Chapter 7 - Desperation and Downfall
Six months later, winter in Chicago had settled in with a merciless, gray ferocity.
Jason sat in a battered 2012 Honda Civic parked outside a dilapidated check-cashing store on Western Avenue. The car belonged to Lauren’s former hair stylist, who had taken pity on them and rented it to Jason for four hundred dollars a month.
The heat in the car barely functioned, blowing lukewarm, dusty air against his cracked windshield. Jason pulled his cheap wool gloves tighter around his fingers, staring down at his phone.
His life had been stripped down to bare, agonizing survival.
The federal investigation into the Vance conspiracy had cleared Jason of intentional criminal conspiracy, but the cost had been catastrophic. To avoid civil lawsuits from the minority shareholders of Carter Enterprises, Jason had been forced to surrender every remaining personal asset he possessed. His sports cars, his luxury watches, his country club memberships, his private equity accounts—all liquidated to satisfy corporate indemnities.
He was currently living in a cramped, one-bedroom basement apartment in Bridgeport, sharing the space with Lauren, who spent her days chain-smoking on the worn sofa and screaming at him for destroying her lifestyle.
His former friends no longer took his calls. Men he had played golf with every Saturday crossed the street when they saw him walking into the county clerk’s office. He had applied for three mid-level logistics management jobs; all three had rejected him within twenty-four hours, citing “reputational risk.”
He opened his phone’s browser. With shaking fingers, he typed the name he searched every single night before going to sleep.
*Anna Moretti Carter.*
The screen populated with international press clippings from the past month.
There was a photo of Anna standing on the grand staircase of the Palazzo Reale in Milan. She wore an emerald-green silk evening gown that accentuated her timeless grace. Her hair was swept up in an elegant chignon, her skin glowing with radiant health. Beside her stood Julian Sterling, impeccably tailored, his arm resting gently, protectively behind her waist.
The headline read:
*MORETTI RESTORATION CONSORTIUM WINS HISTORIC $120M CASTELLO SFORZESCO CONTRACT.*
*CHAIRWOMAN ANNA MORETTI LEADS NEW ERA OF EUROPEAN ARCHITECTURAL PRESERVATION.*
Jason zoomed in on the photograph.
Anna wasn't just surviving; she was reigning. She looked ten years younger than the woman who had sat across from him in Collins’s office. There was no trace of the quiet, weary housewife who used to wait up for him until midnight with a plate of warmed-over dinner.
Then he swiped to the next image.
It was a candid shot from a charity polo match in Lake Como. Ethan was riding a miniature pony, laughing with pure, radiant joy, wearing a blazer with the Moretti family crest. Sophie was sitting on the grass beside Julian, holding an architectural sketchpad, smiling up at the man like he was her hero.
A guttural sob tore from Jason’s throat, shaking his entire frame.
*“They’ll only slow me down while I rebuild my life.”*
Those words were carved into his soul like burning acid. He had abandoned his own flesh and blood—brilliant, beautiful children who were now calling an English aristocrat their guardian—all for a woman who had been recording his financial fraud for an international cartel.
Lauren banged on the car window, breaking his trance. Jason rolled it down three inches.
“The landlord called!” Lauren screamed through the freezing wind. “The rent was due yesterday! Did you get the advance from the delivery app? Jason, we’re going to be evicted!”
Jason looked at his sister. Her face was haggard, stripped of the Botox and expensive treatments that had once disguised her bitterness. She looked like a stranger.
“I didn't get the advance,” Jason said, his voice flat, devoid of life.
“What do you mean you didn't get it?!” Lauren shrieked. “What am I supposed to eat tonight?!”
“I’m leaving, Lauren,” Jason said quietly.
Lauren blinked, confused. “Leaving? Where are you going?”
Jason pulled an envelope from his coat pocket. Inside was a one-way economy ticket to Milan, purchased with the absolute last remaining funds from a forgotten retirement IRA he had liquidated at a massive penalty.
“I’m going to get my family back,” Jason whispered.
Lauren stared at him, then let out a shrill, mocking laugh that cut through the freezing car. “Get them back? Are you insane, Jason? Anna despises you! She controls your father’s company! She has millions! She has international royalty in her corner! You’re a broke, ruined delivery driver in a rusty Civic!”
Jason stared straight ahead through the frosted windshield, his eyes burning with a desperate, deranged obsession.
“She’s my wife,” Jason muttered, his voice trembling with denial. “She loved me for eleven years. She was hurt. She was just striking back to teach me a lesson. Once she sees me… once she sees how much I’ve suffered… she’ll remember who we were. She won’t let our children grow up without their real father.”
“Jason, don't do this!” Lauren cried, grabbing the door handle. “If you spend that money, I won't have a place to stay! You can’t leave me here alone!”
Jason didn't look at her. He shifted the car into drive, pulled away from the curb, and left his screaming sister standing in the freezing slush of Western Avenue.
He was flying to Italy.
In his twisted, broken mind, he believed that the past eleven years could be restored with a single, dramatic apology. He believed the world still revolved around Jason Carter.
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He had no idea that in Milan, the final act of his humiliation was already waiting.
***
