My billionaire Mafia Boss husband drove away to comfort his first love

The industrial office at Pier 4 was stripped of all comfort. It smelled of motor oil, damp rope, and the cold mud of the low tide.

Julian Rossi sat on a metal folding chair in the center of the concrete floor, his hands resting on his knees, his face the color of wet chalk. He was twenty-eight, handsome in a slick, careless way, with hair that was usually gelled back but now hung limp across his forehead.

Dominic stood near the door, his arms crossed over his chest, his expression dark and dangerous.

Alexander stood five feet away, his coat open, looking down at the young dispatcher with eyes that had completely ceased to belong to a civilized man.

On the wooden crate between them lay the printout from the Ocean Reef Club in Key Largo, along with four photographs obtained by Vance's investigator showing Rossi and Sophia Bennett laughing on a rented yacht in the Florida Keys.

"You have thirty seconds to tell me the truth," Alexander said, his voice so low that Rossi had to strain to hear it over the slap of the harbor water against the pilings outside. "And if you lie to me once, Dominic is going to ensure that you spend the next five years loading forty-foot containers by hand in northern Maine."

Rossi swallowed hard, his Adam's apple bobbing erratically. "Mr. Moretti... I swear to God, I didn't know she was using Mrs. Moretti's card. She told me the money was hers. She told me she had an inheritance from her mother’s family."

"Did she tell you she had an inheritance when she asked you to move her luggage into the Highgate apartment?" Alexander asked, stepping closer. "Did she tell you who paid for the suite in Miami?"

"She... she said you were a family friend who managed her trust," Rossi stammered, his eyes darting frantically toward Dominic, who offered only a cold, predatory stare in return. "She said you were obsessed with her, that you kept trying to buy her back, but she had you wrapped around her finger. She said you’d pay whatever bills she ran up because you felt guilty about her dad dying in the fire."

Alexander felt the words strike him like physical blows. Every justification he had offered Victoria, every time he had defended Sophia’s presence in their lives, every lecture he had given his wife about charity, duty, and honor—it had all been repeated, mocked, and laughed over in hotel rooms funded by his wife’s credit line.

"She told you that?" Alexander whispered.

"Yes! She laughed about it!" Rossi was practically crying now, terror stripping away whatever bravado he had possessed. "She said Mrs. Moretti was an uptight, cold-blooded snob who didn't know how to keep a man happy. She said once she got you to divorce your wife, she’d own half the terminal through the marriage settlement, and then she’d put me in charge of the southern logistics route."

Dominic let out a harsh, barking laugh from the doorway. "She really thought she was playing chess. The girl can’t balance a checkbook, and she thought she was going to take over the Moretti terminal network."

Alexander didn't laugh. He felt empty, gutted, like a ship whose hull had been ripped open on a reef, leaving the engines to flood in the dark.

"Get him out of the city," Alexander said to Dominic, not looking at Rossi again. "Cancel his port credentials. If he’s seen near the waterfront after midnight, have the maritime police take him in for cargo theft on the missing copper spools from last month."

"No, Mr. Moretti, please—"

"Get him out," Alexander repeated, turning his back.

Dominic grabbed Rossi by the collar, hauled him out of the chair, and shoved him through the metal door into the rain.

Ten minutes later, Dominic returned to the office. Alexander was still standing in the same spot, staring down at the photographs on the wooden crate.

"What are you going to do about Sophia?" Dominic asked, leaning against the desk. "She’s still at the St. Regis, ordering three-hundred-dollar bottles of champagne on your card."

"Cut the card," Alexander said. His voice was completely devoid of inflection. "Cancel the suite. Have two men pack her bags, leave them with the hotel doorman, and tell her that if she contacts anyone in this family again, I will personally hand the fraud file to the district attorney. Every dime she spent on Victoria’s card without authorization constitutes grand larceny under state law."

"Done," Dominic said. He hesitated for a moment, then pulled a small slip of paper from his pocket. "Alexander... I didn't want to get involved, but I had one of our security contractors run the plate on Victoria’s Volvo."

Alexander spun around, his eyes blazing with desperate urgency. "Where is she?"

"She didn't leave the state," Dominic said, holding the paper just out of his brother's reach. "She’s at the old Laurent orchard in Berkshire County. The one her grandfather left her."

Alexander reached for the paper, but Dominic pulled it back, his face dead serious.

"Listen to me, Alexander," Dominic said, gripping his brother's forearm with iron strength. "If you go up there with your security detail and your arrogance, trying to drag her back like she’s a runaway shipment, you will destroy whatever microscopic sliver of hope you have left. She doesn't want the boss of the waterfront right now. She wants the man who promised to protect her four years ago and failed miserably. If you can't be that man, stay here and let her go."