Chapter 4 - The Man Who Thought Everything Had a Price
Roman arrived at the attorneys' conference room wearing the same expression he used when a major business deal was going badly.
Controlled.
Impatient.
Certain that if everyone would simply stop being emotional, he could fix the problem.
It was Wednesday morning.
Sophie was eleven days old.
I had not seen my husband in person since he walked out to celebrate Laya Crane's birthday.
He looked older.
There were shadows under his dark eyes, and his normally perfect black hair was slightly disheveled.
He wore a charcoal suit that probably cost more than my first car.
I wore black maternity leggings, a loose sweater, and comfortable shoes.
The difference between us had never felt greater.
Roman stood when I entered.
"Aaron."
I nodded.
"Roman."
He looked behind me.
"Where's Sophie?"
"With Elena and Nina. She's safe."
His jaw tightened.
"I thought you were bringing her."
"This meeting is about us discussing arrangements and the documents your attorney sent."
He stared at me.
Then his eyes moved to Mara.
"Can I speak to my wife alone?"
"No," I said.
He looked back at me.
"Aaron."
"No, Roman."
For a moment, I saw genuine surprise.
Not anger.
Not yet.
Surprise that I had refused him twice in less than a minute.
Martin Voss cleared his throat.
"I think we should all sit down."
Roman remained standing.
"I want to see my daughter."
Mara spoke calmly.
"We've already proposed a short daytime visit with appropriate arrangements for a newborn. Your office hasn't responded."
Roman turned sharply toward Voss.
"Why not?"
Voss adjusted his glasses.
"We were waiting until the broader circumstances could be resolved."
I watched Roman's expression change.
It was subtle.
A tightening around the mouth.
A flicker of irritation.
For the first time, he seemed to understand that his attorney's strategy was affecting his ability to see Sophie.
"Respond today," he said.
Voss nodded.
We sat.
Mara placed three documents on the table.
The Northbridge proposal.
The incident report.
The letter Roman had signed demanding a psychological assessment.
Roman looked at the papers.
His expression hardened.
"Where did you get those?"
I almost smiled.
That was apparently his favorite question.
Not whether the information was true.
Not whether anyone had been harmed.
Who had revealed it.
"Do you recognize them?" I asked.
He glanced at the first page.
"Yes."
"The second?"
He frowned.
"I've seen parts of it."
"And the third?"
His eyes met mine.
"I signed it."
My chest tightened.
"Why?"
"Because you left our home in the middle of the night with our daughter."
"After I learned someone was preparing false reports about me."
Roman shook his head.
"You don't know they're false."
The room became very still.
I stared at him.
"Excuse me?"
He leaned forward.
"Aaron, I'm not saying every detail is correct. But you were struggling. You know you were."
I felt my heartbeat in my throat.
"I was recovering from surgery."
"You were crying constantly."
"I was in pain."
"You wouldn't sleep."
"Sophie needed feeding every few hours."
"You refused help."
I stared at him in disbelief.
"Roman, I asked you to stay home."
He fell silent.
"I asked you to sit with me. I asked you to hold Sophie so I could shower. I asked you to come to the pediatrician's appointment. I asked you not to leave six days after I gave birth."
My voice shook.
"And you kept telling me to ask the staff."
Roman looked away.
I leaned forward.
"I didn't refuse help. I refused to pretend that hiring employees was the same as having a husband."
Voss shifted in his chair.
"Mrs. Moretti, perhaps we should avoid personal accusations."
I turned toward him.
"Mr. Voss, this is my marriage. It became your business when you started producing paperwork about my ability to mother my child."
His face went blank.
Mara touched the edge of the document.
"Let's focus on the report."
She turned to Roman.
"Do you know who prepared these incident descriptions?"
"Northbridge."
"Who supplied the underlying information?"
"Household staff, I assume."
"Did you verify any of it?"
Roman frowned.
"I was told the consultants were qualified."
"Did you know they included a signature purporting to be your wife's?"
He looked down.
For the first time, I saw confusion.
"What signature?"
Mara slid the final page toward him.
Roman examined it.
Then looked at me.
"Did you sign this?"
"No."
He looked again.
Something changed in his face.
"I thought you had a meeting with the consultant."
"I didn't."
"Lionel said—"
"Lionel lied."
Roman's jaw flexed.
I watched him study the signature.
Then he looked at Voss.
"Why am I seeing this for the first time?"
Voss remained composed.
"Northbridge manages its own documentation. I didn't personally oversee every field report."
"But you were at Laya's dinner," I said.
Roman turned back.
"And you were discussing me."
Voss gave a thin smile.
"That is an inaccurate characterization."
"Then explain it."
He paused.
Before he could answer, Roman spoke.
