Chapter 5 - MY MOTHER FINALLY ANSWERED THE PHONE
Victoria Moretti answered on the second ring.
“Adrian.”
“Did you know Evelyn was pregnant?”
Silence.
Three years of my life changed inside that silence.
“Mother.”
“Yes.”
I closed my eyes.
Evelyn stood across the room.
She heard.
So did Nathan.
Marcus turned away.
“Why?”
Victoria’s voice remained controlled.
“You had just taken leadership after your father’s death. The organization was unstable. Evelyn was meeting federal investigators.”
“No.”
“She was photographed entering a federal building.”
“She was meeting an attorney.”
Another silence.
I looked at Evelyn.
She nodded.
Finally.
The truth behind our divorce.
Evelyn had gone to a federal building because Nathan’s old firm maintained offices there while representing a whistleblower in a Moretti-adjacent shipping case.
She had been trying to protect me.
Not betray me.
Victoria said:
“At the time, I believed she endangered you.”
“So you forged my signature?”
“I prevented a distraction.”
My vision darkened.
“My children are not a distraction.”
“I know that now.”
“Now?”
Her voice changed.
“Adrian, listen to me. I made a decision three years ago that I cannot defend.”
That was the closest my mother had ever come to admitting guilt.
“But I did not send Rizzi.”
“Lorenzo did.”
“I know.”
Everyone in the room went still.
“How?”
“Because I have been following him for eighteen months.”
Evelyn stepped closer.
Victoria continued.
“After I intercepted Evelyn’s pregnancy letters, Lorenzo found out about the twins through Samuel Price.”
The divorce attorney.
Another betrayal.
“He told me the children would destabilize the succession.”
“What did you do?”
“I told him if he went near them, I would bury him.”
“Then why did Rizzi reach the daycare?”
“Because Lorenzo stopped listening to me.”
My mother had hidden my children to “protect” my position.
Then her own secret created the vulnerability Lorenzo exploited.
“Did you tell Evelyn?”
“No.”
“Did you warn me?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“I believed I could control it.”
I laughed once.
Every Moretti disaster began with those five words.
Victoria continued.
“After the daycare attempt, I anonymously funded the security company Nathan hired.”
Nathan’s head snapped up.
He checked old records on his phone.
A foundation had paid part of the cost.
V.M. Holdings.
Victoria.
She had caused the danger.
Then tried to protect the children without revealing why they were in danger.
Evelyn looked sick.
“You let me believe Adrian rejected them.”
Victoria’s voice softened.
“Yes.”
“You watched me raise premature twins alone.”
“Yes.”
“You sent money to a security company instead of telling me the truth.”
“Yes.”
Evelyn hung up.
Not me.
I didn’t stop her.
Then Marcus received an encrypted message.
His face changed.
“Boss.”
“What now?”
“Our Chicago office was breached.”
“By Lorenzo?”
“Maybe.”
“What did they take?”
He looked at the twins.
“Your original succession file.”
That wasn’t all.
A second file had disappeared.
The Moretti family registry containing birth records, bloodlines, and trust claims.
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Lorenzo wasn’t preparing to kidnap my children anymore.
He was preparing to prove they did not exist.
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