Chapter 4 - THE PHOTOGRAPHS
Michael arrived with a locked document case and the expression of a man carrying something explosive.
The twins were in the bedroom watching a movie by then.
I hated that my first instinct was to close their door.
Secrets had already done enough damage in this family.
But six-year-olds did not need to see surveillance photographs of their mother pregnant with them.
Michael set the case on my coffee table.
"The investigator is named Frank Delaney."
Luca stood by the window with his arms folded.
"I know the name."
"You should."
Michael entered a code and opened the case.
"He has done corporate background work for Moretti companies for almost fifteen years."
Evelyn sat near the fireplace.
"And he followed me too."
"Yes."
Michael removed three folders.
One had my name.
One had Evelyn's.
The third had Luca's.
Luca stared at it.
"She investigated me?"
Michael's mouth tightened.
"Apparently your mother believes privacy is a weakness other people have."
He handed Luca the folder.
Luca did not open it.
"Nia first."
I wished he had not said my name like that.
Protective.
Careful.
Familiar.
I had spent six years training myself not to react to that tone.
Michael opened my file.
The first photograph showed me leaving the urgent care clinic the day I learned I was pregnant.
I recognized the gray coat.
I recognized Ava beside me.
I recognized the stunned expression on my own face.
Someone had photographed the moment my world changed.
My stomach turned.
"She knew that day."
Michael shook his head.
"The report says the investigator did not know why you were at the clinic."
He turned the page.
The next image showed me entering an obstetric office two weeks later.
The report beneath it contained one line.
Subject may be pregnant.
Luca stopped breathing.
Michael turned another page.
A photograph showed me leaving with ultrasound images in my hand.
The report was more direct.
Subject confirmed pregnant.
Luca stepped away from the table.
His face went colorless.
"Date."
Michael read it.
"April seventeenth."
Luca laughed once.
It was not a sane sound.
"April seventeenth."
He looked at me.
"I was in Milan that day."
I remembered.
The photographs of him at an acquisition summit had been everywhere online.
"I called my mother from Milan that night."
No one spoke.
Luca stared at the photo of me holding the ultrasound picture.
"She asked if I had spoken to you."
My skin prickled.
"What did you say?"
"I said no."
His voice broke.
"She told me that was for the best."
Evelyn looked away.
I pressed my fingers against my mouth.
Michael turned another page.
The investigator had photographed my growing belly outside a grocery store.
Then outside Ava's house.
Then walking beside the lake.
There were dates.
Times.
Notes.
Subject appears approximately twenty weeks pregnant.
Subject purchased two infant car seats.
Subject attended ultrasound appointment with female friend.
Then came the line that made Luca sit down.
Twin pregnancy suspected.
He stared at it for a long time.
"She knew there were two."
Michael said nothing.
Luca lifted his head.
"Did Delaney report directly to her?"
"Yes."
"Every time?"
"His invoices were sent to her assistant and approved through the family office."
"And no one told me."
Michael shook his head.
Luca looked at me.
"I am sorry."
Anger flashed through me.
"Do not apologize for her."
"I am not."
"Then stop saying sorry every time you discover another piece of my life your family watched from a distance."
He swallowed.
"What do you want me to say?"
"Nothing."
I hated how sharp my voice sounded.
"For once, just sit with what happened without expecting me to help you survive it."
He nodded.
That hurt too.
Michael continued.
"There is more."
I almost laughed.
"Of course there is."
He opened another packet.
The photographs stopped two months before the twins were born.
"Why did the surveillance stop?"
"It did not."
Michael slid forward a second set of invoices.
"Delaney subcontracted the maternity period to another investigator because he took a federal case out of state."
I felt sick.
"So someone watched the hospital too?"
"Yes."
Luca stood.
"Who?"
"A woman named Claire Benton."
Evelyn frowned.
"I know that name."
We all looked at her.
"From where?"
"She worked security at our wedding."
The room went silent.
Michael's expression hardened.
"That is not the only place."
He handed her a photograph.
It showed Evelyn leaving a fertility clinic three years earlier.
Claire Benton was visible in a car mirror across the street.
Evelyn's face went white.
"She was watching me."
"Yes."
Luca took the photo.
His hands shook.
"My mother had both of you followed."
"And you," Michael reminded him.
Luca finally opened his own folder.
The first reports tracked his meetings.
Business dinners.
Travel.
Visits to fertility specialists.
One report was dated only six weeks earlier.
Luca read it twice.
Then handed it to me.
The investigator had followed him to the Manhattan specialist.
