PART 2: THE MAFIA BOSS DISCOVERED HIS WIFE’S SECRET—AND FOR THE FIRST TIME IN HIS LIFE, ADRIAN ROMANO WAS AFRAID 💔

“Your wife never told you?”

Adrian Romano stood perfectly still in his private office.

For eight years, men had lied to him, betrayed him, and begged for mercy. He had learned to recognize deception in a single glance.

But now, his own attorney was telling him something he couldn’t understand.

“What exactly are you suggesting?” he demanded.

On the other end of the call, Elena’s lawyer remained calm.

“I’m not suggesting anything, Mr. Romano. I’m informing you that your wife is pregnant, and she intends to protect her child.”

Pregnant.

The word seemed to echo through the enormous office.

Adrian slowly lowered his phone.

His wife was pregnant.

His Elena.

The woman who remembered every prescription, every appointment, every little detail he never bothered to remember himself.

The woman who had stood in his kitchen the previous night and accepted his demand for divorce without shedding a single tear.

And she had never told him.

His first reaction was anger.

“Get me her doctor’s name.”

“I’m afraid I can’t provide confidential medical information without authorization.”

“Do you know who you’re talking to?”

“Yes,” the attorney replied. “That’s precisely why I’m being careful.”

The call ended.

Adrian stared at his phone as if it had personally betrayed him.

Then he remembered something.

Three weeks earlier, he’d come home late and found Elena sitting alone at the dining table. An unopened envelope rested beside her hand.

When he’d asked what it was, she’d quietly replied, “Something important.”

He hadn’t even looked up from his phone.

“Whatever it is, handle it tomorrow, Elena.”

The next morning, the envelope had disappeared.

He’d forgotten about it.

Until now.

For the first time in eight years, Adrian Romano wondered how many important things his wife had tried to tell him while he was too busy to listen.

Across Chicago, I sat beside my attorney, watching rain slide down her office windows.

“He knows,” she said gently.

I nodded.

“Good.”

“Elena, are you sure you don’t want to speak with him before this goes any further?”

I placed a hand over my stomach.

For months, I’d imagined telling Adrian about our baby.

I’d imagined the surprise on his face, the way his eyes might soften, and the possibility that our little family could finally become something more than a beautiful house filled with loneliness.

I’d even bought a tiny pair of white socks.

They were still tucked inside my bedside drawer.

But then came the nights he didn’t return home.

The whispers about Bianca.

And finally, the sentence that destroyed the last fragile piece of hope I had left.

Bianca needs me.

I’d spent eight years needing nothing from him.

Now, for the first time, someone needed me completely.

And I wasn’t going to let my child grow up believing love meant waiting for someone who never came home.

“I tried to tell him,” I whispered. “Before I filed for divorce, I gave him chances. He just never noticed.”

My attorney reached across the desk.

“Then we’ll make sure your child is protected.”

I nodded, but my heart ached.

Because no matter how angry I was, there was one truth I couldn’t escape.

Adrian was the baby’s father.

And a part of me had once believed he would be the most wonderful father in the world.

At 7:43 that evening, my phone began ringing.

Adrian.

I let it ring.

He called again.

And again.

Finally, a message appeared.

ADRIAN: Elena, answer the phone. We need to talk.

I turned the screen facedown.

A minute later, another message arrived.

ADRIAN: Are you really pregnant?

I closed my eyes.

Eight years together, and he’d never asked me a question with such urgency.

I typed a reply.

Then deleted it.

Typed another.

Deleted that one, too.

Finally, I sent just five words.

ELENA: You should have asked me.

His response came almost immediately.

ADRIAN: I’m coming to see you.

My stomach тιԍнтened.

Before I could answer, someone knocked on my apartment door.

Three sharp knocks.

I froze.

My attorney had arranged for me to stay somewhere Adrian didn’t know about. Only two people had the address.

Neither of them would arrive without calling first.

The knocking came again.

Then a familiar voice sounded through the door.

“Elena. Open it.”

Adrian.

I stood slowly, one hand resting protectively over my stomach.

“I know you’re in there,” he called. His voice was rougher than I’d ever heard it. “I’m not leaving until you tell me the truth.”

I walked toward the door but didn’t unlock it.

“What truth, Adrian?”

Silence.

Then came the words I had waited months to hear.

“Is the baby mine?”

My throat тιԍнтened.

“Yes.”

For several seconds, there was no sound from the other side.

Then Adrian whispered something that made my heart ache despite everything he’d done.

“Why didn’t you tell me I was going to be a father?”

I rested my forehead against the door.

“Because every time I needed my husband, Adrian, you were somewhere else.”

He didn’t answer.

And for once, I didn’t rush to fill the silence.

I turned away from the door.

Then I heard him say, “Elena, please. Just open the door.”

Please.

The most feared man in Chicago had never said that word to me before.

I almost reached for the lock.

Almost.

But just as I took a step forward, my phone vibrated on the table.

A message from an unknown number.

“Elena, don’t let Adrian take you back. There’s something about Bianca you don’t know.”

My blood ran cold.

A second message appeared.

“Ask your husband where he was the night you went to the hospital three weeks ago.”

I stared at the screen.

Three weeks ago.

The night I’d sat alone in an emergency room, terrified for the tiny life growing inside me.

The night I’d called Adrian four times.

The night he never answered.

Slowly, I looked toward the door.

“Adrian?”

“Yes?”

My fingers trembled around the phone.

“Where were you three weeks ago, when I needed you most?”

The silence that followed was different from all the others.

This time, he didn’t sound confused.

He sounded terrified.

And before he could answer, a woman’s voice came from the hallway behind him.

“Adrian, don’t tell her.”

I knew that voice.

Bianca DeLuca.

And when I heard what she said next, I realized my divorce wasn’t the beginning of the end of my marriage.

It was the beginning of a secret that could destroy all three of us.

PART 3: What was Bianca hiding—and why was Adrian so desperate to keep Elena from discovering the truth? 💔