Chapter 4 - The Vultures Circle
By Wednesday morning, the illusion of safety had completely shattered.
I sat at my kitchen table with a cup of cold coffee, staring out the window at the quiet tree-lined street of Lincoln Park, while my phone buzzed continuously with notifications. Word travels fast in Chicago when a billionaire loses his composure. Even though I had slammed the door in Luca’s face, the ripples of our encounter at the restaurant had already reached the ears of Chicago’s high-society gossip columns and corporate boardrooms.
My phone flashed with a call from an unknown number. I ignored it. It immediately went to voicemail. Ten seconds later, an email dropped into my inbox.
Subject: Urgent Meeting Request regarding Moretti Family Assets.
I deleted it without opening it.
The real danger wasn't Luca discovering the truth—it was who else was watching.
During our marriage, I had learned more about Moretti Global than most of its executive board members ever cared to admit. Luca liked to keep his work separate from his home life, but when you share a bed with a man building an empire, you absorb the whispers, the late-night phone calls, and the names of the people who helped him bury his enemies.
One of those names was Julian Vance.
Vance was a ruthless corporate raider and a minority shareholder in Moretti Global who had spent years trying to orchestrate a hostile takeover of the company. He knew Luca’s weaknesses better than anyone. And if Julian Vance caught wind of the fact that Luca Moretti had hidden heirs living quietly in a North Side apartment, he wouldn't hesitate to use them as leverage in his corporate war.
A sharp knock echoed from my front door.
I froze. It wasn't Luca’s heavy, desperate pounding this time. It was three crisp, polite, rhythmic raps.
I stood up slowly, walking cautiously to the door. I looked through the peephole.
It wasn't Luca.
Standing in the hallway was a tall, elegant woman with sharp silver-blonde hair, wearing a tailored Chanel suit that cost more than my first car. Evelyn Shaw.
My stomach plummeted.
I didn't want to open the door. I wanted to pretend I wasn't home. But Evelyn wasn't the kind of woman to go away quietly. She lifted her hand and knocked again—this time, a fraction louder.
I unlocked the deadbolt and pulled the door open, standing squarely in the threshold to block her view of the living room where the twins were watching cartoons.
Evelyn looked me up and down, her blue eyes cold, assessing, and dripping with thinly veiled contempt.
"Nia," she said, her voice smooth and chillingly polite. "May I come in? Or are we going to have this conversation in the hallway like common vagrants?"
"You have nothing to say to me, Evelyn," I replied, my voice hard. "And you certainly aren't stepping foot in my home."
"Oh, don't worry, darling, I don't want to stay long," Evelyn said, stepping closer despite my blockade, her perfume filling the air with an expensive, suffocating scent of jasmine and musk. "I just came to deliver a very simple message on behalf of my husband's legal team."
I raised an eyebrow. "Your husband's legal team? That was fast. Did Luca manage to dry his eyes long enough to sign the paperwork?"
Evelyn’s jaw tightened for a fraction of a second, her manicured fingernails digging slightly into the leather strap of her handbag.
"Luca is currently out of his mind with shock," Evelyn said smoothly, though a sharp edge of bitterness cut through her tone. "He spent four years believing he was the master of his universe, only to discover that his former wife—a woman he discarded like trash—managed to hide two heirs right under his nose in this pathetic little apartment."
"I didn't hide them," I corrected coldly. "He never asked. There's a big difference."
"Semantics," Evelyn dismissed with a flick of her hand. "Here is the reality of the situation, Nia. You are a civilian playing a high-stakes game you cannot possibly win. Luca Moretti controls the courts, the judges, and the financial lifeblood of this city. If he wants custody of those children, he will get it. He will bury you in legal fees so fast you won't even have time to pack your bags."
I stared at her, feeling a strange, cold calm wash over me. For years, Evelyn had lived in the shadow of Luca’s obsession with his work, playing the role of the perfect trophy wife. She thought she knew him. She thought she understood the machine she had married.
"You really think this is about custody, don't you?" I asked quietly.
Evelyn frowned. "What else would it be?"
May you like
"It's about control, Evelyn," I said, stepping closer to her until she was forced to look up into my eyes. "And if you think Luca is fighting for those children because he loves them as much as he hates being lied to, you clearly don't know the man you sleep beside. Now, get out of my building before I show you what a 'common vagrant' can do to an expensive Chanel suit."
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