Chapter 7 - Olivia’s Last Lie
My divorce attorney, Rebecca Sloan, had represented CEOs, athletes, politicians, and enough wealthy men with secret second families to stop being surprised by human behavior.
Even she had never had an armed secretary walk into her office demanding a flash drive.
The building went into lockdown within ninety seconds.
Rebecca escaped through a private records room after her receptionist triggered a silent alarm. Two employees remained trapped on the twenty-sixth floor with Olivia, but both managed to lock themselves inside a conference room.
By the time we reached the command center Marcus had arranged with local police, the street around Rebecca’s building had been sealed.
I watched the live security feed from a monitor.
Olivia stood in Rebecca’s office wearing the same cream coat she had worn the day Alexander fired her.
She looked different now.
Smaller somehow.
Not less dangerous.
Just stripped of the soft performance I had mistaken for weakness.
Her phone rang.
She answered.
A negotiator spoke from another room.
“I want Claire,” Olivia said.
Alexander’s face turned cold.
“No.”
Marcus folded his arms. “Obviously no.”
The police lieutenant looked at me. “She’s asked for you four times.”
“She wants the drive.”
“We know.”
“She also wants to talk.”
Alexander turned toward me. “She can talk to someone else.”
I looked at him.
His mouth closed.
Boundary remembered.
That mattered.
“I’m not going inside,” I said. “But I’ll speak to her by phone if you record everything.”
The lieutenant nodded.
Alexander hated it.
I could tell from the way his shoulders tightened.
But he did not forbid it.
That mattered too.
Five minutes later, I sat at a table with a headset over one ear.
The call connected.
Olivia laughed softly.
“So you finally decided to speak to me.”
“I’m here.”
“Is Alexander beside you?”
I looked at him through the glass wall.
“Yes.”
“Of course he is. Now.”
The word landed exactly where she intended.
I kept my voice even.
“What do you want?”
“You know.”
“The drive?”
“The drive. Elena’s papers. Every copy.”
“That’s impossible.”
“Nothing is impossible. Alexander taught me that.”
“No. He taught you that people with power often mistake delay for victory.”
Silence.
Then Olivia’s voice sharpened.
“You think you won because he came running after you?”
“This was never a competition.”
“It was to me.”
I closed my eyes for a moment.
There it was.
The raw thing beneath all the strategy.
Not love.
Resentment.
“Why?” I asked.
She laughed again.
“You had everything.”
“No.”
“You had his name. His house. His loyalty.”
I looked through the glass at Alexander.
He looked away.
Olivia continued.
“My father died because of the Morettis. My mother spent fifteen years telling me they took everything from us. Then Carlo found me and told me the truth.”
“What truth?”
“That Alexander’s family murdered my father after using him.”
“Carlo used your father.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“You don’t know anything.”
“I know Carlo paid Richard Hayes before Matteo died. I know Carlo used information your father stole. I know Carlo had more to gain from both men being dead than Alexander ever did.”
Olivia stopped breathing for a second.
The negotiator beside me wrote something on a legal pad.
Keep going.
I did.
“Did Carlo ever show you proof that Alexander ordered your father’s death?”
“He didn’t have to.”
“That isn’t proof.”
“His family did it.”
“Alexander was twenty-four when your father disappeared. He was burying his brother.”
Another silence.
I could almost hear her certainty cracking.
“He knew what you wanted to believe,” I said. “So he gave you someone to hate.”
Olivia’s breathing became uneven.
“You’re defending him after what he did to you?”
“No.”
The answer came easily.
“I can tell the truth about Alexander without excusing him. He failed me. He humiliated me. He broke promises. That doesn’t make him guilty of everything Carlo told you.”
Through the glass, Alexander’s eyes met mine.
I looked away first.
Olivia whispered, “He chose me.”
“No.”
“He took me to the island.”
“You canceled my ticket.”
“He let me stay.”
“Yes.”
“He comforted me.”
“Yes.”
“He brought me back after promising you he wouldn’t.”
“Yes.”
Her voice rose.
“Then he chose me!”
I took a breath.
“No, Olivia. He chose his ego. You were simply standing where his ego wanted reassurance.”
The room around me went silent.
Even Marcus stared.
On the line, Olivia said nothing.
I continued more softly.
“And you built your entire plan around believing that being preferred for one flight meant you were loved. It didn’t.”
