My Husband Found Me Bruised in the Kitchen and Learned His Fiancée's Dark Secret — Part 2

Previously: When Matteo found his ex-wife Elena bruised in the bakery kitchen, his fiancée tried to dismiss it. But the truth about their daughter's survival changed everything.

A Web of Cruel Lies

For three years, Matteo had lived in a manufactured nightmare. After their young daughter, Lily, was diagnosed with a rare heart condition, Elena had suddenly vanished. Matteo’s wealthy family, led by his manipulative stepmother and their close business partners, the corporate giants behind Victoria’s family, had presented him with signed divorce papers and a letter claiming Elena had taken a million-dollar payout to abandon them. Heartbroken and desperate to save his daughter, Matteo had thrown himself into his work, eventually agreeing to an alliance marriage with Victoria to secure the funding for Lily’s ongoing medical treatments.

But it was all a monstrous lie. As Victoria stood in the humid kitchen, her champagne gown looking utterly out of place among the industrial ovens, her perfect facade began to crack under Matteo’s ferocious glare.

"Matteo, darling, she’s lying,"

Victoria stammered, taking a step back toward the door. "She’s an opportunist. She wanted money, and when she blew through it, she came crawling back to blackmail us!"

Elena shook her head violently, clutching her apron. "That’s not true! Matteo, they took Lily’s medical trust fund away. Victoria told me that if I didn't sign the divorce papers and work here under her family's catering company to 'repay' Lily's hospital bills, they would stop her treatments. She threatened to have me arrested for theft using falsified documents. I did it to keep Lily alive!"

Matteo felt a sickening wave of realization wash over him. The bruise on Elena's face wasn't from a clumsy accident. Elena admitted through her tears that when she had tried to slip upstairs to catch a glimpse of Matteo earlier that evening, Victoria had intercepted her in the hallway, shoving her violently against an iron shelf and threatening to cut off Lily’s medicine permanently if she ever showed her face upstairs.

The woman he was about to marry wasn't just a cold socialite; she was a monster who had systematically tortured the mother of his child.