Chapter 8 - The Cornered Rat
At 4:45 p.m., fifteen minutes before my deadline, Luca did not send his signed surrender to Evelyn’s office.
Instead, he showed up at my front gate.
I saw him through the high-definition security camera app on my phone. He was wearing the same jacket he had worn the night of the banquet, but he looked terrible. His hair was greasy, his face was pale and drawn, and his eyes were bloodshot. He didn't have his mother or his lawyers with him. He was alone.
He pressed the intercom button repeatedly. BUZZ. BUZZ. BUZZ.
"Jessi! Please!" his voice crackled through the speaker, high-pitched and frantic. "Jessi, open the gate! I know you're in there!"
I tapped the intercom button on my phone, keeping my voice steady. "Luca. You are violating the Order of Protection. I am calling the police right now."
"Don't call the police! Please, Jessi, just talk to me for two minutes!" he begged, pressing his face close to the camera lens. "Uncle Richard told me what you demanded! You can't ask me to give up my daughter! She's my blood!"
"You gave her up the second you let your mother hit her," I replied coldly. "Leave the property, Luca."
"I didn't have a choice!" Luca sobbed, grabbing the iron bars of the gate. "You don't understand what my mom is like! She controls everything! She owns my business, she pays for my apartment, she threatened to disinherit me if I didn't side with her at the restaurant!"
I listened to him crying into the intercom, feeling zero sympathy. Only an overwhelming disgust for the boy who had never grown into a man.
"You had a choice, Luca," I said softly. "You chose your mother's money over your daughter's safety. Every single time."
"If I sign those papers, my family will ruin me!" he screamed, his voice cracking with hysteria. "My mom will cut me off! Uncle Richard will fire me from the firm! I'll have nothing!"
"Then you'll finally know what it feels like to start from scratch," I said. "You have ten minutes to get to Evelyn's office before she hits 'send' on the IRS portal."
"Jessi! Please! I love Fiona!"
"If you loved her, you would have protected her," I said flatly. "Goodbye, Luca."
I cut the intercom connection, hit the speed dial for the local police department, and reported a violation of the protection order.
Through the camera feed, I watched Luca collapse against the iron gate, burying his head in his arms as he wept pathetic, self-pitying tears. He realized, finally, that his mother’s money could not buy him out of the grave he had dug for himself.
Ten minutes later, as the red and blue flashing lights of a police cruiser appeared at the end of the street, Luca scrambled back into his sedan and sped away like a cornered rat.
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At 5:02 p.m., my phone chimed with a text from Evelyn:
"Richard Vance just delivered the signed settlement documents to my desk. Luca signed away his parental rights. Wendy signed the permanent restraining order. It's over, Jessi. You won."
