For the first time in my life, I entered the Moretti estate as a guest who hated being there.
Luca insisted my apartment was no longer safe.
My mother agreed.
Dana agreed.
The police agreed.
I was outnumbered.
So at one in the morning, two sleepy children, three suitcases, my mother, and I passed through iron gates into a property I had seen only in magazines.
Evelyn's house.
Technically Luca's.
But every room carried her taste.
Gray marble.
Modern paintings.
Perfect furniture no child had ever spilled juice on.
Amara stepped into the foyer and whispered, "Whoa."
Eli looked around.
"Do you have ghosts?"
Luca almost smiled.
"No."
"Are you sure?"
"Fairly."
"That's what people in haunted houses always say."
Despite everything, I laughed.
Luca looked at me.
For one second, the fear disappeared.
Then he remembered why we were there.
He showed the twins to guest rooms near mine.
Amara refused to sleep alone.
Eli claimed he wasn't scared and then asked whether the hallway light could stay on.
Eventually, both ended up in my bed.
At four in the morning, I woke.
Luca stood outside on the terrace.
I could see him through the glass.
I found a robe and stepped out.
"It's freezing."
"I know."
"What are you doing?"
"Thinking."
"Dangerous hobby."
He gave a tired smile.
I leaned against the railing.
Chicago's lights stretched in the distance.
For several minutes, neither of us spoke.
Then Luca said, "I loved you."
I stared ahead.
"Past tense?"
"I don't know what tense I'm allowed to use."
My heart reacted before my brain could stop it.
"Don't."
"I'm not asking for anything."
"Then why say it?"
"Because I spent six years pretending the divorce happened because we stopped loving each other."
He looked at me.
"It didn't."
"No."
"It happened because I stopped trusting what I felt and started trusting what I feared."
I wrapped the robe tighter.
"You still made the choice."
"Yes."
"No one forged the divorce papers."
"I know."
"No one forced you to look me in the face and say you didn't love me."
His jaw tightened.
"I know."
"Did you mean it?"
That was the question I had never asked.
He turned toward me.
"No."
My chest tightened.
"Then why say it?"
"Because I knew if I told you the truth, you'd try to save us."
"What truth?"
He looked away.
"That I thought I couldn't give you children."
I stared at him.
"I believed you would spend your entire life pretending it didn't matter."
"So you decided for me."
"Yes."
"You thought abandoning me was noble?"
"No."
"Then what?"
"Cowardly."
He gave a humorless laugh.
"I knew how much you wanted to be a mother. I thought you'd eventually hate me."
"Instead you made sure I hated myself."
His eyes closed.
"I know."
Tears burned behind my eyes.
"You watched me go to appointments."
"I know."
"I took injections that made me sick."
"I remember."
"I stopped eating properly because I was terrified my body was failing."
"Nia."
His voice cracked.
"I know."
"You should have told me."
"Yes."
"Why didn't you?"
"Because my father raised me to believe Moretti men don't fail."
There it was.
The part of Luca I had known but never fully understood.
His father, Alessandro Moretti, had built the family's first fortune.
He had also treated emotion as weakness and imperfection as humiliation.
Luca had spent his entire childhood trying to earn approval from a man who gave affection like a quarterly bonus.
"Then the second report came," Luca continued. "The altered one. It said my numbers were normal."
"And mine weren't."
"Yes."
"You were relieved."
His face showed immediate shame.
"For maybe ten seconds."
That hurt.
"But then I watched you blaming yourself. I should have questioned everything."
"Why didn't you?"
"Because the report solved the thing I was most ashamed of."
I understood.
Not forgave.
But understood.
He wanted to believe the report because it protected his pride.
Evelyn had known exactly where to strike.
"She knew you," I whispered.
"She knew the worst parts of me."
"No."
I shook my head.
"She knew the parts you were hiding."
His eyes found mine.
"There's a difference."
For a moment, we were no longer enemies.
Just two people standing in the wreckage of choices we wished we could change.
"Luca."
"Yes?"
"Did you love Evelyn?"
He was silent.
"I cared for her."
"That's not an answer."
"I thought I loved the life we had."
"What life?"
"Predictable. Controlled. Efficient."
I laughed softly.
"Romantic."
"No."
A faint smile.
"It wasn't."
"Then why marry her?"
"Because nothing with her could hurt me the way losing you did."
That sentence landed somewhere I had locked years ago.
I stepped backward.
"You can't say things like that."
"Why?"
"Because I spent years surviving what you did."
