Chapter 15 - THE BUYER
Nathan Shaw had always been easy to underestimate.
At my wedding, he was thirty-two, quiet, polite, and almost invisible beside Daniel's forceful personality.
He sent a silver bowl from our registry and left before dessert.
Years later, he became chief investment officer at Shaw Capital.
He rarely appeared in magazines.
He did not give speeches.
He did not marry into political families or buy sports teams.
He simply managed money.
A great deal of money.
By Thursday morning, Luca's investigators believed Nathan had used seventeen separate investment vehicles to acquire nearly nine percent of Moretti Global over eighteen months.
Combined with Shaw Capital's disclosed stake and a few friendly funds, that could create enough voting influence to challenge Luca's control if his reputation collapsed.
The paternity scandal had collapsed it beautifully.
The surveillance allegations made it worse.
The criminal investigation made it almost perfect.
Serena summarized it at my kitchen table.
“Someone did not merely want Luca embarrassed.”
“They wanted him discredited at the exact moment they were positioned to benefit.”
I looked at the twins coloring in the next room.
“And my children were the match.”
“Yes.”
The admission made my chest ache.
Luca arrived with Detective Bell at noon.
Bell had news from Victor.
Victor could speak for short periods.
He had told investigators why he called me.
Three weeks earlier, Adrian Cole visited him.
Adrian knew Victor still possessed recordings from the Northstar period.
He offered Victor one million dollars to destroy them.
Victor refused.
Adrian then threatened to expose Victor's old payment from Daniel and make him the sole villain in the pregnancy cover-up.
Victor panicked.
He contacted Daniel through an old intermediary.
Daniel told him to preserve everything.
Then Victor began trying to reach me.
“Why didn't he call Luca?” I asked.
Luca answered before Bell could.
“Because he thought I would have him arrested before he finished the first sentence.”
“Would you?”
“Yes.”
At least he was honest.
Bell continued.
Victor believed Adrian orchestrated the recent leaks.
He believed Adrian arranged the restaurant encounter.
He believed Thomas Vale and Michael Trent had been rehired through a private intelligence vendor funded by one of Nathan Shaw's investment vehicles.
And Victor believed his attack at Union Station was meant to recover the recorder.
“Can he prove any of that?” Serena asked.
“Some.”
Bell opened a file.
Victor had saved voicemails from Adrian.
One contained a sentence that made everyone in the room go quiet.
If Moretti discovers those children before the vote, we can control the timing.
If he discovers them after, we lose the advantage.
The vote.
Luca's board had a scheduled governance review two weeks after the restaurant encounter.
Adrian and Nathan wanted the scandal before that review.
The random lunch had never been random.
They had tracked my reservation.
They had encouraged Evelyn's assistant to book the same restaurant for Luca.
They had positioned a photographer inside.
They had been waiting for faces to do the rest.
Rage made my hands tremble.
“They put my children on display like bait.”
Luca looked at me.
“Yes.”
“Because they knew you would recognize them.”
“Yes.”
“And after that, they leaked our names.”
“Yes.”
I stood.
“I want them charged.”
Bell's expression remained careful.
“So do I.”
“Then charge them.”
“Evidence comes before anger.”
“I have two hundred surveillance photographs, forged school documents, a fake guardianship petition, an attempted approach at a museum, and a recording about a corporate vote.”
“And we are building the chain that proves who ordered each act.”
I wanted a faster answer.
Law did not care.
Neither did reality.
Then Bell added something worse.
“Nathan left the country last night.”
Luca did not react at first.
Then he asked Bell whether Nathan had taken his family.
“No.”
“His wife and children are still in Chicago.”
That answer changed the room.
A man fleeing danger might take the people he loved.
A man relocating for strategy might not.
Nathan's London office had already retained criminal counsel in both countries.
He had also canceled three meetings and moved assets between two funds hours before boarding his flight.
Serena looked at Luca.
“He knew scrutiny was coming.”
“Yes.”
“Did Adrian warn him?”
“Probably.”
“Can you prove it?”
“Not yet.”
I hated that phrase.
Not yet had become the rhythm of the entire week.
Not yet charged.
Not yet traced.
Not yet safe.
Not yet a family.
Every answer arrived one piece behind the damage.
My stomach dropped.
“Where?”
“London, according to flight records.”
