Chapter 4 - The Saboteur in the Shadows
By the next morning, the fragile peace of my life had completely shattered.
When I opened my front door to grab the morning paper, a towering man in a dark suit was standing quietly on the sidewalk. It was Gabe, Luca’s head of personal security, a man I remembered well from my days as Mrs. Moretti.
"Good morning, Mrs. Moretti—pardon me, Ms. Carter," Gabe said respectfully, tipping his hat. "Mr. Moretti requested that I ensure your home security system is fully updated and that two officers remain on the perimeter. He wants to ensure no press bothers you or the children."
"Tell Luca I don't need his bodyguards, Gabe," I said, exasperated.
"With respect, ma'am," Gabe replied smoothly, "the press has already caught wind that Mr. Moretti spent three hours outside your house last night. By noon, Chicago's tabloids will be asking questions. Mr. Moretti’s priority is protecting the children."
I closed the door, my mind spinning.
Inside the kitchen, Leo and Maya were eating pancakes. Maya was busy spreading strawberry jam on her toast, while Leo looked up at me with his sharp, analytical gaze—a gaze so unnervingly like Luca’s it made my heart ache.
"Mommy," Leo said, setting his fork down. "Is that man from the restaurant coming back?"
I sat down beside him, smoothing his dark hair. "Why do you ask, Leo?"
"Because he looked at us like he knew us," Leo said quietly. "And he was wearing the same watch as the man in the picture in your desk drawer."
I froze. I had kept one single photo from my past hidden in my locked desk drawer—a picture of Luca and me on our honeymoons in Lake Como. I thought I had hidden it well, but children have an uncanny ability to find the exact things you try to conceal.
Before I could answer, my phone rang. It was Robert Vance—not my lawyer, but Luca’s personal executive assistant, who had been loyal to our family for a decade.
"Nia," Robert’s voice was tense, speaking in a low, rushed tone. "I’m calling you from my private cell. You need to know what’s happening at Moretti Global right now."
"Robert? What's going on?"
"Luca just called an emergency board meeting for ten o'clock," Robert revealed. "And Evelyn’s father, Richard Shaw, is trying to block it. Nia... something happened six years ago before your divorce. Something you never knew about."
My grip tightened on the phone. "What are you talking about?"
"Six years ago, when you were going to Dr. Harrison’s fertility clinic in Gold Coast... do you remember the nurse who handed Luca those private consultation reports?"
"Yes," I murmured, memory pulling me back into that dark time. "Nurse Sarah."
"She didn't work for the clinic, Nia," Robert dropped the bomb. "She was on the payroll of Shaw Enterprises. Evelyn’s father paid her $200,000 to alter your fertility files and subtly suggest to Luca that you were secretly taking birth control while pretending to try for a baby."
A cold, horrifying shock wave rushed through my veins.
"What?" I gasped, holding my hand over my mouth so the children wouldn't hear.
"They poisoned his mind, Nia," Robert explained sadly. "They knew Luca’s greatest desire was to have a family to carry on the Moretti legacy. They made him believe you were betraying him. Three months after your divorce, Richard Shaw proposed a merger between Shaw Enterprises and Moretti Global, with Evelyn as the bridge."
"Luca believed them?" I whispered, tears of anger rising in my throat.
"Luca was devastated, arrogant, and blinded by pain," Robert said. "He never verified the nurse's background because he trusted Dr. Harrison's clinic. But this morning, after seeing the twins, Luca ordered Gabe to pull every record from that clinic. They found the offshore payments to Nurse Sarah two hours ago."
I sat in my kitchen, stunned into silence.
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The divorce that had destroyed my heart, the years of pain, the quiet tears I had cried alone in the middle of the night—it hadn't just been a failure of love. It had been a calculated execution by the family now married into Luca’s life.
And Luca was currently walking into a boardroom filled with the very people who had orchestrated it.