Veronica knew he was retesting his fertility before he came back to Chicago.
"She knew you were questioning the old diagnosis."
"Yes."
"Then she knew the lie might collapse."
"Yes."
Michael leaned forward.
"Which may explain why Daniel Mercer disappeared from his last known address two weeks ago."
I stared at him.
"Two weeks?"
"Not six years ago."
"So he was still living openly until Luca started asking questions."
"Correct."
Luca's face became cold.
"Did Delaney follow Mercer?"
"No record of it."
"Then find out who did."
Michael nodded.
My phone buzzed.
This time it was Ava.
I answered immediately.
"Hey."
Her voice was tense.
"Nia, are you home?"
"Yes."
"Are the kids with you?"
Every muscle in my body tightened.
"Yes. Why?"
"Someone came to my office asking questions about you."
Luca looked at me.
I put the call on speaker.
"What kind of questions?"
"When you found out you were pregnant."
Michael swore quietly.
Ava continued.
"Whether you ever considered contacting Luca."
My stomach turned.
"Who asked?"
"A woman. Late fifties. Expensive coat. Very polished."
Evelyn and I looked at each other.
"Veronica?"
"I have only seen pictures, but yes, I think so."
Luca went completely still.
"She came to you personally?"
"Is that Luca?"
"Yes."
Ava exhaled.
"Well, your mother is terrifying."
Despite everything, Michael almost smiled.
"What did she want?" Luca asked.
"She wanted to know whether Nia had ever talked about using the twins to get back into the Moretti family."
My face burned with anger.
"She said that?"
"Almost exactly."
"What did you tell her?"
"I told her you spent half your pregnancy terrified Luca would come back out of obligation, so no, you were not planning a billionaire baby trap."
Evelyn's eyebrows rose.
Ava continued.
"Then she asked whether I had copies of your old messages."
"Why?"
"I asked her the same thing."
"What did she say?"
"She said there may be a custody dispute."
My blood went cold.
Luca's head snapped up.
"There will not be."
Ava paused.
"She seemed very sure there would."
The call ended ten minutes later.
I turned to Luca.
"Is she going to try to take my children?"
"No."
"You cannot promise that."
"I can promise I will not help her."
"You do not control what she files."
"No, but she has no parental standing."
Michael spoke carefully.
"Nia, I need you to hear this without panicking."
"That is never followed by good news."
"Veronica cannot simply file for custody of children she has never parented."
"But?"
He hesitated.
"But Luca can establish paternity."
I looked at Luca.
"And then what?"
Michael answered.
"Then a court can create a parenting plan."
The room went cold.
I stared at Luca.
"Is that what you are planning?"
"Not without talking to you."
"That was not my question."
His jaw tightened.
"I want to be their father."
"Biology already did that."
"I want to be in their lives."
"At what cost?"
Pain moved across his face.
"I do not know yet."
"That is honest at least."
Michael interrupted.
"There is another reason paternity matters."
I looked at him.
"The trust."
"Yes."
Luca turned toward him.
"Do not."
Michael ignored him.
"The sooner paternity is legally recognized, the sooner Veronica loses part of the proxy power that may be motivating this."
I laughed in disbelief.
"So the legal system wants me to decide whether my children need a father or a corporate defense strategy."
"That is not what I said."
"It is exactly what this feels like."
I walked to the window.
Below us, traffic moved normally.
People crossed streets.
A delivery truck double-parked.
The world continued while my children's identities became a legal trigger worth billions.
Luca came closer but stopped several feet away.
"I will not file anything today."
I looked at him.
"Tomorrow?"
"Not without telling you."
"That still is not the same thing."
"No."
His honesty was maddening.
Michael's phone rang.
He checked it and stepped into the kitchen.
Thirty seconds later, he came back with a face that made every conversation stop.
"We found Daniel Mercer."
Luca moved first.
"Where?"
"Wisconsin."
"Alive?"
"Yes."
I realized I had been holding my breath.
"Then why did he disappear?"
Michael looked at me.
"Because three days ago someone broke into his house."
Luca's expression hardened.
"What did they take?"
"Nothing obvious."
"Then what were they looking for?"
Michael swallowed.
"Mercer says he kept a copy of every altered medical file he was paid to process."
Evelyn stood.
"Every file?"
"Yes."
"Including ours?"
"He says there were nine women."
The room went silent.
Nine.
Not one wife.
Not two wives.
Nine women.
May you like
And suddenly Veronica Moretti's lie no longer looked like a private family betrayal.
It looked like a system.
