Chapter 13 - EVELYN GOES HOME
Evelyn drove to Lake Geneva without telling Luca.
I only learned because she called me from the road.
I almost did not answer.
Her name on my screen still felt unnatural.
When I did, wind noise filled the line.
“Nia.”
“What happened?”
“I'm going to see my father.”
I sat up straighter.
“Does Luca know?”
“No.”
“That sounds like a problem between you and your husband.”
“It is.”
“Then why are you calling me?”
“Because if I do not come back, I want someone besides Luca to know where I went.”
The sentence chilled me.
“You think your father would hurt you?”
“No.”
She sounded less certain than the word.
“I think my father has spent his life convincing himself that control is love.”
I knew something about people who confused those things.
“So does Luca,” I said.
Evelyn was quiet.
“Yes.”
The agreement surprised me.
Then she continued.
“But Luca is learning the difference.”
I did not answer.
I did not want his wife telling me what Luca was learning.
Evelyn seemed to hear that too.
“I found another key in the box.”
“What kind of key?”
“A physical key to a safe at my father's estate.”
“Tell Detective Bell.”
“I did.”
“And?”
“He told me not to go.”
I nearly laughed.
“So naturally you're going.”
“I spent forty years doing what my father told me.”
“Apparently I chose today to become difficult.”
For the first time, I liked Evelyn.
It was inconvenient.
“Do not open anything alone.”
“I won't.”
“Do not confront him without a witness.”
“Technically he has three nurses and a physical therapist.”
“That is not what I mean.”
“I know.”
She paused.
“Nia, I am sorry.”
My shoulders tightened.
“For what?”
“For benefiting from something that hurt you, even if I did not know.”
“You didn't end my marriage.”
“No.”
“My father helped.”
“Yes.”
“And then I married the man.”
“That was two years later.”
“It still feels contaminated.”
I looked through my window at Luca's security car parked discreetly across the street.
“That's for you and Luca to decide.”
“I don't know if there is a me and Luca after this.”
I had no answer for her.
Evelyn arrived at Daniel's estate shortly after noon.
On the drive, she told me things about her father she had never said publicly.
Daniel had planned her first internship before she finished high school.
He chose her college because its alumni network reached the right banks.
He once ended a relationship she had at twenty-four by offering the man's startup funding on the condition that he relocate to Singapore.
Evelyn did not learn about that condition until years later.
“He always called it helping.”
“Did you believe him?”
“For a long time.”
“When did you stop?”
“Today might be the answer.”
She gave a small, humorless laugh.
“My father never shouted.”
“He never needed to.”
“He arranged consequences until your choices looked exactly like his.”
I understood suddenly why Evelyn had seemed so controlled in public.
Control was the language she had been raised in.
Luca had mistaken it for compatibility.
Maybe she had too.
“What if he says he did it for you?” I asked.
“He will.”
“And if he apologizes?”
“He will not.”
She was wrong about that part.
But she was right about everything that came before it.
Detective Bell sent a local officer to wait outside after she called him from the gate.
Daniel lived in a stone house overlooking the lake.
Before the stroke, he had hosted politicians, CEOs, and foreign investors there.
Now half the rooms had apparently become medical suites.
Evelyn called me again ninety minutes later.
This time she was crying.
I had never heard her cry.
“He admitted it.”
My stomach tightened.
“What exactly?”
“The clinic.”
“The letter.”
“Victor.”
I sat down.
“He admitted everything?”
“Not everything.”
Her voice broke.
“He says he did not know about the twins until Victor opened the ultrasound envelope in New York.”
“That part matches the recording.”
“He says he planned to tell Luca after Northstar closed.”
“Do you believe that?”
“No.”
Neither did I.
“He said once the financing closed, there was always another reason to wait.”
“Your relationship with Luca.”
“Yes.”
I closed my eyes.
“He told me he thought you would come back if Luca knew.”
I almost laughed.
“Your father had more faith in our marriage than Luca did.”
Evelyn made a broken sound that might have been a laugh.
