Jocelyn’s POV
He didn't answer.
We drove back from Brooklyn in silence thick enough to choke on, and when I asked again—demanded, actually, with the kind of clarity that comes from watching your marriage dissolve in real time—Zayden's jaw went tight.
"Not here. Not now."
Translation: never.
So I hired Marcus Kovak instead.
The private investigator works out of a Chinatown office that smells like cigarettes and desperation. His rates are extortionate, his references impeccable, and his reputation for digging up dirt makes prosecutors nervous.
"I need everything," I tell him across a desk that's seen better decades. "Financial records, NDAs, sealed documents. Every woman he's ever paid to disappear."
Kovak doesn't blink. Probably hears requests like this daily from wives finally asking the right questions.
"This will get expensive," he warns.
"I don't care." I slide a retainer check across scratched wood. "I want names. Dates. Amounts. Everything he's buried."
Kovak picks up the check. Studies it. "Two weeks."
"One."
His eyebrow lifts. "You in a hurry?"
"I'm raising his secret son while he lies about how many others exist." My voice stays level, cold. "So yes, I'm in a hurry."
***
Kovak delivers in nine days.
The manila folder lands on Helena's kitchen table with a thud that sounds like judgement.
"You sure you want to open this?" Helena asks. She's already read it—her expression tells me everything I need to know about what's inside.
I open it anyway.
Four women. Four separate NDAs. Four children who don't exist in any official capacity.
Rebecca Morrison—attorney. Paid off seven years ago, $1.8 million. Son named Connor, now six years old.
Sofia Delgado—art curator. Paid off nine years ago, $2.3 million. Daughter named Isabella, eight years old.
Keiko Tanaka—investment banker. Paid off ten years ago, $1.5 million. Twins, both boys, nine years old.
And Natasha, the most recent. The one desperate enough to fight back.
Five women. Six children. Over nine million dollars in hush money.
"Jesus Christ." The words come out strangled.
Helena slides a glass of wine toward me. "There's more."
"How can there possibly be more?"
She flips to the back of the folder. Photographs paper-clipped to financial records that look like they've been through industrial shredding and reconstruction.
"Fifth woman—Giuliana Caruso. Paid off eleven years ago, but the amount isn't listed. Just marked as 'private settlement facilitated through third-party mediation.'"
I study the photo. Dark hair, Mediterranean features, wearing diamonds that cost more than most cars. "Who is she?"
"Niece of Dante Caruso." Helena's voice drops. "As in, Caruso crime family. Brooklyn operations, construction unions, waste management. Dante runs the whole organization."
The room tilts sideways.
"You're telling me Zayden got involved with a mob boss's niece."
"And paid the family directly to make it disappear." Helena taps the documents. "Kovak couldn't find records of a child. Either she terminated, or they hid the kid so thoroughly even a PI with Kovak's contacts can't locate them."
I drain the wine glass. Pour another.
"I want to talk to them."
"Jocelyn—"
"I want to talk to the women who took his money and disappeared. I want to hear what he promised them. What he said when he handed them checks and erased his children."
Helena's quiet for a long moment. "Rebecca Morrison lives in Connecticut. Practicing law, raising Connor alone. Kovak included her contact information."
The drive to Greenwich takes forty minutes. Helena offered to come, but this felt like something I needed to do alone—look these women in the eye without a buffer, without someone to temper my reaction.
Rebecca Morrison's house is quintessentially colonial, pristine, the kind of wealth that whispers instead of shouts.
She opens the door wearing yoga pants and suspicion. "Can I help you?"
"I'm Jocelyn Hartwell-Wolfe." I watch recognition flash across her face. "I think we need to talk about Zayden."
She should slam the door, should tell me to fuck off, should protect herself and her son from whatever fresh drama I'm bringing to her doorstep.
Instead, she steps aside. "I've been expecting someone eventually."
Her living room is tasteful, careful. Photos line the mantle—her son at various ages, always alone. No father in any frame.
"Connor's at school," Rebecca says, settling into an armchair. "You have until three-fifteen."
"How long were you together?"
"Six months. I was twenty-eight, associate at a firm Zayden's company used for acquisitions. We started sleeping together after a closing dinner." Her tone is clinical, detached. "I got pregnant. He wrote a check."
"Just like that?"
"Just like that." Rebecca's smile is bitter. "Didn't ask what I wanted. Didn't offer to be involved. Just calculated a number he thought would make me go away and made the offer."
"But you took it."
"I took it because I was twenty-eight and terrified and convinced raising a child alone was impossible without financial support." She stands, pours herself coffee from a French press. "The money bought Connor stability. Private school, healthcare, tutors. Everything Zayden could've provided if he'd been an actual father."
"Do you regret it?"
Rebecca considers this. "I regret believing him when he said it was better this way. That kids don't need fathers who resent their existence." She meets my eyes. "He made it sound logical. Compassionate, even. Like he was protecting Connor from his own inability to love."
The words hit like bullets.
"What was he like?" I ask. "When he offered you the money."
"Clinical." She doesn't hesitate. "Like he was negotiating a contract, not discussing our child. He had talking points prepared—financial security, privacy, best outcome for everyone involved. It felt rehearsed."
"Because it was."
"Because he'd done it before." Rebecca sets down her coffee. "I didn't know about the others until recently. Saw the news about Natasha, about you, and realized I was just one transaction in a pattern."
My phone buzzes. Kovak.
Need to see you. New information on Caruso situation. Urgent.
I stand. "Thank you for talking to me."
"Mrs. Wolfe?" Rebecca walks me to the door. "Whatever you decide about Zayden—don't let him make it about money. That's how he wins. He turns everything into a transaction where emotions are liabilities and children are line items."
***
Kovak's office feels smaller than before.
He slides a new folder across the desk. Thinner than the first, but heavier somehow.
"Giuliana Caruso didn't terminate." His voice is flat. "She had the baby. A girl. But the Caruso family took her."
"What do you mean, took her?"
"Raised her as one of their own. Legitimate family member. No public connection to Zayden." Kovak pulls out a photo. "Her name is Lucia Caruso. She's ten years old."
The girl in the photograph has Zayden's eyes. His jawline. His posture.
"The family forced the settlement," Kovak continues. "Threatened to expose Wolfe Holdings' ties to their construction operations, money laundering through real estate acquisitions. Zayden paid three million directly to Dante Caruso and signed documentation agreeing to zero contact with the child."
"He has a daughter with the mob."
"Had. She's Caruso property now." Kovak leans back. "And Mrs. Wolfe? They're watching. My contacts say the family knows you're investigating. They're not happy about it."
The folder sits between us like a bomb.
Five women. Six children. One man who turned fatherhood into a business expense.
And a ten-year-old girl trapped in a crime family because her father paid to pretend she didn't exist.