Chapter 7 - THE UNRAVELING LIES
By the end of the week, the war had reached a fever pitch.
Evelyn Shaw had gone on national television, painting herself as the victim of a conniving ex-wife who had trapped her husband with hidden children. The media was hounding my home, forcing Luca to move me, Leo, and Maya into a high-security private estate outside the city limits.
It was during our second night at the estate that Marco knocked on the study door where Luca and I were reviewing legal affidavits.
"Boss," Marco said, his face grave. "We ran the forensic audit on your old personal emails from the year you and Nia divorced. The ones from your former chief of staff, Julian Vance."
Luca’s eyes narrowed. "Julian? He left the company six years ago."
"He didn't just leave," Marco said, tossing a USB drive onto the desk. "He was paid three million dollars by the Shaw family's holding firm two months before you signed your divorce papers with Nia."
My stomach dropped. "Julian was the one who kept recommending those specific fertility clinics," I remembered, my blood running cold. "He was the one who told me that Luca was getting impatient... he told me Luca was already looking at other women because I couldn't give him an heir."
Luca stood up so fast his chair overturned. "What?" he gasped, turning to me, his face pale with horror. "Julian told you what?"
"He came to my office three weeks before you asked for a divorce, Luca," I admitted, my voice trembling as the old wounds opened fresh. "He told me you were quietly meeting with estate lawyers to cut me out because I was 'defective.' I thought... I thought he was speaking for you."
Luca looked as if he had been stabbed in the heart. "He was feeding us both poison," Luca whispered, the terrible truth finally coming into light. "He was telling me that you were secretly taking birth control because you didn't want my children, and he was telling you that I thought you were defective. All funded by the Shaws so they could force a marriage between me and Evelyn."
The sheer scale of the manipulation hung in the air, heavy and devastating. A calculated plot had stolen seven years of our lives, ruined a marriage, and kept a father from his children.
Luca turned slowly toward Marco, his eyes darkening into a pitch-black abyss of pure, unadulterated vengeance.
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"Call the district attorney," Luca ordered, his voice dropping to a deadly, quiet whisper. "And tell the press to prepare for a conference tomorrow morning. I am going to destroy the Shaw family live on television."
I looked at Luca, seeing the storm brewing in his eyes. The battle for our past was over, but the war for our future had just begun—and for the first time in seven years, Luca and I were standing on the same side.
