Chapter 4 - WHY SOMEONE WANTED MY CHILDREN ERASED
My grandfather wrote the Moretti succession trust forty-six years ago.
I had ignored most of its family provisions because I had never expected to need them.
Apparently Lorenzo had not.
Marcus sent me the clause.
If the sitting Moretti head had direct biological descendants, control of several legitimate family holdings passed eventually through that line.
If he died without descendants, voting control shifted laterally.
To cousins.
Lorenzo was first.
I stared at the page.
My children were not simply inconvenient to him.
They were a threat worth hundreds of millions.
Evelyn read it.
Her face went white.
“This is why I never wanted them near Chicago.”
“I didn’t know.”
“You never knew anything because you never listened.”
I took the hit.
Nathan stepped between us before the argument could grow.
“Focus.”
I almost disliked him less.
Almost.
Marcus arrived in Boston that evening.
The moment he saw Sofia, he stopped walking.
She stared up at the six-foot-three man everyone in Chicago considered terrifying.
Then she offered him half a cracker.
Marcus took it.
“Thank you.”
He turned away afterward and pretended something was wrong with his eye.
I did not mention it.
We built a timeline.
Three years ago:
Evelyn becomes pregnant.
Victoria intercepts contact.
Fourteen months ago:
Rizzi attempts to remove Sofia from daycare.
Eleven months ago:
Evelyn marries Nathan.
Six months ago:
Lorenzo begins buying security companies in New England.
Three days ago:
I ask Marcus to find Evelyn.
Within twenty-four hours, Rizzi reappears outside her home.
“That’s too fast,” Nathan said.
“What?”
“If Lorenzo moved because you started looking, someone in Chicago told him.”
Marcus and I exchanged a look.
Very few people knew.
Me.
Marcus.
Two research men.
And my mother had explicitly not been told.
Evelyn noticed.
“You have another leak.”
“Yes.”
“Wonderful.”
Sofia walked into the kitchen dragging a blanket.
“Mama, Leo took my bear.”
Evelyn crouched to settle the international crisis.
I watched her.
Three years of raising them alone.
Fevers.
First words.
First steps.
Daycare.
Nightmares.
And I had been deciding which restaurant to buy while my daughter learned to walk.
Guilt is useless if it only makes the guilty person feel something.
I understood that suddenly.
When Sofia left, I said:
“I’m not taking them to Chicago.”
Evelyn looked at me.
“I didn’t ask.”
“I know.”
That was the point.
“I’m also not filing anything.”
Her eyes narrowed.
“Anything?”
“Custody. Paternity demand. Emergency motion. Nothing.”
Nathan studied me.
“What do you want?”
“To know them.”
“That isn’t entirely your decision.”
“I know.”
Evelyn looked surprised.
I continued:
“If you say I meet them in this room for twenty minutes, that’s what I do.”
For the first time, some of the ice left her expression.
Then Marcus’s phone buzzed.
He read the message.
“Adrian.”
“What?”
“Rizzi was found.”
“Where?”
“Logan Airport.”
“Leaving?”
“No.”
Marcus looked at Evelyn.
“He was carrying two forged passports.”
One for Sofia.
May you like
One for Leo.
And both documents listed their destination as Rome.
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