Chapter 2 - THE SHADOW OF DOUBT
The ride back to the Moretti penthouse was suffocatingly silent.
Evelyn sat on the opposite side of the leather backseat, her arms crossed tightly over her chest.
The city lights blurred past the tinted windows like streaks of bleeding neon.
“Are you going to explain what that was back there, Luca?” Evelyn finally asked.
Her voice was chillingly controlled.
“Those children looked identical to childhood photographs of you.”
“Even a blind man in that restaurant could see the Moretti jawline.”
Luca stared straight ahead at the driver’s partition.
His mind was spinning in violent circles.
“It was a coincidence,” Luca lied, though the lie tasted like ash in his mouth.
“Coincidence?” Evelyn scoffed, her laugh sharp and humorless.
“Do not insult my intelligence, Luca.”
“You haven't spoken a coherent sentence since we walked out of that place.”
“You look like you've just seen a ghost.”
“Or rather, like you've just realized you threw away a winning lottery ticket.”
“Enough, Evelyn,” Luca snapped, his voice dropping into a register that usually ended any argument.
Evelyn fell silent, but the seed of distrust had already sprouted between them.
Once inside the sprawling penthouse, Luca poured himself a double glass of scotch.
He walked out onto the expansive glass balcony overlooking the glittering skyline of Chicago.
The wind bit at his face, but he felt nothing.
He pulled out his phone and dialed a private number.
“Find me everything on Nia Carter,” Luca commanded the moment the line connected.
“Not her current public profile.”
“I want medical records.”
“I want residential histories.”
“I want birth certificates for those twins.”
“And I want them on my desk by morning.”
“Sir, that information is heavily sealed,” the private investigator replied cautiously.
“I don't care about red tape,” Luca roared, slamming his fist against the glass railing.
“Get it done!”
He hung up and stared into the dark abyss of the night sky.
Memories flooded back with terrifying clarity.
The endless fertility clinic visits.
The cold metal tables.
The sterile lights.
Nia crying softly in the passenger seat of his car after Dr. Sterling delivered another negative report.
At the time, Luca had believed every word.
He had trusted his inner circle implicitly.
Especially Marcus Vance, his chief operating officer and closest confidant.
Marcus had been the one to whisper the insidious doubts into Luca’s ear during late nights at headquarters.
“Are you sure she’s taking those treatments seriously, Luca?”
“Women like that sometimes have agendas.”
“It’s almost convenient that nothing ever works.”
Luca closed his eyes as the realization hit him like a physical blow.
He hadn't arrived at that doubt on his own.
He had been groomed to doubt her.
Because Marcus had always harbored a bitter resentment toward Nia.
Or because someone wanted Luca isolated, vulnerable, and completely dependent on Moretti Global.
The scotch burned his throat as he swallowed it in one harsh gulp.
If those children were his—and every instinct screamed that they were—then he had been played.
Not just by circumstance.
Not just by fate.
May you like
By people he trusted.
And worst of all, by his own arrogant, unforgivable willingness to believe the worst in the woman who loved him unconditionally.
