everyone expected Marcus Valentino to marry Charlotte.
It wasn't a romance.
It was a merger.
A peace treaty written with billion-dollar bank accounts and enough armed men to start a small war.
The engagement had been rumored for months.
Maya had read about it after signing the divorce papers.
She remembered staring at the headline until the words blurred together.
The Future Queen of New York.
How fitting.
Charlotte folded her hands elegantly.
"And you are...?"
"Maya."
"Just Maya?"
Marcus finally spoke.
"My ex-wife."
The words struck Charlotte harder than she allowed anyone to notice.
Her eyes widened for only a fraction of a second.
"You never told me your ex-wife was..." she looked at Maya's stomach, "...expecting."
"I didn't know."
His answer was immediate.
Maya's heart clenched.
She searched his face for deception.
There wasn't any.
Only confusion.
Only calculation.
Only the terrifying realization that Marcus Valentino—who knew every shipment entering New York Harbor, every police captain who accepted bribes, every rival family's hidden safe house—
Had no idea he might be about to become a father.
Charlotte noticed the shift.
"So..."
She looked directly at Maya.
"Is the baby his?"
The question echoed through the silent showroom.
Every employee froze.
Even customers pretending not to listen stopped breathing.
Maya's fingers instinctively wrapped around her belly.
The baby kicked.
Hard.
She winced.
Marcus took one unconscious step forward.
"Are you alright?"
"I'm fine."
"You don't look fine."
"I didn't ask for your concern."
"You still haven't answered."
His voice was calm.
Too calm.
The dangerous kind.
Maya laughed bitterly.
"Do you really think you deserve that answer?"
Marcus didn't blink.
"I deserve the truth."
"The truth?"
She stepped toward him.
"The truth is I spent two years wondering whether every time you kissed me, there was blood on your hands."
Charlotte watched them carefully.
Not as a jealous woman.
As a strategist.
She had heard stories about Maya.
Very few people had ever seen Marcus Valentino lose control.
According to whispers inside the organization...
His wife had been the only one capable of doing it.
"I left," Maya continued quietly.
"Not because I stopped loving you."
Marcus's expression changed.
Barely.
But enough.
"I left because I realized one day our child would ask what his father did for a living."
She swallowed.
"And I couldn't imagine answering."
Those words hit harder than any bullet.
Marcus stood motionless.
The scar along his cheek seemed deeper somehow.
"I would never hurt my family."
"You already did."
Charlotte shifted uncomfortably.
This conversation wasn't unfolding the way she'd expected.
Marcus wasn't angry.
He wasn't threatening Maya.
He wasn't ordering men to drag her away.
He looked...
Broken.
The realization unsettled Charlotte more than anything else.
Because men like Marcus Valentino were never supposed to look human.
Suddenly—
The boutique doors exploded inward.
CRASH!
Glass shattered across the marble floor.
Women screamed.
Customers dropped to the ground.
Three masked men stormed inside carrying military-grade rifles.
"No one move!"
The leader fired into the ceiling.
BANG!
Plaster rained down.
Panic erupted instantly.
People ran in every direction.
Display shelves crashed over.
Crystal decorations shattered.
A terrified saleswoman slipped on broken glass.
Another customer fainted beside the checkout counter.
Marcus reacted before anyone else.
His entire demeanor transformed in less than a heartbeat.
The businessman disappeared.
The Mafia Boss returned.
"Down!" he barked.
His voice cut through the chaos like thunder.
Maya instinctively covered her stomach.
One of the gunmen spotted Marcus.
"There he is!"
Another shouted,
"Boss wants Valentino alive!"
Marcus's eyes narrowed.
So.
This wasn't a robbery.
It was an assassination.
No—
A kidnapping.
Which meant only one organization would be bold enough to attempt it.
The Moretti Syndicate.
Their oldest enemies.
The leader smiled beneath his mask.
"Looks like we found more than we came for."
His rifle slowly turned...
Away from Marcus.
Toward Maya.
Toward her pregnant stomach.
Marcus's face drained of color.
"No."
The single word carried more fear than anyone in the room had ever heard from him.
The gunman grinned.
"Boss said if the woman exists..."
"...kill her first."
Maya's blood froze.
Marcus didn't hesitate.
For the first time in his life...
The most feared Mafia Boss in New York threw himself in front of someone else.
The first shot rang out.
BANG!
The bullet struck Marcus squarely in the shoulder.
Blood exploded across his charcoal suit.
Maya screamed.
Charlotte stood frozen in horror.
And every person inside the boutique witnessed the impossible—
Marcus Valentino, a man who had survived dozens of assassination attempts without flinching...
May you like
Was willing to die protecting the woman who had divorced him...
And the unborn child whose identity he still did not know.