"I know."
"I built a life."
"I know."
"You don't get to suddenly become human and make me remember why I loved you."
His face softened.
"Then don't remember."
I stared at him.
"I'll remember enough for both of us."
I left him on the terrace.
The next morning brought another surprise.
Evelyn had disappeared.
Her attorneys couldn't reach her.
Her hotel room was empty.
Her company phone was abandoned.
Her passport, however, had been used.
"Landed in Toronto at six twelve," Luca's security director told us.
"Can police stop her?" I asked.
"Not without charges."
"And there aren't charges?"
"Not yet."
The word enraged me.
"She admits intercepting a pregnancy email, altered medical records, stole millions, and threatened my children, but somehow we're waiting?"
Dana intervened.
"The threat can't yet be tied directly to her."
"But we know."
"Knowing and proving are different."
Luca stood near the window.
"Then we prove it."
By afternoon, his team found something unexpected.
The shell-company transactions didn't stop with the fertility clinic.
One company had paid a private investigator.
For years.
He had followed me.
My hands went numb when Luca showed me the records.
"What do you mean followed me?"
"Photographs. Addresses. Employment records."
"Since when?"
"Since shortly after the divorce."
My stomach dropped.
"She knew where I was?"
"Yes."
"While I was pregnant?"
"Yes."
"After the twins were born?"
His silence answered.
I stood.
"She knew."
"Nia."
"She knew they existed."
"Yes."
"And she knew they were probably yours."
"Yes."
I could barely breathe.
"Then why keep watching me?"
Luca's security director answered.
"To see whether you contacted Mr. Moretti."
Every time I changed jobs.
Every birthday.
Every doctor's visit.
Every preschool.
Evelyn had known.
I felt violated in ways I couldn't describe.
Then they found a photograph.
Taken outside the hospital.
The day Eli and Amara were born.
I was being wheeled toward a waiting car.
My mother carried two infant seats.
Behind us, snow covered the sidewalk.
On the back of the printed photograph, someone had written:
Twins confirmed. No contact with LM.
I handed the photo to Luca.
He stared at it.
Then sat down.
His shoulders shook once.
I had never seen Luca cry.
Not at his father's funeral.
Not during our divorce.
Not yesterday.
Now tears slid silently down his face as he looked at a photograph of the day his children were born.
"They were so small."
I swallowed.
"Eli was five pounds four ounces."
He touched the photograph.
"And Amara?"
"Five pounds one."
"Were they healthy?"
"Mostly. Eli had breathing problems for the first day."
His eyes closed.
"Was he in intensive care?"
"For twelve hours."
"And you were alone?"
"My mother was there."
"That's not what I asked."
I couldn't answer.
Because yes.
I had been alone.
The father of my children had been thousands of miles away, unaware that his son was struggling to breathe.
Luca looked destroyed.
"I would have come."
I believed him.
That was the worst part.
"I know."
He looked up sharply.
It was the first time I had said it.
Three hours later, the security director rushed into the room.
"We found Evelyn."
"Toronto?"
"No."
He placed a tablet on the table.
Security footage showed Evelyn entering a private aviation terminal.
"Where is she going?"
"Flight plan was filed for Nassau."
Dana frowned.
"Bahamas?"
"Yes."
Luca's face hardened.
"Why?"
The director opened another document.
"Because one of the shell companies has an account there."
Thirty-seven million dollars.
The missing money.
Evelyn wasn't running because she was ashamed.
She was running because evidence was closing in.
But before anyone could move, my phone rang.
Unknown number.
I answered.
"Hello?"
Silence.
Then Evelyn's voice.
"Nia."
My blood froze.
"Luca is tracing this call," I said immediately.
"He can try."
"What do you want?"
"To give you some advice."
"I've had enough of your advice for a lifetime."
"You should take the children and leave."
"Why?"
"Because Luca destroys everything he loves."
I looked at him.
He could hear her through the speaker.
"Is that what you told yourself when you stole his life?"
Her voice sharpened.
"I saved him."
"From what?"
"From you."
I almost laughed.
"You really believe that?"
"You made him weak."
"No, Evelyn."
I looked directly at Luca.
"I made him loved."
Silence.
Then she whispered something that made Luca's face change.
"You still don't understand."
"What?"
"The twins weren't the first secret I kept from him."
The line went dead.
Luca stared at the phone.
"What did she mean?"
I didn't know.
But judging by the fear in his eyes, Luca had just realized Evelyn might have stolen something from him long before she ever stole us.