Chapter 5 - The Photograph Bianca Paid For
Adrian came to Naomi's office on Wednesday carrying a folder instead of flowers.
It was the first useful thing he'd brought me since asking for a divorce.
He placed it on the table between us.
“I've had Tomas review everything Bianca accessed,” he said. “You should see it before anyone asks you to believe me.”
Naomi opened the folder.
There were copies of the forwarding rule from the household email account, the appointment notice that should never have reached Bianca, and a statement from the employee who had temporarily given her access to the office computer.
The employee hadn't done anything malicious. Adrian had told everyone Bianca could help with personal matters. No one had thought to ask what that meant for the private life of the wife he was leaving.
The final pages were different.
They were invoices from a private investigator named Richard Hale, paid from an account Bianca used for personal expenses. The earliest invoice was dated the morning after she'd seen the appointment notice.
The description was simple.
Discreet verification of Mrs. Romano's movements.
I stared at the words.
“She hired someone to follow me?”
“Yes,” Adrian said.
“Because of a pregnancy?”
“Because she thought you were going to interfere with our future.”
Our future.
He stopped as soon as he heard himself.
“I mean the future she imagined,” he corrected.
Naomi looked at the invoices without commenting on the correction.
“Has Mr. Hale been contacted?”
“Through counsel. He says he was hired to establish whether Elena was preparing to leave Chicago and whether she was actually receiving prenatal care.”
Actually.
As though carrying my doctor's photograph in my handbag might be a performance staged for financial gain.
“And the page sent to my hotel?” I asked.
“The investigator says he didn't send it. Bianca hasn't admitted to it.”
We still couldn't prove who had posted that envelope. I appreciated Naomi's insistence on separating evidence from suspicion, even when I wanted every answer at once.
But the invoices made one thing unmistakable.
Someone had turned my medical care into a subject for surveillance.
“Why didn't you notice she was doing this?” I asked Adrian.
He didn't answer immediately.
“Because I gave her freedom to do whatever she wanted in my name.”
“That's the answer.”
He nodded.
“It's not an excuse.”
I studied the man across from me.
His suit was immaculate. His hair was neatly combed. From a distance, he still looked like the person Chicago's most dangerous men feared to disappoint.
But his hands were resting flat on the table, and he hadn't once tried to reach across it for mine.
“I ended the relationship,” he said.
I felt a small, complicated movement inside my chest.
I had imagined wanting to hear those words for months. Now that they were here, they didn't restore anything.
“I'm sorry,” I said. “But that decision belongs to you. It doesn't change what you asked of me.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
He looked at me.
“You told me Bianca needed you. You watched me prepare medicine you didn't even remember to take, and you said she made you feel needed. You didn't ask whether I had needs of my own.”
His gaze dropped toward the folder.
“That's true.”
“Then don't make this about choosing me over her. You made your choice when it mattered.”
He swallowed.
Naomi gave us a moment, then turned to the practical matters.
We agreed that any communication about the pregnancy would go through a shared, attorney-reviewed channel. Adrian would not send security to my apartment without my consent. The household systems would remain inaccessible to Bianca, and my appointment details would not be circulated through the Romano office.
“Child support is separate from a marital settlement,” Naomi reminded him. “Elena has declined a claim on your personal fortune for herself. That does not reduce your responsibilities to your child.”
“I understand.”
“And there will be no informal arrangement allowing anyone to remove the child from her care after the birth.”
Adrian's eyes lifted sharply.
“I never asked for that.”
“Good. Then put it in writing.”
He did.
Not because the signature magically settled a future custody case. It didn't. But the temporary commitments gave us a way to proceed without treating the baby as a prize to be won.
As I left, Adrian followed me to the office door.
“Elena, I know how to organize security for a hundred people,” he said. “I don't know how to do this without making you feel watched.”
“Start by asking permission.”
“May I attend one appointment?”
I considered him.
“Not the next one. I'll send you information afterward.”
He accepted it.
At home that night, I unfolded the ultrasound photograph and laid it on my little kitchen table.
The image was small and blurry. To anyone else, it might have looked like a scattering of shadows.
To me, it was the most important thing I had ever held.
My phone buzzed with a message from Naomi.
Richard Hale's lawyer had disclosed that his client photographed me entering the clinic and had forwarded the images to Bianca. He retained a copy and had been instructed to preserve it.
The first photograph had been taken on Tuesday.
The very day I'd discovered I was pregnant.
I looked toward the apartment window, suddenly conscious of how easily someone could mistake watching a person for knowing them.
May you like
Bianca had been collecting evidence of a life she had no right to enter.
And I wondered what she intended to do with the pictures she had bought.
