Chapter 2 - THE LETTER MY MOTHER WROTE IN MY NAME
I had ordered men killed for less than what I felt toward my mother in that moment.
That frightened me.
Not because Victoria Moretti didn’t deserve consequences.
Because for the first time in my life, Evelyn and two children were standing on the other side of what my anger could destroy.
I folded the letter carefully.
“When did you get this?”
“Three weeks after you filed for divorce.”
“You believed it?”
She stared at me.
“You had just ended our marriage without hearing me out.”
That landed exactly where it should.
Three years earlier, I had believed Evelyn had betrayed me.
Someone sent photographs showing her entering a federal building with an investigator who had been watching my organization.
I confronted her.
She said she couldn’t explain.
I called that guilt.
Two days later, I had my attorney file.
She begged for one conversation.
I gave her ten minutes.
Then spent nine of them looking at my phone.
I remembered her final words.
One day, Adrian, you’re going to realize what you threw away.
I had assumed she meant our marriage.
Now two small voices were laughing upstairs.
“Who is the man inside?” I asked.
Her expression cooled.
“Nathan Carter.”
“Your husband?”
“Yes.”
The word cut deeper than it had any right to.
“How long?”
“Eleven months.”
“Do they call him Dad?”
Evelyn’s eyes flashed.
“You don’t get to interrogate me.”
“I’m not.”
“It sounds exactly like you.”
She was right.
I forced my hands open.
“Then tell me what you want me to know.”
That seemed to surprise her.
“Nathan was my attorney after the divorce.”
“He became your husband.”
“Eventually.”
“Do you love him?”
Her face hardened.
“That is none of your business.”
Again, right.
Marcus called.
I stepped away.
“Tell me.”
His voice was grim.
“We pulled the estate mail logs from three years ago.”
“And?”
“Mrs. Moretti personally redirected everything addressed from Evelyn.”
My eyes closed.
“How many?”
“Seventeen pieces of mail.”
Seventeen.
Not one desperate letter.
Seventeen attempts.
Marcus continued.
“There’s more.”
Of course there was.
“Your old divorce attorney, Samuel Price, received an additional packet from Evelyn’s Boston lawyer.”
“What packet?”
“Prenatal records. Ultrasound. A request to delay the divorce until you could discuss the pregnancy.”
I looked through the window.
Evelyn was helping Sofia with something at the table.
My daughter.
Maybe.
No.
Not maybe.
I already knew.
“What did Price do?”
“He never filed it.”
“Why?”
“Victoria paid his firm four hundred thousand dollars two weeks later.”
My entire body went still.
My mother had not simply intercepted letters.
She had purchased silence inside my divorce.
Then Marcus said:
“Boss, Price kept one document.”
“What?”
“A notarized statement Evelyn signed before leaving Chicago.”
He sent it.
I opened the file.
IF ADRIAN MORETTI REFUSES CONTACT WITH THESE CHILDREN, I REQUEST THAT HE NEVER BE PERMITTED TO USE HIS FAMILY POWER TO TAKE THEM FROM ME LATER.
Below it was a handwritten note from Samuel Price:
V.M. says make sure Adrian never sees this.
V.M.
Victoria Moretti.
I looked back at Evelyn.
May you like
For three years, I had believed silence meant she chose to disappear.
Now I knew silence had been manufactured around both of us.
