Chapter 2 - The Ambush at the ColonnadeThe autumn wind off the Charles River was crisp and cold, swirling fallen red leaves across the stone courtyard outside the Harvard Alumni Hall.
I stood near the marble fountain, wrapping my navy coat tighter around my frame while Noah stepped twenty feet away to answer a congratulatory phone call from his high school mathematics mentor in Chicago.
"Claire."
The voice hit my spine like a drop of liquid nitrogen.
I didn't flinch. I slowly turned around.
Standing ten feet away beneath the stone arches was Vincent Moretti.
He had abandoned his security detail, his legal team, and his family inside the hall. He stood in the falling dusk without his overcoat, his broad shoulders trembling slightly, his face pale, gaunt, and contorted by a terrifying, hysterical agony.
"Claire... dear God... Claire," Vincent rasped, taking three frantic, uncoordinated steps forward, his hands outstretched as if reaching for a ghost. "Is it... is it true?"
"Is what true, Mr. Moretti?" I asked coldly, my voice as smooth as glass and as hard as diamond.
"Noah!" Vincent choked out, a raw sob breaking through his chest. He pointed a shaking, calloused finger toward the boy standing near the fountain. "He... he has my father's chin! He has my eyes! You... you were pregnant when you left me?!"
"I was pregnant when I signed the divorce papers, Vincent," I corrected him flatly. "The papers you sent your lawyers to deliver while you were buying a diamond nursery bracelet for Sophia."
Vincent took another step, his storm-gray eyes brimming with hot, unshed tears. "WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL ME?! I would have torn Chicago apart! I would have sent her away! I would have—"
"You would have turned my son into a prize in your toxic mafia court," I interrupted, stepping closer, looking up into his face with an absolute, weightless disgust. "You would have forced him to compete with Sophia’s child for your attention. You would have made him grow up in a house filled with lies, mistress scandals, and blood money."
"I SENT YOU MONEY!" Vincent roared softly, his voice cracking wide open, his hands clutching his own hair in desperate panic. "EVERY SINGLE MONTH! Two hundred thousand dollars a month into your bank account! For eighteen years! My accountants verified the transfers every quarter!"
I stopped. My hazel eyes narrowed into razor-sharp slits.
"I worked as an administrative assistant at a high school in Evanston for eighteen years, Vincent," I said softly, every word falling like an iron block onto his chest. "I lived in a two-bedroom apartment that smelled of radiator fluid. I saved quarters in a jar to buy Noah’s first geometry set. I never received a single dollar from you."
Vincent froze as if struck by lightning. "What...?"
Before he could answer, rapid footsteps echoed against the stone paving.
Sophia Reynolds rushed around the marble pillar, her lavender silk dress fluttering, her face twisted in a mask of manic panic.
"Vincent!" Sophia shrieked, grabbing his arm frantically. "What are you doing out here?! The university president is waiting for you at the VIP reception! We need to leave!"
Vincent didn't look at her. He turned his head slowly, his eyes locking onto Sophia's face with a terrifying, lethal stillness that made her hand drop instantly from his sleeve.
"Sophia," Vincent whispered, his voice dropping into an icy, subsonic register that dropped the courtyard's temperature to absolute zero. "Where did the monthly transfers to the Bennett Trust Account go for the last eighteen years?"
Sophia’s jaw sagged open. The color drained from her face so fast she looked like a corpse standing in the twilight.
"V-Vincent... what are you talking about?!" she stammered, her eyes darting frantically toward the driveway. "The trust... the trust was managed by my family's firm—"
"Marcus," Vincent commanded flatly without turning his head.
Chief Security Director Marcus Vance stepped out from the shadows of the arches, holding a satellite tablet.
May you like
"Sir," Marcus reported grimly.
"Audit the Bennett Trust Account right now," Vincent ordered, his baritone trembling with an apocalyptic rage. "If one cent was diverted... prepare the executions."
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