“Kiss Me So He’ll Panic—I Want to Make Him Jealous.” She Thought He Was a Stranger, But Her Fiancé Knew Exactly Who He Was… Then Came the Hidden Secret of the 60-Year-Old Mafia Boss

PART 2

“What are you doing?” Vivian whispered.

Dominic Bellardi did not look down at her.

“I’m answering your request properly.”

“That is not an answer.”

“It is the only one you’ll get while everyone is watching.”

Vivian wanted to pull away, but the ballroom had already shifted around them.

It happened quietly at first. A pause in conversation near the charity auction. A lowered voice by the champagne tower. A woman in emerald silk turning just enough to see without appearing to stare. Then the silence widened, invisible but unmistakable, passing from table to table like a cold hand laid over mouths.

Dominic Bellardi had crossed many rooms in his life.

This one obeyed.

Nathan Wexler saw them coming and, for one suspended moment, forgot to perform. His smile vanished. Maribel’s fingers froze on his sleeve. The two of them looked less like lovers and more like thieves caught standing over an open safe.

Vivian felt it then: not triumph, not exactly. Something thinner. Sharper.

Nathan was afraid.

Not of being exposed.

Of Dominic.

When they were only five steps away, Nathan recovered his smile and lifted his chin.

“Mr. Bellardi,” he said, voice smooth but strained. “I didn’t know you were attending tonight.”

Dominic stopped in front of him.

“No,” he said. “You didn’t.”

Maribel glanced between them. Her eyes slid to Vivian, and in them Vivian saw the familiar quick calculation. Maribel had always been beautiful in a way that made people forgive her before they knew what she had done.

“Vivian,” Maribel said, too sweetly. “Are you all right? We were just looking for you.”

Vivian almost laughed.

The lie was so small compared to what it covered.

“I found company,” Vivian replied.

Nathan’s gaze dropped to Dominic’s hand resting at Vivian’s back.

It was barely touching her. Still, Nathan looked at it as if he had seen a knife.

“Vivian,” he said softly, switching tones, becoming intimate enough for observers to believe they were witnessing a fiancé’s concern. “Can we speak privately?”

Dominic answered before she could.

“No.”

Nathan’s face hardened.

“Excuse me?”

“She is speaking with me.”

Maribel tried to smile. “Mr. Bellardi, I’m sure Vivian didn’t mean to bother you. She can be dramatic when she’s upset.”

Vivian felt Dominic’s fingers still against her spine.

That was all.

No change in expression. No dramatic glare. No raised voice.

But Maribel stepped half a pace back as if the air had heated.

“Miss Blake,” Dominic said, eyes still on Nathan, “your sister just insulted you and expected the room to agree because she used a gentle voice.”

Vivian swallowed.

Nathan’s jaw tightened.

“That is enough,” he said. “This is a family matter.”

Dominic’s mouth curved, not into a smile, but into the memory of one.

“Family matters are the most dangerous kind.”

Before Nathan could answer, a waiter passed too close with a tray of champagne. Dominic raised two fingers. The waiter stopped immediately.

Dominic took one glass and handed it to Vivian.

Her hands were trembling. He noticed. Everyone probably noticed.

“Drink,” he said quietly.

“I don’t want champagne.”

“I know.”

She looked at him, confused.

“It gives your hand something to do,” he said.

Vivian accepted the glass.

The small act steadied her more than kindness would have.

Nathan noticed that too.

He leaned closer, lowering his voice. “Vivian, you’re embarrassing yourself.”

There it was.

The old hook.

For years, Nathan had never needed to shout. He only had to suggest that Vivian was too emotional, too sensitive, too eager to be loved. He had trained her to step back from her own instincts, to apologize for feeling the blade only after he had carefully buried it.

But tonight, Dominic Bellardi stood beside her.

And Nathan, for the first time, looked like a man who had misplaced his weapon.

Vivian raised the champagne flute and took one slow sip.

