Chapter 10 - THE SECOND FILE
The second leak arrived the next morning.
It was an old photograph of me leaving a fertility clinic.
The date was six months after the divorce.
I was visibly pregnant.
The headline asked a brutal question.
IF NIA CARTER WANTED LUCA MORETTI TO KNOW, WHY DID SHE HIDE FOR MONTHS?
The article claimed I had deliberately avoided his offices.
That part was true.
After the forged rejection email, I had avoided Luca completely.
But truth without context could become the most effective lie.
Another document appeared online.
A copy of a private journal page.
Mine.
I stared at it until my vision blurred.
I had written that page during pregnancy.
Maybe it is better if Luca never knows.
I cannot survive being rejected twice.
I had written those words alone in my apartment after the email.
Now millions of strangers were reading them.
Only three people had ever had access to that journal.
Me.
My sister Simone.
And my former divorce attorney.
Simone called immediately.
“I never photographed your journal.”
“I know.”
“Then how?”
I remembered.
During the divorce, Evelyn’s legal team had requested inventories from the penthouse because Luca and I disputed ownership of several personal boxes.
The journal had briefly been stored there.
Evelyn could have seen it.
Luca arrived ten minutes later.
I held up my phone.
“Your wife had this.”
His face changed.
“She had access during the property inventory.”
“She has been preparing for this for seven years.”
“I know.”
“No, Luca.”
My anger exploded.
“She kept evidence from the destruction she caused.”
He did not defend Evelyn.
He looked sick.
“She knew.”
“What?”
“She knew there was a chance this would eventually happen.”
He sat down.
“My investigator found emails between Evelyn and Graham.”
My hands went cold.
“Show me.”
The oldest message was dated four days after my pregnancy letter arrived.
Do not destroy the Carter material.
Archive everything.
We may need context if she resurfaces.
Another message followed.
If a child claim appears later, the journal entry will be important.
I stopped reading.
“A child claim.”
Luca’s voice was hollow.
“She knew.”
“Yes.”
“She knew I was pregnant.”
“Yes.”
“And she married you anyway.”
His expression collapsed.
“Yes.”
I looked at the man across from me.
For years, I had believed he rejected his children.
Now I knew his second wife had intentionally stolen the knowledge from him.
But Luca was still responsible for choosing Evelyn later.
He had married a woman he already knew wanted our marriage gone.
That truth would not disappear.
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m filing for divorce today.”
“That is between you and her.”
“No.”
His eyes met mine.
“It stopped being between us when she involved you and the children.”
His phone rang.
He looked at the screen.
Security.
He answered.
“What?”
I watched his face harden.
“Where?”
He stood.
“Call the police.”
My stomach dropped.
“What happened?”
Luca ended the call.
“Someone tried to enter the twins’ school.”
“What?”
“A woman used fake identification and claimed she was authorized to pick up Emma.”
Every sound in the room disappeared.
“Who?”
“They detained her.”
“Who sent her?”
“We don’t know.”
Then Luca’s phone buzzed again.
A photograph arrived.
He turned the screen toward me.
May you like
The woman in police custody was the former clinic records administrator.
The same woman Alessandra Moretti had paid seven years earlier.
