Chapter 5 - The Mistress at the Gate
I should have hated Vanessa.
Part of me did.
I could still see her standing beside my husband in the hospital corridor.
One manicured hand curled around his arm.
Her lips swollen from kissing him.
Her expression almost pitying when Daniel chose her over his wife and newborn daughter.
I had imagined slapping her.
Screaming at her.
Asking how long she had been sleeping with him.
Instead, twelve hours after giving birth, I watched her tremble outside Luka Moretti’s gate in the middle of the night.
“Don’t let her in.”
The words came out before I could think.
Luka looked at me.
“She may have information.”
“She slept with my husband.”
“That can be true and she can still have information.”
“I don’t care.”
“You will if it protects Isabella.”
I hated that he used my daughter’s name.
“Who told you her name?”
“You did.”
I had forgotten.
My mind felt shredded.
Rafael zoomed the camera.
Vanessa glanced repeatedly behind her.
“She’s scared.”
“Maybe she should be.”
Luka looked at me.
I immediately regretted how cruel that sounded.
Not because I forgave her.
Because I didn’t like who Daniel’s betrayal was turning me into.
“Bring her to the garage.”
Luka nodded.
“Rafael.”
The gate opened.
Vanessa stumbled through.
Three minutes later, she entered the mudroom wrapped in a blanket.
The moment she saw me, she stopped.
“Sofia.”
“Don’t.”
Her eyes filled.
“I’m sorry.”
“I said don’t.”
She lowered her head.
Luka stayed between us.
Good.
Because I wasn’t certain postpartum hormones and moral restraint were a reliable combination.
Vanessa looked toward Isabella sleeping in the portable bassinet.
Something painful crossed her face.
“She’s beautiful.”
“You don’t get to talk about her.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
I stood.
Every muscle protested.
“Because six hours ago you walked out of the hospital with her father.”
Vanessa flinched.
“I didn’t know he was going to leave you.”
“You were holding his hand.”
“I know.”
“You kissed him.”
Her face reddened.
“I know.”
“How long?”
“Sofia.”
“How long have you been sleeping with my husband?”
Vanessa looked at Luka.
He gave her no rescue.
“Eight months.”
The number cut through me.
Eight months.
Nearly my entire pregnancy.
I sat again because my legs stopped cooperating.
Vanessa wiped her face.
“It started after Daniel told me your marriage was ending.”
I laughed bitterly.
“Of course.”
“He said you were only staying together until after the baby was born.”
“We decorated a nursery three weeks ago.”
“I know that now.”
“You worked with him.”
“Yes.”
“Every day.”
“Yes.”
“You attended my baby shower.”
Vanessa looked ashamed.
“Yes.”
“You bought Isabella a blanket.”
Her face collapsed.
“I’m sorry.”
I remembered the pale yellow blanket.
Little embroidered stars.
Vanessa had hugged me at the shower.
She had said Daniel couldn’t stop talking about becoming a father.
I wanted to vomit.
“Why are you here?”
I asked.
Her expression changed.
Fear returned.
“Because Daniel is going to take her.”
“No.”
“He already filed something.”
Luka stepped closer.
“What?”
“Emergency guardianship.”
“He isn’t the legal father.”
“He was until tonight.”
Vanessa looked at me.
“Then somebody sent him a picture of that birth certificate.”
My stomach tightened.
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why did he care?”
“Because Luka’s name changes something.”
Luka’s eyes sharpened.
“What?”
“The trust.”
Silence.
“What trust?”
I asked.
Vanessa stared at Luka.
“You don’t know?”
“No.”
“That’s impossible.”
“Tell us.”
She hugged the blanket tighter around herself.
“Daniel said the entire marriage depended on being Isabella’s legal father when she was born.”
My skin turned cold.
“He used her name?”
“No.”
“He called her the child.”
Something inside me broke a little more.
“What marriage depends on a child’s legal father?”
Vanessa looked miserable.
“Yours.”
Luka pulled out a chair.
“Start at the beginning.”
Vanessa sat.
“I work in corporate compliance at Cross Biomedical.”
“I thought you were Daniel’s executive assistant.”
“That’s what most people think.”
“What does compliance have to do with this?”
“About nine months ago, Daniel asked me to audit a set of old trust documents.”
My pulse quickened.
“What documents?”
“Bennett-Moretti Meridian Holdings.”
Luka swore softly.
“You know it?”
“I know the name.”
Vanessa stared at him.
“Then you know how much it controls.”
“No.”
She looked almost disbelieving.
“Thirty-eight percent of Meridian Diagnostics.”
“Meridian doesn’t exist.”
“The original company doesn’t.”
She shook her head.
“The intellectual property and real estate were reorganized into several holding companies after Gabriel Bennett died.”
“How much?”
I asked.
Vanessa looked at me.
“Current estimated value?”
“Yes.”
“Just over six hundred million dollars.”
I laughed.
I genuinely laughed.
It was either laugh or scream.
“My father left me twelve thousand dollars and a Honda Civic.”
Vanessa looked at Luka.
“He left her nothing?”
“Not directly.”
“What does that mean?”
Luka’s eyes were on me.
“Your father’s shares disappeared into a dormant trust.”
“And you forgot to mention six hundred million dollars?”
“I didn’t know the current value.”
