Chapter 3 - Seven Months of Lies
I did not go home alone.
Not because Luca persuaded me.
Because ten minutes after he told me about the courier record, I received a text message from an unknown number.
You should have stayed gone.
I stared at it.
Luca read my face.
“What happened?”
“Nothing.”
“Isabella.”
I showed him.
Every trace of softness disappeared.
He photographed the screen, forwarded the number to Daniel, then called someone named Marco and instructed him to meet us outside.
“I don’t need security.”
“You just received a threat.”
“It could be spam.”
“It used the word stayed.”
I hated that he was right.
Outside, a black SUV waited.
The sight brought back too many memories.
Luca opening doors for me.
Luca kissing me in the back seat after charity dinners.
Luca promising that no matter how ugly his family’s business history was, our home would never become ugly too.
Some promises died quietly.
Others were murdered.
We drove to my apartment on West Seventy-Fourth Street.
When Luca saw the building, he frowned.
“You live here?”
“Yes.”
“There’s no doorman.”
“I noticed.”
“You’re eight months pregnant.”
“Also noticed.”
“Isabella.”
“Don’t.”
He followed me upstairs anyway.
My apartment was small but mine.
The nursery occupied what should have been the dining room.
Luca stopped in its doorway.
A half-built bookshelf stood beside the wall. Baby clothes were folded in baskets. A secondhand rocking chair sat near the window.
He touched the back of it.
“You did all this yourself?”
“My mother helped.”
He looked ashamed.
“Does she hate me?”
“Yes.”
“Fair.”
That almost made me smile.
Almost.
His gaze landed on an envelope inside a drawer I had left partially open.
I crossed the room quickly.
Too late.
“What’s that?”
“Nothing.”
“Isabella.”
“Stop saying my name like it gives you authority over me.”
“It doesn’t.”
He surprised me.
“It used to. I abused that.”
The anger inside me stumbled.
I opened the drawer.
Inside were the photographs that ended our marriage.
I had not looked at them in months.
Luca took them carefully.
The first showed me entering the Mercer Hotel with Adrian Cole, my college friend and former attorney.
The second showed Adrian’s hand against my back.
The third showed us entering an elevator.
The fourth showed him kissing my forehead.
Luca stared at them.
“I thought you were sleeping with him.”
“I know.”
“Why were you there?”
“My father.”
His head lifted.
“My father had gambled away part of my mother’s retirement savings. Adrian was helping me stop him from taking the rest.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because you hated Adrian.”
“I hated the way he looked at you.”
“He’s gay, Luca.”
Silence.
I almost laughed at his expression.
“You never told me.”
“I tried once. You spent twenty minutes explaining why men don’t become friends with women unless they want something.”
He rubbed his face.
“That sounds like me.”
“It was exhausting being married to you.”
His mouth twitched despite everything.
Then he examined the photographs again.
“Something’s wrong.”
“What?”
He placed two images side by side.
“Your dress.”
I looked.
Same cream dress.
Same coat.
“What about it?”
“This photograph supposedly came first.”
“Yes.”
“But your coat is wet.”
“So?”
“It didn’t rain until after eleven that night.”
I stared at him.
He pointed to another photograph.
“This one supposedly shows you arriving at eight forty.”
My pulse quickened.
“You remember the weather?”
“I remember because I was waiting for you at home.”
That hurt.
He continued.
“These photographs are out of sequence.”
My phone rang.
Adrian.
I hesitated before answering.
“Isa?”
His voice sounded urgent.
“Adrian?”
“Are you alone?”
I looked at Luca.
“No.”
“Who’s there?”
“Luca.”
A long silence.
Then Adrian said, “Good.”
That surprised both of us.
“I need you to listen. Someone broke into my office.”
“When?”
“Last night.”
My blood chilled.
“What did they take?”
“One file.”
Luca moved closer.
“Put him on speaker.”
I did.
Adrian continued.
“The Bennett financial file. The one from the Mercer meeting.”
“Why would anyone want that now?”
“Because it contains security invoices.”
Luca frowned.
“What security invoices?”
“Your wife’s father wasn’t only losing money gambling.”
“My ex-wife,” Luca corrected automatically.
Adrian ignored him.
“He was being paid.”
My stomach tightened.
“Paid by whom?”
“I didn’t know then. The transfers were routed through shell companies.”
“And now?”
“I finally traced one.”
“To whom?”
Adrian exhaled.
“Sinclair Strategic Holdings.”
Vanessa.
I sat down.
My father had taken money from Vanessa?
Why?
Luca’s phone buzzed.
He checked it.
His expression turned lethal.
“Daniel found the divorce papers.”
I looked up.
“What about them?”
“The digital file contains metadata.”
“So?”
“The signature on the version you received wasn’t mine.”
I stared at him.
“What are you saying?”
“Someone copied my signature from an old contract.”
My entire body went cold.
Seven months.
Seven months believing Luca had discarded me.
Seven months believing my daughter had been rejected before she was born.
Seven months waking at night with my hand over my stomach, telling myself I could be enough for both of us.
And none of it had been real.
Then another thought came.
“Luca.”
“What?”
“If Vanessa paid my father…”
He understood.
“She might have paid him to help destroy the marriage.”
My phone buzzed again.
This time the message contained a photograph.
It showed me and Luca standing inside my apartment.
Taken through the window.
Below it were six words.
You were warned to stay gone.
Luca looked toward the glass.
May you like
Then he grabbed me and pulled me away from the window.
A second later, the nursery window shattered.
