Chapter 4 - The Woman Who Lied to Both of Them
“Rachel?”
Emma could barely say the name.
The woman on the video was her sister.
Eight months earlier.
Inside Adrian and Emma’s bedroom.
Holding Adrian’s phone.
“No,” Emma whispered.
Adrian stared at the screen.
He did not speak.
Detective Castillo replayed the footage.
Rachel entered the room at 7:12 a.m.
Emma remembered that morning.
Rachel had arrived unexpectedly with coffee.
She claimed she had been nearby.
Emma had gone downstairs to shower after Adrian left.
For eleven minutes, Rachel was alone upstairs.
The video showed her taking Adrian’s phone from the dresser.
Typing.
Waiting.
Then deleting something.
She looked terrified.
Not comfortable.
Not calculating.
Terrified.
At one point she turned toward the doorway and whispered, “I’m doing it.”
Someone had apparently been on an earpiece.
Emma covered her mouth.
Rachel had planted the message.
Her own sister.
“Why?” she whispered.
Adrian’s face remained unreadable.
The video continued.
Rachel placed the phone back.
Then she reached into her purse and removed a small flash drive.
She connected it briefly to Emma’s laptop.
Two minutes later, she left.
Emma stared at the screen long after it ended.
“My sister destroyed our marriage.”
Adrian finally spoke.
“Someone made her.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Look at her.”
“I am looking at her!”
Emma’s voice cracked.
“She came into my house. She put a dead woman’s name on your phone. She watched me fall apart afterward.”
Adrian remained quiet.
That silence stopped her anger from escalating.
Because he had every right to condemn Rachel.
He did not.
“Why aren’t you furious?” Emma asked.
“I am.”
“You don’t look furious.”
“I spent most of my life learning not to look the way I feel.”
“That’s part of the problem.”
“I know.”
Again.
No defense.
No excuse.
Castillo closed the tablet.
“There’s more.”
Emma almost laughed.
“Of course there is.”
“The laptop contained audio files.”
One recording captured Rachel speaking with Dominic Moretti.
His voice was unmistakable.
“You tell Emma only what she needs,” Dominic said.
“She loves him,” Rachel answered.
“She’s afraid of him.”
“That doesn’t mean she wants this.”
“She will once she understands.”
“And if she doesn’t?”
Dominic paused.
“Then remind her what Adrian’s enemies do to people standing beside him.”
Rachel sounded shaken.
“That sounds like a threat.”
“It is a warning.”
Another file was dated two weeks later.
Rachel was crying.
“She’s pregnant.”
Dominic went silent.
Then:
“Are you certain?”
“She took three tests.”
“Does Adrian know?”
“No.”
“Keep it that way.”
“I won’t help you anymore.”
“Rachel.”
“No. You said we were saving her. You said once she left him, it would be over.”
“It is over.”
“She’s having his baby.”
“That changes nothing.”
“It changes everything.”
Then Dominic said the sentence that made Adrian rise from his chair.
“If Adrian learns he has an heir, you understand what happens to all of us.”
The recording ended.
Emma looked at him.
“All of us?”
Adrian stared toward the window.
“Dominic has partners.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know yet.”
Castillo did.
“Marian Vale.”
Adrian turned.
The detective continued.
“Her banking records show payments from the same shell account that paid Bennett Consulting.”
Emma’s hope sank.
“So Marian was part of it.”
“Maybe.”
“Then why call us?”
Castillo shrugged.
“People switch sides when they get scared.”
Adrian’s phone rang.
Unknown number.
He answered.
“Moretti.”
A woman spoke.
Emma recognized the voice.
Marian Vale.
“I have Rachel Bennett.”
Emma lunged toward the phone.
Adrian put it on speaker.
“Is she alive?” Emma demanded.
“Yes.”
“Put her on.”
“I can’t.”
“Then I’m calling police.”
“I assume they’re already listening.”
Castillo nodded silently.
Marian continued.
“Dominic has men looking for us.”
“Where are you?” Adrian asked.
“If I tell you, they will find us.”
“Not if the police—”
“Somebody inside Chicago law enforcement has been feeding him information for years.”
Castillo’s expression sharpened.
“Name.”
“I don’t know.”
“Convenient.”
“Detective, I have spent twenty-eight years making bad men look respectable on paper. I know what convenient looks like.”
Emma’s patience broke.
“Why did you take my sister?”
“I didn’t take her. I got her out.”
“Then let me speak to her.”
A muffled sound.
Then Rachel.
“Emma?”
Emma’s eyes filled.
“Rachel.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Are you hurt?”
“No.”
“Where are you?”
“I don’t know. Marian brought me somewhere.”
“Why?”
“Dominic found out I kept copies.”
“Copies of what?”
Rachel started crying.
“Everything.”
Adrian stepped closer.
“What everything?”
“Trust documents. Payments. Emails. Instructions. Your mother’s original letter.”
Adrian froze.
“My mother’s letter?”
“She knew.”
“What did she know?”
Rachel took a breath.
“That Dominic was trying to take control of the company.”
Emma looked at Adrian.
His face had gone pale.
Rachel continued.