“That is not the important part of that sentence.”
Vanessa continued.
“The trust has an activation clause.”
“What clause?”
“A Bennett female heir has to have a living child.”
I looked at Isabella.
“And?”
“The child’s biological father must be a Moretti-line male.”
Nobody moved.
My eyes slowly turned toward Luka.
His face had become stone.
“No.”
I whispered.
Vanessa nodded.
“That is what Daniel found.”
I looked at Isabella.
Then at Luka.
Then back to Vanessa.
“You’re saying my father created a trust that gives money to a baby I have with a Moretti?”
“No.”
Vanessa shook her head.
“The trust was created by Gabriel Bennett and Carlo Moretti together.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“Who controls it?”
“If the clause activates, the child does.”
“She’s a newborn.”
“Through an independent fiduciary until she’s thirty.”
“Who is the fiduciary?”
Vanessa looked at Luka.
He visibly stiffened.
“No.”
She nodded.
“Luka Moretti.”
My breath disappeared.
Luka stood abruptly.
“I never agreed to that.”
“The document is twenty-one years old.”
“I was nineteen.”
“Carlo named you.”
“My father was already dead.”
“The amendment was signed six months before his death.”
Luka turned away.
For the first time, I understood that some of this was happening to him too.
“What did Daniel want?”
I asked.
Vanessa looked at me.
“To be legally recognized as the baby’s father.”
“Why, if the biological father had to be a Moretti?”
“Because of the spouse-control provision.”
“What does that mean?”
“If the Bennett mother is married at the time of birth, her legal spouse can petition to become co-fiduciary if he is listed as the child’s legal father.”
I felt physically ill.
Daniel knew.
The prenatal test.
The birth certificate.
The psychiatric transfer.
He intended to have me declared unstable.
Then he would become the legal father and co-fiduciary.
If I was institutionalized, he could control Isabella.
And through her, potentially hundreds of millions.
“He didn’t abandon me.”
I whispered.
Luka looked at me.
“No.”
“He staged it.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“To make witnesses think you were emotionally unstable after a marital crisis.”
Vanessa began crying.
“I didn’t know.”
I looked at her.
“You knew something.”
“I knew he wanted out of the marriage.”
“You helped him humiliate me.”
“Yes.”
Her answer was quiet.
“I did.”
She didn’t excuse it.
That was almost worse.
“I thought I was stealing a man.”
Vanessa wiped her face.
“I didn’t know I was helping him steal a baby.”
My anger did not disappear.
But it changed shape.
“Why did you leave him tonight?”
Vanessa looked toward the gate monitor.
“Because after we left the hospital, he received a phone call.”
“From who?”
“Adrian.”
Daniel’s father.
“What did he say?”
“I could only hear Daniel’s side.”
“What did he say?”
Vanessa swallowed.
“He said, ‘Moretti signed it himself.’”
Luka’s face hardened.
“Then?”
“He said, ‘If the DNA is confirmed, we lose control.’”
My heart pounded.
“And then?”
Vanessa looked directly at me.
“He asked his father what they were supposed to do with you.”
I almost couldn’t speak.
“What did Adrian say?”
“I heard that part.”
Her voice shook.
“He was on speaker.”
“What did he say?”
Vanessa closed her eyes.
“Move the mother before sunrise.”
Silence.
“And the baby?”
Vanessa opened her eyes.
“Adrian said the baby had to stay.”
I held Isabella closer.
Luka turned to Rafael.
“Full lockdown.”
Rafael moved.
Vanessa grabbed Luka’s sleeve.
“There’s more.”
He looked at her.
“Daniel knows about Vault 17.”
My heart stopped.
“How?”
“I don’t know.”
“He left twenty minutes before I did.”
“Where was he going?”
“He told the driver Boston Harbor.”
The coordinates from my father’s letter.
Luka grabbed his coat.
I stood.
“You aren’t leaving me.”
“You just gave birth.”
“And the last time I stayed behind while a man made decisions for me, I ended up married to Daniel.”
“Sofia.”
“I’m going.”
“No.”
I stepped close enough that I had to look up at him.
“You don’t get to sign the father line and then tell me to sit quietly while you find out why.”
Luka stared at me.
Rafael returned.
“Vehicle approaching.”
Everyone froze.
“Daniel?”
Luka asked.
Rafael shook his head.
“No license plate.”
The monitor showed a black sedan stopping outside the gate.
A driver stepped out.
He placed something on the ground.
Then returned to the car and drove away.
“What did he leave?”
I asked.
Rafael zoomed in.
A small cardboard box.
Luka and Rafael exchanged a look.
Nobody wanted to open it.
Ten minutes later, Rafael brought it inside after checking it.
There was no explosive.
No electronic device.
Just a box.
Luka opened it.
Inside was a hospital identification bracelet.
Old.
Faded.
The printed patient name had nearly disappeared.
But I could still read it.
GABRIEL BENNETT.
My hands shook.
Beneath the bracelet was a photograph.
My father.
Alive.
In a hospital bed.
A newspaper sat beside him.
The date on the newspaper was six weeks after his funeral.
On the back of the photograph, somebody had written:
HE SURVIVED THE CRASH.
May you like
Below it was one more sentence.
ASK LUKA WHY HE STOPPED LOOKING.