"Martin, outside."
Mara raised a hand.
"We're not finished."
Roman looked at her.
"I need five minutes with my lawyer."
"You're entitled to confer with counsel," Mara said. "We'll remain here."
Roman and Voss left.
The moment the door closed, I released a breath I hadn't realized I was holding.
Elena had been right.
Roman didn't understand the woman sitting across from him.
He expected the version of me who would have cried, apologized for making him uncomfortable, and allowed him to explain everything away.
That woman had disappeared somewhere between the voicemail and the empty nursery.
Mara turned toward me.
"How are you doing?"
I looked at the closed door.
"Better than I expected."
"Good. Keep telling the truth. You don't need to persuade him to agree with your feelings."
I nodded.
After nearly fifteen minutes, Roman returned alone.
Voss did not come back.
Roman sat across from me.
"I've asked Martin to step away from any family-law matters," he said.
Mara's expression remained neutral.
"That's your decision."
Roman looked at me.
"Aaron, I didn't know about the signature."
I studied his face.
For years, I had known exactly when Roman was lying.
His voice became too smooth.
His explanations too polished.
Now he seemed genuinely shaken.
But I didn't feel relief.
Because he had known enough.
"You signed the authorization," I said.
"Yes."
"You allowed people to watch me."
"I wanted professional advice."
"You didn't tell me."
"I thought you'd feel insulted."
I stared at him.
"You knew I would feel violated, so you decided not to tell me."
He opened his mouth.
Then closed it.
For the first time, he had no answer.
I took a breath.
"Why did you sign the assessment demand?"
His eyes lowered.
"Martin said the court would want to know whether Sophie was safe."
"Did you believe she wasn't?"
Roman looked up immediately.
"No."
"Then why did you sign it?"
He swallowed.
"Because I was angry."
The admission surprised both of us.
He continued.
"I came home. You were gone. Nobody would tell me where you were. I saw her empty nursery, and I thought—"
His voice broke slightly.
"I thought I'd lost my daughter."
I held his gaze.
"You hadn't lost her."
"I couldn't see her."
"You knew she was safe. Elena told you. Our attorney contacted yours. We offered a visit."
Roman looked down.
"I know."
"And instead of responding, you tried to force me back."
He said nothing.
I felt tears gather.
"Roman, you were afraid of feeling powerless for one night. I was afraid of losing our daughter forever."
He rubbed a hand over his face.
"I'm sorry."
I had heard those words before.
After the first suspicious photograph.
After he missed my birthday.
After I found a hotel receipt in his coat.
After he promised that his friendship with Laya was nothing inappropriate.
"I'm sorry" had become the language Roman used when he wanted a problem to stop.
This time, I didn't answer.
He looked at me.
"Come home."
I shook my head.
"Aaron, please."
"Which home?"
He frowned.
"What?"
"The one where you had staff reporting on me? The one where you gave another woman access to my private medical information? The one where my husband could leave his newborn daughter to attend his mistress's birthday and then come home angry that I'd made a decision without him?"
Roman's face tightened.
"Laya had nothing to do with my decision to marry you."
I almost laughed.
"I'm not asking about eight years ago."
He looked away.
I leaned forward.
"Are you still seeing her?"
Silence.
"Roman."
"No."
"When did you end it?"
He hesitated.
"Saturday night."
The night after I left.
I looked at him steadily.
"Did you end it before or after you discovered the nursery was empty?"
He didn't answer.
That was answer enough.
I stood carefully.
My incision pulled, but I ignored the discomfort.
"Then you didn't choose your wife. You reacted to losing her."
Roman stood too.
"Aaron, I love you."
The words struck somewhere deep.
Because for years, I had wanted to hear them without having to ask.
But love spoken at the edge of consequences was not the same as love shown through daily choices.
I looked at him.
"Then you should have treated me like someone you could lose."
I turned to leave.
Roman stepped forward.
Not threateningly.
Almost desperately.
"Wait."
Mara rose beside me.
Roman stopped.
He looked at me.
"What do you want?"
For one moment, I imagined giving him a number.
Ten million.
Fifty million.
Half his fortune.
I knew he could understand those demands.
Money was a language Roman spoke fluently.
But my answer was simpler.
"I want the truth."
He frowned.
"About what?"
"Everything you signed. Everything Laya did. Everything your employees reported about me. And everything your foundation has been paying for."
His expression changed.
At the mention of the foundation, something flickered in his eyes.
I caught it.
"What?" I asked.
He shook his head.
"Nothing."
"Roman."
He looked toward Mara.
Then back at me.
"There are corporate matters you don't understand."
I felt something cold move through me.
There it was again.
The invisible wall.
The assumption that I couldn't possibly understand the important things.
