Chapter 6 - THE PHOTOGRAPHS FROM BEFORE
The first photograph showed Leo carrying a red backpack.
The second showed Lia jumping over a crack in the sidewalk.
The third showed me holding both their hands outside the elementary school three days before Luca walked into the restaurant.
There were twelve images in total.
Every one had been taken before Luca knew the twins existed.
Amelia printed them because she said screens made people underestimate evidence.
Spread across my kitchen table, the photographs looked like proof of a life being watched.
Mara paced behind me.
"Call the police."
"For what?"
"Stalking children."
Amelia shook her head.
"We can make a report, and we should, but photographing people from a public sidewalk is not automatically criminal."
"They're six."
"I know."
"Then say it like it matters."
"It matters enormously."
Amelia's voice remained calm.
"That is why we document first and react second."
My phone rang.
Luca.
I answered before Amelia could object.
"Did you know?"
"Know what?"
"Someone photographed my children before yesterday."
Silence.
Then Luca's voice became lethal.
"Send them to Marco."
"I asked if you knew."
"No."
"Did your security know?"
"No."
"Did Evelyn?"
Another silence.
"I'm trying to find out."
"Trying?"
"She left our house forty minutes ago."
"Where did she go?"
"She refused to tell me."
Mara muttered something unprintable.
Luca heard it.
"Is Mara there?"
"Yes."
"Good."
Mara leaned toward the phone.
"Do not say good like I am on your team."
"I didn't."
"You thought it."
Despite everything, I nearly smiled.
Luca continued.
"Nia, I need the images."
"You will get copies through Amelia."
"Fine."
He did not argue.
That frightened me more than his usual persistence.
"Where are the twins?"
"Inside."
"Keep them there tonight."
"Do not tell me what to do."
"Then consider it advice from someone whose family has spent six years proving it cannot be trusted."
The sentence silenced me.
"What happened with Evelyn?"
Luca exhaled slowly.
"I asked her why she met my mother the day after your letter arrived."
"And?"
"She said Bianca was recruiting donors for the foundation."
"Do you believe her?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"Because she said they discussed a museum gala that did not exist until the following year."
Amelia's pen moved quickly.
"Anything else?"
"I asked whether she had seen your letter."
"What did she say?"
"She asked which letter."
I frowned.
"That's normal."
"I never told her there was more than one."
My skin prickled.
"There was only one."
"Exactly."
Luca's voice hardened.
"She knew enough to perform ignorance."
Amelia leaned toward the phone.
"Mr. Moretti, do not confront her again without preserving communications."
"Already done."
"And do not secretly access devices you are not legally entitled to access."
"I know how discovery works, Amelia."
"Rich men often know the rules right before they decide rules are inefficient."
Mara covered a laugh.
Luca did not respond.
Then Marco entered the call on another line.
"I have the photographs."
His tone changed the room.
"Do you recognize the photographer?" Luca asked.
"No, but one image has a reflection in a parked vehicle."
"Of what?"
"The photographer's rental car plate."
Amelia looked impressed despite herself.
"Can you trace it?"
"Legally, through a licensed investigator."
He clearly said the final word for Amelia.
"Thank you," she replied.
Twenty-seven minutes later, Marco called again.
The rental car had been booked by a private intelligence firm called Northstar Strategy.
I had never heard of it.
Luca had.
"They do opposition research."
"For companies?" I asked.
"For anyone who pays."
"Who paid?"
"We do not know yet."
Amelia searched public records.
Northstar had no obvious connection to Moretti Global.
Then Mara found something.
"Wait."
She turned her laptop toward us.
A glossy event photograph showed Evelyn at a political fundraiser two years earlier.
Beside her stood a man identified as Daniel Price, founder of Northstar Strategy.
Evelyn's hand rested comfortably on his shoulder.
They were not strangers.
I sent the image to Amelia.
Amelia sent it to Luca's counsel.
Within an hour, Thomas Vail responded with one sentence.
We are investigating.
I hated how much that phrase now frightened me.
At nine, I put the twins to bed in my room.
They thought it was a birthday sleepover.
I let them build a blanket fort because childhood should survive adult ugliness whenever possible.
Leo fell asleep first.
Lia remained awake beside me.
"Mom?"
"Yes?"
"If Luca is our dad, do we have to live with him?"
My chest tightened.
"No."
"Do we have to call him Dad?"
"No."
"Can we if we want?"
I swallowed.
"Someday, if that is what you want and if he earns that relationship."
She considered this seriously.
"How do you earn being a dad?"
I looked at her small face in the dim light.
"By showing up."
"For how long?"
"For as long as the child needs you."
Lia nodded.
"That's a long time."
"Yes."
"Did he show up for you?"
Children did not ask questions with safe edges.
"Not in the end."
She touched my cheek.
"Maybe he can learn."
I kissed her forehead.
"Maybe."
When she fell asleep, I sat on the bedroom floor and cried silently for the version of myself who had once believed love alone made people brave.
At ten thirty, Amelia called.
"Northstar's attorney responded."
"That was fast."
"They are denying unlawful surveillance."
"Who hired them?"
"They will not say without a subpoena."
"So we wait?"
"Not exactly."
I heard paper moving.
"They attached a cease-and-desist demand."
"Against us?"
"Against Moretti Global."
I sat up straighter.
"Why?"
"Because someone from Luca's security team contacted one of their contractors too aggressively."
"Marco?"
"Apparently."
I closed my eyes.
"This is getting out of control."
"It gets worse."
Of course it did.
"Northstar says its client commissioned lawful due diligence related to a potential trust beneficiary."
The words chilled me.
"A trust beneficiary."
"Yes."
"They were investigating my children before Luca knew about them because someone already believed they might be his heirs."
"That is the implication."
I looked at sleeping Leo and Lia.
Bianca had called them control.
Northstar called them beneficiaries.
I was the only person in this entire nightmare who seemed to remember they were children.
"Who had reason to investigate heirs?"
Amelia was silent for a moment.
"Bianca."
"Evelyn."
"The board."
"Anyone connected to the trust."
"Yes."
My phone buzzed with another incoming call.
Unknown number.
I almost ignored it.
Then I answered.
A woman spoke before I could say hello.
"Is this Nia Carter?"
"Who is this?"
"My name is Marianne Holt."
I stood so quickly my knee hit the bed frame.
The former clinic administrator.
The woman whose husband's company had received two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.
"How did you get my number?"
"I have had it for six years."
My heart slammed against my ribs.
"Why are you calling now?"
She began to cry.
"Because I saw Luca Moretti on the news, and I know what his mother did."
I gripped the phone.
"Then tell me."
"Not on a call."
"Why?"
Her voice dropped to a whisper.
"Because Bianca Moretti did not pay me to change one medical report."
I stopped breathing.
"What did she pay you to do?"
Marianne answered with a sentence that made every hair on my arms rise.
May you like
"She paid me to make sure you and Luca never learned the same truth at the same time."