Then she said, “I saw you.”

Nathan went very still.

Maribel blinked too quickly.

“In the service corridor,” Vivian continued. “Eighteen minutes ago. Your hand was in her hair. Her lipstick was on your mouth. Should I describe the rest, or would you prefer the string quartet accompany it?”

A few guests nearby gasped. One woman whispered, “Oh my God.”

Nathan’s expression changed by inches. Charm first. Then annoyance. Then calculation.

“Vivian,” he said. “You’re distraught.”

“No,” she said. “I’m observant.”

Maribel’s cheeks flushed. “You misunderstood.”

Vivian turned to her. “For eight months?”

That landed.

Maribel’s lips parted.

Nathan stared at her.

“You knew?”

The question was soft.

Too soft.

Dominic’s eyes narrowed.

Vivian looked at her fiancé, the man who had proposed beneath white lanterns in her father’s garden, the man who had kissed her forehead at cameras, the man who had let her plan a wedding while sleeping with her sister.

“I suspected,” she said. “Tonight I knew.”

Then Dominic laughed.

It was quiet, nearly amused, and colder than the ice sculptures melting along the buffet.

Nathan turned to him.

“Is something funny?”

“Yes.”

Dominic took Vivian’s champagne glass from her hand, set it untouched on a passing tray, then looked directly at Nathan.

“You are.”

The room held its breath.

Nathan’s nostrils flared. “You may have a reputation, Mr. Bellardi, but this foundation bears my family’s name.”

Dominic tilted his head. “For now.”

A pulse of shock traveled through Nathan’s face.

Vivian caught it.

For now.

“What does that mean?” she asked.

Nathan answered quickly. “Nothing.”

Dominic’s gaze stayed on him. “Tell her.”

Nathan’s smile returned, brittle as spun sugar. “There’s nothing to tell.”

“Then I will.”

Maribel grabbed Nathan’s arm. “Nate?”

The nickname struck Vivian like a slap. Nate. Private. Familiar. Used too easily.

Dominic turned toward the guests nearest them.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, not loudly, yet every ear in the ballroom caught his voice. “Forgive the interruption. The scheduled speech from Mr. Wexler may need revision.”

Nathan’s face paled.

“Dominic,” he said through his teeth.

Dominic’s eyes went almost gentle.

“You remember how to beg. Good.”

Nathan stepped forward.

Two men near the south wall moved at once.

Vivian had not noticed them before. Both wore black suits. Both looked like guests until they moved with the same silent purpose. Nathan saw them and stopped.

The ballroom’s music faltered. One violinist missed a note.

Dominic lifted a hand, and the quartet stopped entirely.

Silence fell cleanly.

Dominic faced Nathan fully.

“Your family owes me eighty-seven million dollars.”

A murmur broke through the room.

Nathan whispered, “Not here.”

“Your father used Wexler Vine & Trade as collateral,” Dominic continued. “Then he used this foundation as a washing line for debt he could not admit. When he died, that debt did not die with him.”

Vivian felt the floor shift beneath her.

The foundation?

Her foundation?

She had spent months building donor programs, scholarship committees, medical grants. She had believed the gala’s money would go toward clinics and schools.

Nathan had let her believe it.

“No,” she said.

Nathan looked at her quickly. “Vivian, it’s complicated.”

Dominic’s voice cut through his. “It is simple. He needed your name.”

Vivian stared at Nathan.

“My name?”

“The Blake name,” Dominic said. “Clean, old, trusted. He intended to marry you, fold your inheritance into Wexler holdings, and present the combined assets as proof of solvency. Enough to buy time. Enough to keep men like me polite.”

Vivian could not feel her hands.

Maribel looked at Nathan as if this was news to her too.

“You told me you loved her money,” Maribel whispered. “You didn’t tell me—”

Nathan whipped his head toward her. “Shut up.”

The words cracked across the ballroom.

Maribel recoiled.