“He said Luca was emotionally irrational where you were concerned.”
“That's rich.”
“He said you made Luca smaller.”
Anger flashed through me.
“What?”
“Not weak.”
“Human.”
I did not know whether that made it better or worse.
“Daniel wanted a man who could make hard decisions without attachment,” Evelyn continued.
“And he wanted you beside him.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because Shaw Capital had more exposure to Moretti Global than anyone outside the company knew.”
There it was.
The motive beneath the family drama.
Money.
Control.
Succession.
If Luca married Daniel's daughter, Daniel's financial interests and personal interests aligned.
If Luca reconciled with me and pulled away from Shaw financing, Daniel could lose influence over an empire that was growing faster than his own.
“He used you too,” I said.
Evelyn started crying harder.
“Yes.”
For a few seconds, neither of us spoke.
Then I asked about the surveillance.
“Did he order people to watch us after the twins were born?”
“Yes.”
My stomach clenched.
“Why?”
“He said he needed to know whether you were going to contact Luca.”
“For six years?”
“No.”
Her voice changed.
“This is where it gets worse.”
I stood.
“What?”
“He said he stopped paying Thomas Vale four years ago.”
“Then who kept the surveillance going?”
“Adrian Cole.”
My skin prickled.
“Daniel says Adrian took over the files.”
“Why?”
“He does not know.”
“Your father expects us to believe that?”
“He showed me payment records.”
I froze.
“From the safe?”
“Yes.”
“The key opened it?”
“Yes.”
“What is inside?”
“Original ledgers.”
“Contracts.”
“Copies of communications.”
“And a letter from Adrian to my father dated three years ago.”
“What does it say?”
Evelyn inhaled.
“He says continued monitoring of Nia Carter and the minor children is necessary to preserve strategic leverage over L.M.”
My heart pounded.
Strategic leverage.
My children had been classified as leverage.
“Photograph it.”
“I already did.”
“Send it to Bell and Serena.”
“I am.”
Then Evelyn's voice dropped.
“There is one more thing.”
I did not want one more thing.
“What?”
“My father says Adrian came here two weeks ago.”
“Before Luca saw the twins.”
“Yes.”
“What did he want?”
“The original Northstar records.”
“Did Daniel give them to him?”
“No.”
“What did Adrian say?”
“He said Luca was about to learn something that could destroy the company.”
I went cold.
“What could he possibly mean?”
“Luca's fertility appointments.”
I stopped breathing.
Adrian knew Luca had returned to fertility specialists.
He knew Luca had learned there was no issue on his end.
He knew Luca might begin questioning the assumptions that ended our marriage.
Then Luca happened to walk into the same restaurant where I was sitting with the twins.
The meeting felt like fate.
Suddenly, I was not sure it had been.
“Evelyn.”
“Yes.”
“Who chose that restaurant?”
Silence.
“My assistant made the reservation.”
“Whose assistant?”
“Mine.”
“Who recommended it?”
Another silence.
“Adrian.”
The room seemed to tilt.
Luca had not randomly walked into my life.
Someone inside his company had placed him there.
“Why?”
“I don't know.”
Then I did.
At least part of it.
Adrian had spent years collecting a secret.
A secret had no value if it stayed buried forever.
He needed Luca to discover the twins at the worst possible moment.
He needed shock.
Public confusion.
Legal chaos.
He needed Luca distracted while investigators began circling old records.
Or while something else happened inside Moretti Global.
I called Luca.
His assistant said he was in an emergency board session.
I called again.
No answer.
Then financial news alerts began lighting up my phone.
MORETTI GLOBAL BOARD CONSIDERS TEMPORARY LEADERSHIP CHANGE AMID INVESTIGATION.
A second alert followed.
GENERAL COUNSEL ADRIAN COLE PROVIDES BOARD WITH EVIDENCE OF CHAIRMAN MISCONDUCT.
My breath stopped.
Adrian was not merely hiding.
May you like
He was attacking Luca openly.
And according to the first report, he had just accused Luca of using corporate resources for years to secretly monitor me and the twins.
