Chapter 2 - The Woman Who Refused to Come Home
By the time Alexander Moretti realized his wife wasn't coming home, I had already changed the locks on a house he didn't know I owned.
It was 1:17 in the morning.
Rain streaked the windows of my family's private residence overlooking Lake Michigan. I sat on the edge of an unfamiliar bed, still wearing the evening gown in which my marriage had ended.
My phone had vibrated forty-three times.
Thirty-one calls from Alexander.
Seven from his chief of security.
Five from numbers I didn't recognize.
I turned the phone facedown.
Across the room, my attorney, Daniel Whitmore, closed his laptop.
“Claire, I need you to understand something.”
I looked up.
“Alexander isn't going to accept this quietly.”
“I didn't marry him because he was quiet.”
Daniel sighed.
“Your husband has powerful friends. He also has an extraordinary amount of money tied up in companies you helped establish.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
His expression changed.
“Because I spent the last two hours reviewing the financial records you sent me.”
I straightened.
“What did you find?”
Daniel hesitated.
“Before we discuss that, tell me something. Did Alexander ever ask you to sign documents concerning the Bennett family trust?”
The question unsettled me.
“My father transferred certain voting rights into a marital investment structure after our wedding. Alexander said it would simplify our business arrangements.”
“Did you read those documents?”
“Of course.”
“Did you read the amendments filed eighteen months later?”
My stomach tightened.
“What amendments?”
Daniel turned his laptop toward me.
There, beneath the name Moretti Strategic Holdings, was an authorization bearing my signature.
Except I had never signed it.
I leaned closer.
“That isn't mine.”
“Are you certain?”
“Daniel.”
He studied my face.
Then he nodded.
“That's what I was afraid of.”
Before he could explain, the security intercom sounded.
A man's voice came through.
“Mrs. Moretti, your husband is at the gate.”
I closed my eyes.
Of course he was.
“Tell him to leave.”
A pause.
“He says he won't.”
Daniel stood.
“I'll handle it.”
“No.”
I rose carefully, one hand supporting my belly.
“I will.”
The security monitor showed Alexander standing outside the iron gates, rain soaking his expensive suit.
His dark hair was plastered against his forehead.
He looked nothing like the composed man who had placed a diamond necklace around another woman's throat hours earlier.
He looked furious.
And frightened.
I pressed the intercom.
“Go home, Alexander.”
His head snapped toward the camera.
“Claire. Open the gate.”
“No.”
“We need to talk.”
“We've had five years to talk.”
“Not like this.”
“You're right. Usually Olivia interrupts before we finish.”
He flinched.
“She's not here.”
“That's a first.”
“Claire, please.”
The word surprised me.
Alexander Moretti did not say please.
Not to employees.
Not to business partners.
Rarely even to me.
“I made a mistake,” he said.
I stared at the screen.
“A mistake?”
“Yes.”
“You accidentally spent three hundred thousand dollars on a necklace and accidentally placed it around another woman's neck?”
His jaw tightened.
“It's complicated.”
“No. It's humiliating. There's a difference.”
He stepped closer to the gate.
“Come outside.”
“I'm six months pregnant, Alexander. It's raining.”
“Then let me inside.”
“No.”
His expression hardened.
“I'm your husband.”
“And tomorrow my attorney will begin the process of changing that.”
“I'm not signing anything.”
“You don't have to agree for me to file.”
He went still.
I continued.
“And whatever happens legally, you will not use our child to force me back into that house.”
For several seconds, he said nothing.
Then his voice dropped.
“Is the baby okay?”
The question hurt more than I expected.
“Yes.”
He exhaled.
“Thank God.”
I almost softened.
Almost.
Then another voice sounded behind him.
“Alexander?”
A woman stepped into view beneath a black umbrella.
Olivia Hayes.
Still wearing the diamond necklace.
I laughed once.
It sounded terrible.
Alexander turned sharply.
“What are you doing here?”
Olivia looked toward the camera.
“Claire, I just wanted to explain—”
I disconnected the intercom.
For a long moment, I stood motionless.
Then I turned to Daniel.
“Find out everything about those forged documents.”
He nodded.
“And Claire?”
“Yes?”
“Don't underestimate what we've found. If someone used your signature to transfer controlling interests, this isn't simply a divorce dispute.”
“What is it?”
“Potentially fraud on an enormous scale.”
My phone vibrated again.
This time, the message wasn't from Alexander.
It came from an unknown number.
Your husband isn't having an affair with Olivia Hayes.
I stared at the screen.
A second message appeared.
He's paying her to keep something buried.
Then a photograph arrived.
Alexander was standing outside a private medical clinic.
Beside him was Olivia.
Between them stood a teenage boy with dark hair and unmistakable Moretti eyes.
May you like
Underneath the photograph were six words.
Ask him who the boy is.