For once, Vivian did not protect her.

She was too busy understanding.

Every compliment Nathan had given her discipline. Every praise for her organizational skill. Every time he had guided her toward signatures, introductions, family attorneys, inheritance discussions.

Her engagement had not been romance.

It had been acquisition.

Dominic watched the realization travel across her face.

His voice lowered.

“He was going to announce tonight that the Blake-Wexler Foundation had secured a private development partnership. You would have smiled beside him. Tomorrow, your lawyers would find the documents already prepared.”

Vivian turned slowly to Nathan.

“Were you going to make me sign?”

Nathan’s eyes darted around the room. Too many witnesses. Too many phones hidden behind programs and purses.

He tried one last time.

“Vivian, listen to me. Whatever he thinks he knows, he is not here to help you. He ruins people. That’s what he does.”

Dominic said nothing.

Nathan seized on the silence.

“You think he’s protecting you because you grabbed his arm? You think a man like him kisses frightened women out of kindness?”

Vivian’s heart beat once, hard.

Nathan stepped closer. “Ask him why he came tonight.”

She looked at Dominic.

He did not look away.

Nathan laughed, breathless and cruel. “You don’t even know, do you? You think you chose him. Vivian, he came here for you.”

The room seemed to recede.

Dominic’s stillness changed.

“For me?” she asked.

Nathan smiled then, ugly with relief. “Tell her, Dominic. Tell her what her mother took from you.”

Vivian’s breath caught.

“My mother has been dead for twelve years.”

“Yes,” Nathan said. “And she left ghosts.”

Dominic’s face emptied.

The scar through his eyebrow seemed deeper under the chandelier light.

Vivian turned fully to him. “What is he talking about?”

Dominic was quiet for too long.

Finally, he said, “Your mother’s name was Elena Moretti before she became Elena Blake.”

Vivian frowned. “I know.”

“No,” he said. “You know the name. You do not know who she was.”

Dominic reached inside his jacket.

Nathan flinched.

Dominic withdrew a small black velvet box.

He opened it.

Inside lay a ring. A narrow band of old gold set with a dark red stone, almost black in the low light.

Vivian knew it.

Her mother had worn that ring on a chain beneath her clothes. As a child, Vivian had once asked to touch it. Elena had slapped her hand away so fast both of them had cried afterward.

“Where did you get that?” Vivian whispered.

Dominic’s voice came rougher now.

“I gave it to her.”

The ballroom disappeared.

“She was promised to you?” Vivian asked.

Dominic’s jaw worked once.

“She was my wife.”

The words fell softly.

They destroyed everything.

Vivian took a step back.

“We married in Palermo in 1989,” Dominic said. “Quietly. Before your grandfather sold her future to Arthur Blake and shipped her into respectability.”

Vivian shook her head. “My father—”

“Arthur Blake knew. He paid men to make sure I could not reach her.”

Nathan spoke quickly, sensing the room turning toward Dominic again.

“And now he wants revenge. Don’t dress it up. He wants the Blake estate, the Wexler debt, everything. Vivian, he’s using you.”

Dominic looked at her.

“I came for the debt,” he said. “That is true. And I came because Nathan Wexler tried to settle what he owed by offering something that did not belong to him.”

“What?” Vivian asked.

Dominic’s gaze slid to Nathan.

“You.”

Vivian could not speak.

“Three weeks ago,” Dominic said, “Nathan Wexler came to my home. He said after the wedding, your inheritance would give him control of several Blake properties I have wanted for years. He offered favorable transfer terms. In exchange, I would extend his deadline.”

Vivian turned to Nathan.

“How much time did you buy with me?”

Nathan’s face twisted. “I was trying to save my company.”

“No,” she said. “You were trying to save yourself.”

His eyes flashed. “You think you’re innocent in this? You loved being needed. You loved playing savior. Every gala, every board meeting—do you think that made you noble? It made you useful.”