“Your mother changed the trust because of him. She wanted your future child to control the shares so Dominic couldn’t.”
Adrian whispered, “Why didn’t she tell me?”
Marian answered.
“Because she did not trust the people around you.”
“Including me?”
“Including everyone.”
Adrian looked wounded.
Emma remembered Isabella Moretti.
Perhaps the coldness had not been contempt.
Perhaps it had been fear.
“Where is the letter?” Adrian asked.
Rachel said, “I have it.”
Dominic’s voice suddenly came through the phone.
“Had it.”
Rachel screamed.
The connection erupted into noise.
A crash.
Marian shouting.
Then silence.
Emma nearly dropped to the floor.
“Rachel!”
Nothing.
Castillo shouted for a trace.
Adrian’s hands curled into fists.
This time Emma saw the old darkness.
It frightened her.
She grabbed his sleeve.
“Don’t become him.”
Adrian looked at her.
“Emma—”
“Don’t.”
The rage in his face slowly changed.
He nodded.
Police triangulated the phone to an industrial property west of the city.
Adrian recognized the address.
“My uncle owns it.”
Castillo turned.
“You stay here.”
“No.”
“That wasn’t a request.”
“My family—”
“Your involvement gives his lawyers an excuse to call this a private Moretti dispute. Stay out of my way.”
Adrian looked ready to argue.
Emma squeezed his wrist.
“Stay.”
He looked down at her hand.
Eight months ago, she would not have touched him.
“Please,” she said.
Adrian stopped.
“Okay.”
Castillo left with two detectives.
Emma and Adrian waited in an administrative office.
No one spoke for nearly an hour.
Finally Emma asked, “Did you love me?”
Adrian looked startled.
“What?”
“When we were married.”
“You know I did.”
“No. I know you said you did.”
He stood near the window.
“I loved you badly.”
Emma’s throat tightened.
“That isn’t an answer.”
“It’s the only honest one.”
He sat opposite her.
“I thought providing meant loving. Protecting meant loving. Making decisions so you didn’t have to be afraid meant loving.”
“And?”
“I never noticed that every decision I made without you gave you another reason to be afraid.”
Emma looked down.
“The baby kicked the first time while I was signing the divorce papers.”
Adrian’s eyes filled instantly.
She had never told anyone that.
“I almost called you.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“Weller walked back into the room.”
Adrian’s jaw tightened.
“He told me you had asked whether the baby was yours.”
Adrian stared.
“I didn’t know there was a baby.”
“I know that now.”
He pressed both hands against his face.
For several seconds, Chicago’s feared Adrian Moretti looked simply like a man who had lost something irreplaceable.
Emma’s anger softened.
Not disappeared.
Softened.
“Adrian.”
He lowered his hands.
“If we survive this,” she said, “you don’t get to decide what happens next.”
“I know.”
“You don’t get to take the baby.”
“I wouldn’t.”
“You don’t get to move me back into your house.”
“I won’t.”
“You don’t even get to assume I forgive you.”
“I don’t.”
Emma studied him.
“Then what do you want?”
He looked toward her belly.
“A chance to be there.”
The baby moved.
Emma inhaled.
Adrian saw.
“Was that—”
“Yes.”
He did not reach.
He waited.
Emma took his hand.
Slowly.
She placed it against the side of her belly.
The baby kicked again.
Adrian stopped breathing.
A tear slipped down his cheek.
Emma had never seen him cry.
Not when his mother died.
Not when his father was buried.
Not when their marriage ended.
Now one small movement beneath her dress broke him.
He laughed once through the tear.
“Strong.”
“She kicks whenever I drink orange juice.”
“She?”
Emma froze.
Adrian looked at her.
“A girl?”
Emma nodded.
His face transformed.
For a moment there was no Moretti empire.
No Dominic.
No forged divorce.
Only a father discovering his daughter.
Then Adrian’s phone rang.
Castillo.
He answered.
The detective did not waste words.
“We found Marian.”
Emma stood.
“And Rachel?”
A pause.
“She’s alive.”
Emma nearly collapsed with relief.
“But Dominic is gone.”
Adrian’s expression hardened.
“Where?”
“We don’t know.”
Castillo continued.
“There’s something else. Rachel gave us the letter from your mother.”
“What does it say?”
“I think you need to read it yourself.”
“When?”
“Now.”
The office door opened.
Detective Castillo entered carrying a sealed document sleeve.
Behind her stood Rachel.
Emma rushed forward.
Rachel began sobbing.
The sisters held each other.
For several seconds, nothing else mattered.
Then Rachel pulled away.
“There’s something you need to know.”
Emma wiped her eyes.
“What?”
Rachel looked at Adrian.
“The letter wasn’t written to him.”
She looked down at Emma’s stomach.
“It was written to his first child.”
Adrian reached for the envelope.
Inside was Isabella Moretti’s handwritten letter.
The first sentence made him stop.
My dear granddaughter, if you are reading this, then your father has finally learned the truth about the night his brother died.
Adrian looked up.
“My brother?”
Rachel’s face drained of color.
May you like
The room went silent.
Because Adrian Moretti had never had a brother.