“Can you stop him?”
“Not without charges.”
Luca's face was stone.
“He has offices in London.”
“Yes.”
“And Adrian?”
“Still in Chicago.”
“Why?”
Bell looked at him.
“Maybe because he thinks he can win.”
He almost did.
That afternoon, Adrian appeared remotely before Moretti Global's special committee.
His lawyers presented a set of signed security authorizations bearing Luca's name.
The documents appeared to approve continuing monitoring of “Carter-associated risk subjects.”
Luca said the signatures were authentic.
The language was not.
He remembered signing broad corporate security budgets.
Adrian had apparently attached different schedules after signature.
Proving that would take forensic review.
The board did not wait.
It voted to extend Luca's operational leave indefinitely.
Nathan's aligned directors proposed a new interim CEO.
The nominee was Nathan himself.
A man outside the company.
The proposal failed by one vote.
One vote.
Luca came to my house that evening and sat in his car for six minutes before coming inside.
I watched from the window.
When he finally entered, he looked exhausted.
The twins were already asleep.
“You missed them.”
“I know.”
“They waited until eight-thirty.”
His eyes closed.
“I tried.”
“I know.”
He looked surprised that I said it.
We stood awkwardly in the hallway.
“Do you want to see them?”
“Yes.”
I led him upstairs.
Mila slept diagonally across her bed with one foot outside the blanket.
Leo had fallen asleep holding a book about Mars.
Luca stood between their doors.
He did not enter either room.
“Six years,” he whispered.
I leaned against the wall.
“You can't count it every day.”
“I can.”
“It will destroy you.”
“Maybe it should.”
“No.”
He looked at me.
I did not know why I had said it.
Maybe because punishment did nothing for children.
“Regret is not parenting.”
His face changed.
“Show up now.”
“That is the only part they can use.”
Luca nodded.
Then he looked toward Leo's room.
“I almost lost the company today.”
“I know.”
“I thought it would feel like dying.”
“And?”
“It didn't.”
“What did?”
He looked at me.
“Eleven minutes in that museum.”
My throat tightened.
The same eleven minutes lived inside me too.
He stepped closer.
For one dangerous second, the hallway felt too small.
Then my phone rang.
Serena.
I answered.
Her voice was urgent.
“Turn on the news.”
I went downstairs with Luca behind me.
Every major financial network was carrying the same document.
A settlement agreement.
Before Serena opened the attachment, she made me promise not to respond publicly.
“Why?”
“Because whoever made this wants your first emotional denial on camera.”
“I am emotionally denying it right now.”
“Do that in my office.”
I read the first page.
The language was polished enough to look expensive.
It referenced confidentiality, paternity uncertainty, reputational risk, and a payment schedule.
It even cited the law firm that handled our divorce.
I recognized the letterhead style.
That frightened me more than a sloppy fake would have.
“Someone had our legal files.”
“Yes,” Serena said.
“Adrian.”
“Most likely.”
The agreement stated that I had knowingly waived all future claims on Luca's estate in exchange for twelve million dollars.
I laughed in disbelief.
“I waived an estate claim for children no one admits exist in the document.”
Serena pointed to a phrase on page four.
“Not no one.”
There it was.
Any issue born of the former marital relationship.
Cold legal language designed to hide living children inside a category.
The document was not just meant to make me look greedy.
It was meant to make my silence look deliberate from the day they were born.
And because Luca's signature looked real too, it was meant to make us distrust each other all over again.
It claimed I had accepted twelve million dollars from Moretti Global six years earlier in exchange for never revealing Luca's children.
My signature appeared at the bottom.
Luca's appeared beside mine.
I stared at the screen.
“I never signed that.”
“Neither did I,” Luca said.
The anchor continued.
The document had been provided by an anonymous source claiming to be a former Moretti employee.
The story spread instantly.
Online comments called me a liar.
A blackmailer.
A woman who sold her children's father for twelve million dollars.
Then Serena said the part that frightened me.
“Nia, the bank account listed in the agreement is real.”
My mouth went dry.
“What account?”
“An account opened in your name six years ago.”
“I don't have it.”
“I know.”
“There is more.”
Of course there was.
“Three days after the twins were born, twelve million dollars was deposited into it.”
May you like
Luca went completely still.
“And the money is still there.”