There were insults that wounded because they were lies, and insults that wounded because they knew exactly where to cut.

Dominic stepped forward.

Vivian touched his sleeve before he could move.

“No,” she said.

One word.

He stopped.

The room noticed that too.

Nathan noticed most of all.

For the first time, he looked not only afraid of Dominic.

He looked afraid of Vivian.

She turned toward the nearest stage, where the podium waited beneath an arrangement of white roses. Her speech cards sat there. Nathan’s speech cards. Words she had written for him. Words about trust. Legacy. Partnership. Family.

Vivian walked toward the stage.

No one stopped her.

She climbed the three steps, took the microphone, and looked out over the glittering ruin of the evening.

Then she tore the speech cards in half.

“My name is Vivian Blake,” she said into the microphone.

Her voice trembled once, then steadied.

“This gala was organized to support medical access, student scholarships, and housing programs. Every donor in this room gave under that understanding. As of this moment, all pledged funds will be frozen pending an independent audit.”

Nathan started forward. “Vivian—”

The two men near the wall moved. Nathan stopped.

“The foundation will no longer carry the Wexler name,” Vivian continued. “And my engagement to Nathan Wexler is over.”

Maribel sobbed.

Vivian leaned closer to the microphone.

“As for my sister, I wish her the life she was willing to steal.”

That silenced even the whispers.

Vivian set the microphone down. Her whole body shook now, but she did not fall.

Dominic was waiting when she descended.

He offered his arm again.

This time, she looked at it before taking it.

“This does not mean I trust you,” she said.

“I would think less of you if you did.”

“You knew who I was when I grabbed you.”

“Yes.”

“And you still let me ask.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

Dominic’s gaze moved briefly to the ring box in his hand.

“Because your mother once asked me the same thing. Different ballroom. Different man. Same reason. She wanted to make Arthur Blake jealous.” His mouth tightened. “She thought I was a stranger too.”

A chill passed through Vivian.

“Did you kiss her?”

“Yes.”

“And then?”

Dominic looked at her.

“Then I spent thirty-seven years paying for it.”

Before she could ask what that meant, the ballroom doors burst open.

Three men entered in dark federal-blue jackets.

FBI.

Nathan exhaled like a drowning man seeing land.

One agent stepped forward, badge raised. “Dominic Bellardi?”

Dominic’s men shifted. Dominic lifted one hand, and they stilled.

“What is this?” Vivian asked.

The agent glanced at her. “Ma’am, step away.”

Dominic’s voice was calm. “Do as he says.”

“No.”

His eyes moved to hers.

For the first time all night, Vivian saw something in them that was not control, not calculation, not old violence.

Regret.

“Vivian,” he said quietly. “There is another secret.”

The agent reached for Dominic’s arm.

Dominic opened the velvet box one last time and placed the red-stoned ring in Vivian’s palm.

“Your mother did not die of an illness,” he said.

Vivian’s blood turned cold.

“What?”

Dominic leaned closer, his voice low enough that only she could hear.

“And your father did not die in an accident.”

The agent seized his arm. Dominic allowed it.

Vivian stared at him, the ring burning in her hand.

Dominic was led toward the ballroom doors, but before he crossed the threshold, he turned back.

His eyes found Vivian’s.

“Ask about the girl in the lake,” he said.

Then the doors closed behind him.

Vivian stood beneath the chandeliers, abandoned by her fiancé, betrayed by her sister, holding her dead mother’s secret ring while every powerful person in Chicago pretended not to be afraid.

And from inside the ring box, beneath the velvet lining, a folded photograph slipped loose and fell at her feet.

Vivian bent slowly.

The photograph was old, water-stained, and cracked down the middle.

In it stood her mother, young and laughing, one hand resting on her stomach.

Beside her was Dominic Bellardi.

And on the back, written in Elena Blake’s handwriting, were five words that made Vivian’s world go silent.

Vivian is not Arthur’s child.