Chapter 3 - The Paper Trail of Betrayal
Luca didn't sleep that night.
He sat in the dark library of his Gold Coast mansion, staring out at the rain-slicked waters of Lake Michigan. On the crystal decanter beside him sat a single glass of twenty-year-old scotch, completely untouched.
In the adjacent bedroom, Evelyn had slammed the door hours ago after an explosive, screaming fight. She had accused him of being obsessed with a ghost, of humiliating her in front of Chicago’s high society, of looking at a pair of random street urchins as if they were royalty.
Luca hadn't answered a single one of her accusations. He couldn't. Because every time he closed his eyes, he saw those two tiny faces looking up at him.
The boy’s stubborn jaw. The girl’s dimpled smile. His eyes. His eyes.
At 3:00 AM, the library door opened quietly. Marcus Vance, Luca’s chief of private security and a former military intelligence officer, stepped inside holding a thick, unmarked leather folder.
“You asked for this rushed, boss,” Marcus said, placing the folder on the dark mahogany desk under the amber glow of the desk lamp.
Luca didn't hesitate. He snatched the folder open.
There were high-resolution photographs taken over the last forty-eight hours. Nia walking through the Fulton Market district in a tailored cream coat, looking gorgeous, confident, and entirely whole. Photos of a sunlit brownstone in Lincoln Park registered under Carter Architectural Designs. And photos of the twins—Leo Arthur Carter and Maya Rose Carter—playing in a leafy courtyard.
Luca’s thumb brushed over the photograph of the children. A painful tight knot locked in his throat.
“Tell me,” Luca rasped.
“She left Chicago three days after the divorce papers were filed,” Marcus reported in a flat, analytical tone. “She moved to a small coastal cottage in Maine. Six weeks later, she was admitted to Portland Memorial Hospital after fainting at a grocery store. The OB-GYN performed an ultrasound and discovered a twin pregnancy.”
Luca closed his eyes as a violent wave of remorse washed through him. “She was already pregnant when I told her to leave.”
“Yes, sir,” Marcus continued. “She carried them to term in Maine, away from the media, away from your family. She moved back to Chicago two years ago after launching her own firm. She has never accepted a single dollar of alimony. She wiped your name from her life entirely.”
Luca slammed his fist onto the mahogany desk, making the crystal glassware rattle. “Why didn't she tell me? Why didn't she call me from Maine? I would have flown there in an hour! I would have built her a palace!”
“Because of the medical reports, Mr. Moretti,” Marcus said quietly.
Luca looked up sharp. “What medical reports?”
Marcus hesitated, pulling a secondary document from the back of the file. “I took the liberty of looking into the fertility clinic you and Mrs. Carter used during your marriage. Northwestern Reproductive Sciences.”
“Dr. Robert Sterling’s clinic,” Luca said, his brow furrowing. Sterling was a renowned specialist. He was also Evelyn Shaw’s maternal uncle.
Luca froze.
The room seemed to drop ten degrees. The air left his lungs.
“Go on,” Luca whispered, his voice dangerously low.
“I had our cyber-forensics team breach the archived server logs from six years ago,” Marcus explained, placing a series of printed emails on the desk. “Three months before your divorce, Nia’s bloodwork and tubal patency tests came back completely normal. She was perfectly fertile. But someone altered the digital files on the master server before Dr. Sterling delivered the final verdict to you.”
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Luca stood up so fast his heavy leather chair flipped backward, crashing into the bookshelf behind him. “Who altered them?”
Marcus looked Luca dead in the eye. “The administrative login used to alter Mrs. Carter’s lab results belonged to Dr. Sterling himself. And the IP address used to authorize the override... originated from the Shaw family estate.”