"Try me."
Roman's jaw tightened.
"Certain foundation expenditures are being reviewed."
"What expenditures?"
He hesitated.
"Consulting contracts."
I stared at him.
"Northbridge?"
He didn't answer.
I felt my stomach sink.
Before marrying Roman, I had worked in nonprofit health administration.
I understood budgets.
Grant restrictions.
Vendor agreements.
And how easily charitable money could disappear when nobody asked questions.
I also knew that the Moretti Family Foundation supported maternal health programs across Wisconsin.
I had helped design several of them.
"Roman," I said slowly, "are you telling me foundation money paid for people to investigate me?"
He looked away.
That small movement told me more than any speech.
I stepped back.
"Oh, my God."
"Aaron, it may not be what it looks like."
"Then what does it look like?"
He said nothing.
I shook my head.
"You used charitable money to fund surveillance of your wife?"
"I didn't know where every invoice was allocated."
"You're the foundation chairman."
"That's why I'm having it reviewed."
I stared at the man I had married.
For years, Roman had told people I was the heart of our foundation.
He had praised my work with struggling mothers.
He had stood beside me at hospital fundraisers while cameras flashed.
And all the while, the organization bearing our family name might have been paying people to build a case against me.
I looked at Mara.
"I want those records."
She nodded.
"We'll request what's legally available and determine the proper channels for the rest."
Roman rubbed his forehead.
"Aaron, please don't turn this into a public scandal before I know what happened."
I looked back at him.
"Then find out what happened."
I walked out of the room.
This time, Roman didn't follow.
That afternoon, Elena drove me home to Sophie.
The moment I held my daughter, my breathing steadied.
I rocked her in the little chair beside the window.
For the first time in days, I allowed myself to think about the future.
An apartment.
A smaller house.
A job I could return to when I was ready.
A life where nobody monitored my tears or treated my exhaustion like evidence.
It wouldn't be easy.
Roman's name was on almost everything we owned.
But I had savings of my own, work experience, and people who loved me.
I wasn't helpless.
I had simply been living with someone who benefited from making me feel that way.
At 7:48 p.m., Cora called.
Her voice was shaking.
"Aaron, I need to tell you something."
"What happened?"
"Laya found the accounting files."
I sat straighter.
"What accounting files?"
"The ones connecting Northbridge to the foundation."
My heart began racing.
"How?"
"I don't know. But she called me into her office and asked whether I'd been talking to you."
"What did you say?"
"Nothing."
Cora's breathing quickened.
"Then she told me to take two weeks off. Paid leave. She said I looked tired."
I recognized the tactic instantly.
Everyone who became inconvenient was suddenly too tired to be trusted.
"Cora, you need to speak to your lawyer."
"I already called her."
"Good."
There was a pause.
Then Cora said, "Aaron, there's something else."
My chest tightened.
"What?"
"The Northbridge payments aren't the biggest problem."
I stared at the wall.
"Then what is?"
Cora lowered her voice.
"Three months ago, Laya arranged transfers from the foundation to a company called Alder Road Consulting."
"How much?"
Silence.
"Cora?"
"Just over eight million dollars."
My mouth went dry.
"Eight million?"
"Across several contracts."
"For what?"
"According to the invoices, community health expansion, crisis communications, and executive advisory services."
I knew our foundation's projects.
I had helped approve the annual budget before my pregnancy became complicated.
I had never heard of Alder Road Consulting.
"Who owns it?" I whispered.
Cora hesitated.
"That's what I was checking when Laya walked into my office."
Then she said the words that changed the direction of everything.
"Aaron, the last transfer was approved using your name."
I stared at the phone.
"I didn't approve anything."
"I know."
"Then who did?"
Cora inhaled shakily.
"I don't know yet."
The call ended a minute later.
I looked down at Sophie.
She slept peacefully against my chest.
Eleven days old.
Unaware that people had already begun fighting over the money, power, and reputation attached to her family name.
I kissed her forehead.
Then I called Mara.
"There's something else we need to investigate."
She listened.
When I finished, she was silent for several seconds.
Then she asked, "Aaron, did you ever report concerns about foundation spending?"
I frowned.
"Last summer. I questioned a consulting contract."
"What happened?"
"Roman said Laya had handled it."
"Do you have your old correspondence?"
"Maybe."
Mara paused.
"Find it."
I looked toward the window.
Outside, the first thin flakes of snow were beginning to drift across the yard.
Somewhere in Milwaukee, Roman Moretti was probably sitting in his enormous office, surrounded by people paid to protect him.
He had thought the worst thing I could do was leave.
May you like
He hadn't considered what might happen if I started asking questions.
And this time, I wasn't going to stop just because he told me the answers were complicated.
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