Chapter 4: Eleven Years of Silence
Ava called at seven the next morning.
"Tell me everything," she said.
"And do not leave out the part where the billionaire ex-husband saw the twins and his legs stopped working."
"How do you know about that?"
"You texted me one sentence at eleven last night and then went silent.
That sentence was: *He saw them.* I have been awake since four."
I told her.
All of it.
The restaurant.
Evelyn.
The forged report.
The fifty thousand dollars.
Petra.
When I finished, Ava was quiet for three full seconds.
That was unusual for Ava.
"His mother paid someone to fake your fertility results."
"That's what Luca believes."
"And now the assistant who knows about it has been fired."
"Yes."
"Nia." Her voice was flat.
"That woman is not safe."
The thought had been sitting in the back of my mind since the night before.
Hearing Ava say it out loud made my chest tighten.
"I know."
"You need to find her before Vittoria does."
"I don't even know her last name."
"Luca does."
I said nothing.
"I know you don't want to call him," Ava said.
"I know every reason you have for keeping distance.
But this is not about you and Luca anymore.
This is about a woman who tried to do the right thing and got punished for it."
I looked at the twins' backpacks by the front door.
Mara had drawn a horse on hers in purple marker.
Six legs.
"He said he would call today," I said.
"Then let him."
Luca called at nine-fifteen.
I picked up on the second ring.
"I found Petra," he said.
No greeting.
"She agreed to meet.
She wants you there."
That surprised me.
"She doesn't know me."
"She knows who you are.
She said—" He paused.
"She said she has been waiting to speak to you for three years."
The kitchen went very quiet.
"Three years," I said.
"Yes."
"She's known for three years."
"That's what she told me."
I sat down.
"Where?"
We met at a coffee shop in Wicker Park.
Small.
Unremarkable.
The kind of place nobody from Vittoria Moretti's world would ever step into.
Petra was already there when we arrived.
She was in her mid-forties, with careful eyes and the posture of someone who had spent years making herself invisible in rooms where powerful people spoke freely.
She looked at me first.
"You look like I imagined," she said.
"From the photographs."
"What photographs?"
She wrapped both hands around her coffee cup.
"Mrs.
Moretti kept a file on you.
After the divorce.
She tracked your address.
Your work.
She had someone send her updates twice a year."
The air left the room.
Luca's jaw tightened.
"She was surveilling Nia."
"Yes." Petra did not look away from me.
"When the twins were born, she received a report.
She knew their names.
Their birth date.
She knew about the paternity test you had done privately."
My hands were flat on the table.
I did not move them.
"She knew," I said.
"From the beginning."
"And she never told Luca."
"No." Petra's voice did not waver.
"She made sure he didn't find out.
When he started asking questions last year — the fertility testing, the clinic records — she called me into her office.
She told me that if I ever said anything to Luca, she would make certain I never worked in this city again." A pause.
"She has done it to others.
I believed her."
"But you called him anyway," Luca said.
Petra looked at him.
"I have a daughter.
She's four." She stopped.
"I kept thinking about those children growing up without their father because of something I knew and stayed quiet about." Her voice thinned.
"I couldn't do it anymore."
Luca leaned forward.
"The payment to the clinic.
The fifty thousand.
Do you have proof?"
Petra reached into her bag.
She placed a folded document on the table.
Luca opened it.
It was a wire transfer record.
The date.
The amount.
The recipient account.
And at the top, the originating account name.
Vittoria Moretti.
Luca stared at it for a long time without speaking.
Then he looked up at me.
"I need to go see my mother."
"Luca—"
"Tonight."
"Don't go alone."
His expression shifted.
Not anger.
Something colder and more deliberate than anger.
"I won't," he said.
He folded the document and put it in his jacket pocket.
Petra watched him.
"She'll deny it."
"I know."
"She'll say I forged it.
She'll say I have a grievance."
"She'll say whatever she needs to say." He stood.
"But she's never had to say it to my face before."
He left two bills on the table for the coffee.
At the door, he stopped and looked back at me.
"I'll call you after."
I nodded.
He walked out.
Petra and I sat in silence for a moment.
"Are you afraid of her?" I asked.
Petra thought about it honestly.
"Yes.
But I'm more afraid of what I was becoming by staying quiet."
She picked up her coffee.
"She underestimated you," she said.
"She thought you would disappear.
She thought you would build a small life somewhere and never come back into his orbit."
"I almost did."
May you like
"I know." Petra looked at me steadily.
"That's what she was counting on."