“You don’t know what happened on the island.”
“We found the service camera.”
Silence.
“We watched you enter his room while he was unconscious.”
Nothing.
“We watched you leave after taking the picture.”
Her voice came back as a whisper.
“You’re lying.”
“I saw it.”
“No.”
“The police have it.”
“No.”
“Your photograph is evidence now.”
Something crashed on her end of the line.
The negotiator held up a hand.
Stay calm.
Olivia began crying.
Real crying this time.
Not the trembling tears she had once used to make Alexander feel protective.
These were ugly, breathless sounds.
“Carlo said he would protect me.”
“There it is,” I said.
She stopped.
The negotiator’s pen moved rapidly.
I kept my voice gentle.
“Where is he?”
Olivia laughed through her tears.
“You think I’m stupid.”
“No. I think you finally understand he used you.”
“He said once you were gone, Alexander would collapse.”
My stomach tightened.
“What was supposed to happen after I left?”
“He would be angry. Distracted. He would start drinking. Carlo would push him into a fight with the DeLucas. Then the family council would remove him.”
Alexander went completely still.
“And me?” I asked.
Olivia’s breathing changed.
“The men at the lake weren’t supposed to hurt you.”
“Dino said they wanted the case.”
“They did.”
“And if I refused?”
No answer.
“Olivia.”
“Carlo said you were a civilian. He said no one would touch you.”
“Yet my name was marked C pending.”
Silence.
Then she whispered, “I didn’t make that line.”
“Who did?”
“Carlo.”
The lieutenant beside me nodded once.
We had it.
A direct attribution.
I closed my eyes.
“Where is he?”
“He has a council meeting tonight.”
Alexander mouthed a curse.
I looked at him.
“What council meeting?”
Olivia answered before he could.
“The one where he plans to tell every Moretti captain that Alexander is unstable, compromised by his wife, and no longer fit to lead.”
I almost laughed at the absurdity.
Carlo was staging a corporate coup inside a criminal family while his evidence was being recorded by police.
Then Olivia said, “He has copies of your prenatal records.”
My blood went cold.
“What?”
“He knows about the babies.”
Alexander slammed one hand onto the table outside the booth.
The lieutenant moved toward him.
He stopped himself.
Barely.
Olivia continued.
“He plans to use them.”
“How?”
“To prove Alexander is weak.”
I almost pitied her.
She still believed weakness meant loving someone enough to change.
“Olivia,” I said, “put the gun down.”
She was silent.
“Carlo is already preparing to sacrifice you. You know that.”
“He won’t.”
“He left you alone in an office surrounded by police while he prepares to take Alexander’s place.”
Nothing.
“He did not come for you.”
Her crying returned.
I heard metal strike wood.
Then she whispered, “I put it on the desk.”
The negotiator signaled.
Officers moved.
“Step away from it,” I said.
“I’m sorry.”
I did not tell her it was okay.
It was not.
“Step away.”
A door opened on the feed.
Hands appeared.
Commands were shouted.
Olivia sank to her knees.
The gun remained on Rebecca’s desk.
Within seconds, officers had her in custody.
No shots.
No blood.
No one dead.
I removed the headset.
Alexander entered the room slowly.
He looked at me as if he wanted to touch me and knew better.
“You were incredible.”
“I was terrified.”
“Those can both be true.”
Marcus handed me water.
The lieutenant entered with another officer.
“We have enough from the call to move on Carlo, but the council meeting complicates timing. If he suspects Olivia talked, he’ll run.”
Alexander looked at Luca.
“Where is the meeting?”
Luca answered, “The old Moretti social club on Archer Avenue.”
The lieutenant studied Alexander.
“We need him talking. We have the warehouse call, but a direct admission in front of witnesses strengthens everything.”
Marcus immediately understood.
“No.”
I did too.
They wanted Alexander inside.
Wearing a wire.
Alexander looked at the ultrasound photo he still carried folded in his pocket.
Then at me.
“I said I’d get out.”
“Yes.”
“This is how I start.”
I wanted to argue.
I wanted to tell him he had already been shot once and nearly blown up once in less than forty-eight hours.
Instead I asked, “Can you walk in there and not become the man Carlo expects?”
Alexander held my gaze.
“I don’t know.”
May you like
It was the most frightening answer he could have given.
It was also the most honest.
