Chapter 7 - THE MAN THEY CALLED UNCLE NATHAN
I expected to hate Nathan Carter forever.
Then I saw him with Leo during a nightmare.
The boy woke screaming at 2 a.m.
Not for me.
Not even for Evelyn.
“Uncle Nate!”
Nathan reached the bedroom before anyone else.
He sat beside Leo, spoke quietly, and waited until the boy’s breathing slowed.
No performance.
No attempt to make me jealous.
Just two and a half years of knowing exactly what comfort that child needed.
I stood in the hallway feeling something ugly rise inside me.
Jealousy.
Then shame.
Nathan came out.
“You can hate me if you need to.”
“I don’t.”
“That sounds painful.”
“It is.”
He almost smiled.
I looked through the open door.
“Does he call you Dad?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because I never asked him to.”
“What do they think you are?”
“Uncle Nathan.”
“Even though you married Evelyn.”
“Yes.”
He leaned against the wall.
“Our marriage was real legally.”
“And otherwise?”
“We cared about each other.”
“Did you love her?”
“Yes.”
There it was again.
“Does she love you?”
Nathan took his time.
“Not in the way a husband deserves.”
That honesty disarmed me.
“We separated because I realized I was helping her build a safe life she didn’t actually want.”
“What did she want?”
He looked at me.
“You.”
My heart stopped.
Then he added:
“Or the man you were before power became your favorite excuse.”
That hurt more accurately.
Nathan explained that Evelyn never removed my name from the private journals she kept for the twins.
Every birthday, she wrote letters.
Your father loved strong coffee.
Your father hates olives.
Your father once carried your mother six blocks because her shoe broke and she refused to remove it in public.
Small things.
Human things.
Not mafia stories.
Not hatred.
“She planned to give them those letters someday,” Nathan said.
“Why?”
“Because she didn’t want your failure to become their inheritance.”
I looked away.
Nathan continued.
“Don’t mistake that for forgiveness.”
“I won’t.”
His phone buzzed.
His attorney.
Their legal separation paperwork had been filed three months earlier.
Divorce hearing scheduled in six weeks.
I stared at him.
“You were already divorcing.”
“Yes.”
“Before I called.”
“Yes.”
“So you telling me ‘my wife’…”
“She is still legally my wife.”
Fair.
Then he said:
“I also wanted you to understand what it felt like.”
“What?”
“To hear another man had occupied a place you assumed would always be yours.”
I looked at him.
“That was deliberate.”
“Yes.”
For the first time, I respected him enough to dislike him properly.
Then Marcus ran upstairs.
“Adrian.”
“What?”
“Lorenzo contacted the family council.”
My blood went cold.
“He’s filed a challenge.”
“To what?”
“Your leadership.”
On what grounds?
Marcus handed me the filing.
Lorenzo claimed I had concealed illegitimate heirs, compromised Moretti assets, and become mentally unfit because of “obsession with an ex-wife.”
At the bottom was a request for emergency succession.
The family council would vote in forty-eight hours.
May you like
Lorenzo wasn’t just attacking my children.
He was using them to take Chicago from me.
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