I had been married to Luca Moretti for eleven months, and I had been forced out of the Moretti family estate nine times.
The tenth time, we stood outside the office of a Moretti family adviser.
In my hand was a signed marriage dissolution agreement.
In Luca’s and Bianca Bellandi’s hands were invitations to the annual auction and tribute banquet.
On the invitation, they were dressed in matching evening wear, standing before the estate’s iron gates. Beneath the Moretti family crest was the headline—
*The Moretti heir will enter an engagement with the Bellandi patriarch’s daughter.*
“Elena, I’m sorry. I need to borrow Luca again for a few days.”
Bianca rolled up the invitation and tapped it against my arm, her smile unwavering.
“After Matteo walked out on our negotiations, he ran off to Miami and still refuses to see me. But if he sees the Moretti family is about to announce an engagement of their own, he’ll have to come back. It will also keep the truce between our families intact.”
Luca leaned against a stone pillar, the black suit sharp across his shoulders, clearly finding nothing absurd about the situation.
“If the Bellandi patriarch hadn’t asked me personally, I wouldn’t be helping her put on this show.”
His hand settled on the small of my back. His palm was steady, the same way it always was when he ordered men to lower their guns.
“The main house is hosting leaders from both sides. Go stay at the river house for a few days. I’ll bring you back after the banquet.”
He paused, then offered a promise he had already made too many times.
“Haven’t you always wanted to announce our marriage in the north garden? Once this is over, I’ll have my grandfather unseal the marriage record so every ally sees your name. Elena, I promise. This is the last time.”
Before I could speak, Bianca answered for me.
“She won’t mind. She lent me the seat of honor and the wife’s signet ring the first nine times, didn’t she?”
They laughed together.
The glass door of the adviser’s office reflected all three of us.
I was the one in the middle, the woman who was Luca’s wife on paper and in the eyes of the church, yet I looked more like a staffer who had come to help them finalize the banquet guest list.
The first nine times, I had questioned him, fought with him, demanded to know who had the right to sit at his side and who truly stood under the protection of the Moretti family.
This time, I touched the papers inside my portfolio and felt only a profound calm.
They didn’t know this wasn’t a temporary statement to cooperate with their staged engagement.
The moment the adviser filed it, my marriage to Luca would be over, and my name would be struck from the Moretti protection register.
They had no idea that after I left for the tenth time, I would not be coming back.
He Sent Me Away So I Took His Crown Chapter 17 On the drive back to Denver, I read the appointment letter three times. Outside the car windows, the grasslands were just beginning to turn green again, and herds of pronghorn moved like shadows in the distance. The things that had weighed on me were
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He Sent Me Away So I Took His Crown Chapter 16 At first, Bianca only shook her head. “They’re lying. I thought the room was empty.” The adviser played another recording. It was a phone call she had made from the control room to her assistant. *“Ten minutes will be enough. She’ll feel sick. She’ll
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He Sent Me Away So I Took His Crown Chapter 15 There was no judge in the underground chamber, no jury. Seated along both sides of a long table were Moretti’s five district leaders and two neutral family heads. Luca’s sidearm, the heir’s signet ring, and the keys to the inner hall command room had
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He Sent Me Away So I Took His Crown Chapter 14 After joining Reed’s company, I first had to undergo six weeks of independent evaluation. The committee reviewed my prior bloodline systems, financial records, and client access. They even rejected two of my expansion proposals outright. Elias did not attend the scoring sessions. “If you
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He Sent Me Away So I Took His Crown Chapter 13 That year, Elias’s mother had just died. To pay off her medical debt, he had sold the last small piece of their family land and come to school with nothing but an old computer and two boxes of research notes. His housing funds were
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He Sent Me Away So I Took His Crown Chapter 12 Two months later, I was trying on wedding dresses in a boutique in Denver. Lark could already walk slowly with the aid of a support sling. Mara sent me recovery videos every day, and I had a quiet retirement paddock waiting for her beside
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He Sent Me Away So I Took His Crown Chapter 11 On the third day after the truth came out, the Moretti family canceled its fall grand auction. Luca spent two straight nights in the inner hall. Buyers were demanding to know if the bloodline records were still valid, outer-circle personnel were terrified they wouldn’t
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He Sent Me Away So I Took His Crown Chapter 10 Luca said nothing for a long time. At last, all he managed was, “You’ve become someone I don’t even recognize.” “You never recognized me in the first place.” I hung up. That night, Moretti’s advisers issued a statement to all allies, claiming the imprisonment
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He Sent Me Away So I Took His Crown Chapter 09 At two in the afternoon, I handed the access logs, fumigation records, and copies of the forged statement to Vittorio’s advisers. Once I confirmed that three neutral witnesses had each received tamper-proof copies, I sent the evidence into the internal channels of every family
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He Sent Me Away So I Took His Crown Chapter 08 The next morning, Vittorio called. After turning seventy-five, he had moved to Sicily, returning to Chicago only when succession disputes or blood feuds required his judgment. Moretti’s daily affairs had been handed over to Luca, but the signet ring symbolizing the patriarch’s authority remained
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