Chapter 3 - The Mistress Who Wanted a Stolen Life
Chloe Romano came to me two weeks later.
My first instinct was to refuse.
She had stood in my hospital room while I was bleeding, exhausted, and terrified. She had called herself my daughter’s mother. She had laughed when I asked to hold Sophia one last time.
I wanted nothing from her.
But Detective Howard said Chloe had asked to cooperate.
“She claims Dominic lied to her too,” he said.
“Of course he did.”
“He may have. But she has evidence.”
So I agreed to meet her at my father’s attorney’s office.
Chloe entered wearing jeans, no designer handbag, no perfect makeup, and no trace of the woman who had once looked at me with smug satisfaction.
She looked frightened.
“I didn’t know he planned to take the baby like that,” she said.
I stared at her.
“You were holding his hand.”
“I thought the contract was real.”
“You told the nurse you were Sophia’s mother.”
“Dominic told me you had agreed to everything.”
“You saw me ask for my daughter back.”
Her eyes filled with tears.
“I know.”
For a moment, the room was silent.
Then I said, “Why are you here?”
Chloe reached into her bag and placed a phone on the table.
“Because Dominic has done this before.”
My body went still.
“What do you mean?”
“He has another ex-wife. Before you.”
I looked at Maren.
She opened a file.
Dominic’s first marriage had been erased from most public records through a private settlement. His former wife, Laura Bennett, had disappeared from New York society after a bitter divorce.
According to Chloe, Laura had become pregnant six years earlier.
Dominic pressured her to sign documents related to “estate planning.” When she resisted, he threatened to have her declared mentally unstable.
She escaped before giving birth.
“She left the state,” Chloe said. “That’s why he chose you. He said you were different. He said you had too much pride to run.”
I felt sick.
Dominic had not invented this plan for me.
He had refined it.
Chloe unlocked her phone.
Inside were recordings.
In one, Dominic spoke about my pregnancy with Eleanor.
“Once Sophia is here, Vivienne becomes irrelevant,” he said. “Chloe will be more presentable. More cooperative.”
In another, Eleanor laughed.
“Vivienne always wanted to believe she was loved. That has always been her weakness.”
The final recording was worse.
Dominic told Chloe that once the baby was legally secured, he intended to move funds from several investment accounts and blame Vivienne for “financial instability.”
“He was going to make it look like you were dangerous,” Chloe whispered. “He said if you fought, he would say you were unstable after childbirth.”
My hands shook.
The plan had not been about Sophia alone.
It had been about erasing me.
My father’s firm immediately contacted Laura Bennett.
At first, she refused to speak.
Then Maren sent her the recordings.
Three days later, Laura agreed to give a statement.
She was living under another name in Oregon with her six-year-old son. Her voice trembled during the video call, but she told us everything: the coercion, the threats, the forged documents, the doctors Dominic tried to influence.
“I thought no one would believe me,” she said.
“I believe you,” I told her.
Laura looked at Sophia sleeping in my arms.
“Then don’t stop,” she said. “He will keep trying until someone makes him face what he is.”
The investigation widened.
Financial crimes investigators reviewed Dominic’s business accounts. They discovered fake consulting firms, forged signatures, and loans obtained using false claims of affiliation with Sterling & Vale.
Eleanor had helped.
She had introduced Dominic to friends and donors while privately spreading rumors that I was emotionally fragile. She had designed the story they planned to tell after Sophia’s birth.
Chloe, finally realizing she had never been Dominic’s partner, only his next accessory, signed a cooperation agreement.
I did not forgive her.
Not then.
Perhaps not ever.
But I understood something important.
Dominic used women against one another because it kept him powerful.
He wanted Chloe to believe she had won.
He wanted me to believe I had lost.
But neither of us had been the prize.
We had both been tools in a life built around his control.
The day Dominic was formally charged, I watched from the safe house with Sophia sleeping on my chest.
Fraud.
Forgery.
Identity theft.
Attempted custodial interference.
Conspiracy.
Coercion.
The list was long.
My father sat beside me.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
I looked at my daughter.
May you like
“No,” I said honestly. “But I will be.”
And for the first time, I believed it.
