Chapter 2 - THE PAPER TRAIL OF PAIN
The taxi ride back to our brownstone in Lincoln Park was spent in tense, protective silence. I kept my arms wrapped tightly around Leo and Maya, kissing the tops of their heads as they babbled innocently about their drawings. They didn't understand the storm that had just been unleashed, but I did.
The moment we stepped inside our apartment, I locked the deadbolt, lowered the blinds, and poured myself a glass of water with shaking hands.
How had it come to this?
Seven years ago, two weeks after I signed the divorce papers and packed my bags, I found out I was pregnant. I was living in a small, rented apartment, working eighty hours a week to launch my own interior design firm, and grieving the death of my marriage. When the doctor confirmed I was carrying twins, I sat in my car and sobbed for three hours.
I had wanted to call Luca. God knows I wanted to run back to him, to tell him that we were going to be parents after all. But then I remembered the cold, distant look in his eyes during our final months. I remembered how he had looked at me like I was broken, a defective vessel that couldn't give him an heir. He hadn't just divorced me; he had discarded me.
I decided then that my children would never grow up in a house where their worth was tied to a Moretti legacy, or where their father looked at their mother with quiet resentment. I raised them alone, building a successful design business with my own sweat and blood, never taking a single cent of Luca’s alimony.
A sharp knock at the front door shattered my thoughts.
I flinched. It’s too soon, I thought. He couldn't have found my address already.
I walked cautiously to the foyer and looked through the peephole. Standing on my porch wasn't Luca, but his personal attorney and lifelong confidant, Marcus Vance.
I opened the door three inches, keeping the safety chain engaged. "Marcus. Did Luca send you to serve me with papers already?"
Marcus looked deeply uncomfortable. He carried a leather briefcase and wore a expression of profound regret. "Nia. Please, let me in. I’m not here on Luca’s orders. In fact, he doesn't know I'm here."
I hesitated, then unlatched the chain and allowed him inside. Marcus had always been kind to me during my marriage, often trying to mediate the growing distance between Luca and me.
"Where are the kids?" Marcus asked softly, stepping into the living room.
"In their playroom, watching a movie," I said defensively, folding my arms across my chest. "If you're here to threaten me with a custody battle, Marcus, you can save your breath. I have raised Leo and Maya alone for seven years. Luca legally renounced all parental claims in our divorce settlement."
"Nia, listen to me," Marcus said gently, taking a seat on the armchair. "Luca is currently tearing his office apart at Moretti Global. He’s fired two executives in the last hour and ordered a full background check on your life over the last seven years. He is in a state of absolute mania."
"He brought this on himself!" I hissed, my voice trembling with suppressed rage. "He convinced himself I was infertile! He let his toxic advisors plant seeds in his head that I was secretly taking birth control or that my body was broken!"
Marcus lowered his head. "I know. And that's why I came here tonight. There’s something you need to know about what happened before the divorce, Nia. Something Luca only found out three weeks ago."
I frowned, stepping closer. "What are you talking about?"
"The fertility reports seven years ago," Marcus explained, pulling a manila folder from his briefcase and laying it on the coffee table. "The ones from Dr. Harrison—the specialist who told Luca that your eggs were non-viable?"
"What about them?" I asked, a cold knot tightening in my stomach. "I remember every word of those reports. They broke my spirit."
"Dr. Harrison was paid two million dollars by Evelyn Shaw's father to falsify those results," Marcus revealed quietly.
I froze. The room seemed to spin on its axis. "What?"
"Evelyn’s father wanted the Shaw-Moretti merger," Marcus continued, his eyes heavy with truth. "They knew Luca was deeply traditional and wanted a family more than anything. They manipulated the lab results to make Luca believe you were hiding an underlying medical condition from him. They broke your marriage from the inside out."
I stared at the folder on the table, my breath hitching in my throat. Seven years of self-loathing, seven years of believing my body had failed the man I loved, all built on a calculated, malicious lie.
"And Luca?" I whispered, tears spilling over my cheeks. "When did he find out?"
"Three weeks ago," Marcus answered. "Luca went for a routine medical checkup at a new clinic in Manhattan. The doctor ran a comprehensive panel and told him there was never any medical issue on his end—or yours. Luca hired private investigators to dig into Dr. Harrison. Yesterday, Harrison confessed everything under threat of federal fraud charges."
Marcus looked directly into my eyes. "Luca spent the last three weeks realizing he destroyed his own happiness for a lie. And then today... he walked into that restaurant and saw his children."
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Before I could process the crushing weight of Marcus's words, the heavy sound of a sports car screeching to a halt echoed from the street outside, followed by the violent slamming of a car door.
Luca had arrived.
