Chapter 4 - The Woman Who Planned Everything
Luca covered me with his body before the glass finished falling.
I heard shouting in the hallway.
Marco rushed inside.
“Sir!”
“Get her away from the windows.”
My ears rang.
My daughter kicked violently.
“I’m okay.”
Luca’s hands moved over my shoulders.
“Are you hurt?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes!”
He looked terrified.
Not angry.
Terrified.
That affected me more than the shattered glass.
Marco inspected the nursery.
“No bullet.”
“What?”
He lifted a small steel object from the floor with a handkerchief.
“A ball bearing. Fired from something pneumatic, probably from the building across the street.”
A warning.
Not an assassination attempt.
Someone wanted fear.
Luca’s face became frighteningly calm.
“We’re leaving.”
“I’m not going to your townhouse.”
“No.”
That surprised me.
“You’re going somewhere Vanessa doesn’t know.”
Two hours later, we arrived at a private residence in Westchester belonging to Luca’s aunt Sofia.
She hugged me before I could object.
Then she slapped Luca.
Hard.
I stared.
“So you finally found your wife.”
“Aunt Sofia—”
“Seven months!”
“I know.”
“She was pregnant!”
“I didn’t know.”
Sofia prepared to hit him again.
I caught her wrist.
“He really didn’t.”
Her expression changed.
That evening, Daniel arrived carrying three laptops and enough documents to bury the dining table.
The evidence was ugly.
Vanessa had served as communications director for Moretti Capital for four years. She had administrative access to Luca’s calendar and temporary access to his executive email whenever he traveled.
She knew our routines.
She knew our arguments.
She knew Luca’s jealousy about Adrian.
She knew my father was desperate for money.
“She didn’t create the cracks,” I whispered.
Luca sat opposite me.
“No.”
“She found them.”
“And widened them.”
Daniel slid a document toward us.
“Robert Bennett received six payments totaling $240,000.”
My father.
I stared at his name.
“What did he do for her?”
“We’re still determining that.”
Luca’s jaw tightened.
“I’ll find him.”
“No.”
He looked at me.
“I will.”
“He’s my father.”
“He sold you.”
“You don’t know that yet.”
A voice came from the doorway.
“Yes, he did.”
I turned.
My mother stood there.
“Mom?”
She looked older than she had that morning.
In her hand was a small flash drive.
“I should have told you months ago.”
My heart sank.
“Told me what?”
She sat beside me.
“Your father came to me after you left Luca. He was drunk. He said he had done something unforgivable.”
“What?”
“He said a woman paid him to convince you Luca was investigating Adrian.”
I remembered.
My father had called me three days before the Mercer meeting.
He claimed Luca had hired someone to follow me.
That was why I had kept the meeting secret.
I felt sick.
“He manipulated me.”
My mother nodded tearfully.
“He thought Vanessa only wanted you and Luca separated temporarily. He claimed she told him she wanted leverage in some business negotiation.”
“And you believed that?”
“No. But by the time he confessed, you were already divorced.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because he threatened to kill himself if I did.”
Silence.
My anger burned slowly.
My mother placed the flash drive on the table.
“He disappeared this morning. But he left this.”
Daniel inserted it into his laptop.
One audio file.
We listened.
My father’s voice filled the room.
“If Isabella hears this, I’m sorry. Vanessa Sinclair approached me eleven months ago. She knew about my debts. She offered to clear them if I helped create circumstances that would make Luca suspicious of Adrian Cole. I agreed. I thought it would end there.”
He coughed.
“It didn’t.”
The recording continued.
“She needed photographs. Hotel schedules. Access to Isabella’s phone. Later she asked me for something else.”
Pause.
“She wanted Isabella’s medical information.”
My hand flew to my belly.
Luca stood abruptly.
The recording continued.
“I refused. That’s when I realized this wasn’t about Luca.”
The room became silent.
“She was interested in Isabella.”
I stared at the laptop.
Why me?
Then my father said something none of us expected.
“Vanessa believes Isabella inherited something from her grandfather. Something worth far more than Luca Moretti’s company.”
The recording ended.
Daniel looked at me.
Luca looked equally confused.
“My grandfather was a schoolteacher.”
My mother shook her head.
“No.”
I turned toward her.
She was crying.
“Your grandfather was not your biological grandfather.”
“What?”
“There’s something I never told you.”
Before she could continue, Luca’s phone rang.
Marco.
Luca answered.
“What?”
His face changed.
“Where?”
He listened.
Then looked at me.
“They found your father.”
My mother stood.
“Is he alive?”
Luca didn’t answer immediately.
That told me enough.
But then he said something stranger.
“He’s alive.”
Relief rushed through me.
“Then what’s wrong?”
“He wasn’t alone.”
May you like
Luca slowly lowered the phone.
“Vanessa was with him.”
