Chapter 2 - THE NIGHT EVELYN DISAPPEARED
I had spent three years believing Evelyn left Chicago because she stopped loving me.
Standing on a Boston sidewalk, I learned she had left because she thought staying might get our children killed.
Nathaniel took the twins inside while Evelyn remained near the front steps.
I stared at her.
“Who tried to kill you?”
Her expression hardened.
“You really don't know?”
“If I knew, I wouldn't be asking.”
For the first time, uncertainty crossed her face.
She looked toward Marcus.
Marcus looked away.
That was enough.
I turned slowly.
“What do you know?”
“Adrian—”
“What do you know?”
Evelyn folded her arms.
“Three weeks before I filed for divorce, someone followed me home from my obstetrician's office.”
Obstetrician.
Hearing the word made my stomach twist.
She continued.
“I was twelve weeks pregnant.”
Twelve weeks.
She had already known.
“I tried to tell you.”
I closed my eyes.
“I remember.”
“No. You remember pieces.”
She reached into her coat pocket and removed an old phone.
“The night you went to dinner with the Bellini family, somebody broke into our bedroom.”
I opened my eyes.
“Nothing was reported.”
“Because nothing was stolen.”
She unlocked the phone and showed me a photograph.
A tiny silver baby rattle lay on our old bed.
Beside it was a single bullet.
My blood went cold.
“There was a note,” Evelyn said. “It said, ‘Moretti heirs don't get happy endings.’”
Marcus cursed under his breath.
“Why didn't security tell me?”
“I told your mother.”
That answer was worse.
“What did Victoria say?”
Evelyn laughed once, without humor.
“She told me threats came with the Moretti name and that if I couldn't handle them, I shouldn't have married into the family.”
My jaw tightened.
Then Evelyn said the sentence that made the street seem suddenly too quiet.
“She also told me not to tell you I was pregnant until she figured out whether the babies were actually yours.”
I stared at her.
“She said that?”
“She said much worse.”
Marcus shifted uncomfortably.
I noticed.
Again.
“Marcus.”
He remained silent.
I stepped closer.
“You keep reacting like you've heard this before.”
His face changed.
Evelyn noticed too.
“Marcus?”
He swallowed.
Then reached into his jacket and pulled out an envelope.
“I was ordered never to give you this.”
My pulse slowed.
“Ordered by whom?”
He placed the envelope in my hand.
My name was written across it in Evelyn's handwriting.
The postmark was three years old.
I looked at her.
“You sent me a letter?”
Her eyes widened.
“Yes.”
“I never got it.”
Marcus stared at the pavement.
“Because your mother intercepted it.”
I tore the envelope open.
Inside was a sonogram.
Two tiny shapes.
May you like
And beneath them, one sentence written in Evelyn's handwriting:
Adrian, if something happens to me, your mother knows why.
