All Chapters of When the 99th Chance Was Gone: Chapter 1 - Chapter 9

9 Chapters

Chapter 1

North Shore Creative’s investor presentation was held at a private club in Boston’s Seaport District.Halfway through the presentation, Fiona Grant, the lead representative from Beacon Capital, stopped Madeline on the third slide.The projected construction costs were twenty-seven percent higher than the final numbers I had approved, and two pages of the cash-flow forecast were based on a version we had discarded months ago.Fiona closed the investment folder in front of her.“We’re considering putting fifteen million dollars into this company. If these are the numbers North Shore considers reliable, there’s no reason for us to continue.”Every eye at the table turned to me.Fiona’s expression hardened. “You’re the operations director. How did you let an error like this happen? Your performance bonus is suspended effective immediately.”I opened my mouth. “That wasn’t—”Ethan cut in before I could finish.“Dock her salary for this month too. There’s no need for excuses.”I turned to hi

Chapter 2

Freezing rain swept through the Seaport by the time the investor meeting ended.My rideshare app showed a twenty-five-minute wait, so I stood beneath the club awning and watched the cars pull away one by one.I didn’t look for Ethan.After what happened inside, I already knew who he would leave with.A few minutes later, his black SUV slowed beside the curb.The passenger window rolled down.Ethan leaned across the console. “Aless.”I looked over.Madeline was already sitting in the passenger seat, wrapped in Ethan’s wool coat.“Fiona scared her pretty badly,” he said. “I’m taking Maddie home first.”I hadn’t asked.That was what hurt.I hadn’t walked toward his car. I hadn’t expected him to wait for me. I hadn’t even wondered whether he would take me home.But he still felt the need to explain why, once again, he was leaving with her.“Okay,” I said.His brows drew together.“You’re not mad?”“No.”I meant it.I wasn’t angry about the ride.I was standing there thinking about the man

Chapter 3

Ethan handed me a forest-green document case from my favorite antiquarian bookstore.Before we married, he used to go there whenever he needed to apologize. The owner accepted appointments only and had a famously foul temper, but Ethan would wait half a day if that was what it took to find me an out-of-print novel.He always said my smile when I opened a book made every minute worth it.Warmth flickered through my fingers as I accepted the case. “You remembered—”The words died when I opened the clasps.There was no book inside. The case held a smashed laptop, an unreadable external drive, and a pile of half-finished presentation notes with Madeline’s name on the cover.“She’s pitching to the investment committee tomorrow afternoon,” Ethan said. “Her laptop broke, and the deck isn’t finished.”He pushed the case toward me.“You know North Shore’s numbers better than anyone. Help her rebuild the deck tonight.”I looked at him.“You fired me three hours ago.”His expression barely change

Chapter 4

Ethan’s hand was already on the doorknob when I came out of the study with a freshly printed folder. “Sign these before you go.”“What are they?”“Just some contracts.”The last document clearly read UNCONTESTED DIVORCE AND MARITAL SETTLEMENT AGREEMENT across the front page.Ethan didn’t look at it.Madeline called again. While reassuring her, he scribbled his name beside all eight tabs.“I trust you with contracts.” He tossed the pen onto the desk and left.The moment the door closed, I photographed the signatures and messaged Marcus.[Everything is signed. File in the morning.]Then I started packing.Three hours remained until midnight.I didn’t sit by the window or keep calling Ethan. I divided my closet into three piles: take, donate, leave.Five years of my life fit into two suitcases. Most of what remained had been bought for the role of Mrs. Cole—the clothes, the dishes, the carefully curated decorations. I no longer needed any of it, or the name that came with it.At ten, I di

Chapter 5

Ethan read my message in the Liberty Wharf Hotel’s sitting room. Madeline was curled beneath a blanket on the sofa, her email closed and her breathing steady for nearly two hours.“Divorce?” He stared at the word as if it were written in another language.He called me twenty-seven times in a row.Every call went to the same automated message, so he began texting.[Don’t threaten me with divorce.][Is this about the weekend case? I’ll get you something else.][Aless, pick up. We need to talk.][What do you mean the cards are gone? That’s impossible.]After the twenty-seventh call, he shot to his feet. Madeline caught his sleeve. “Ethan, you promised to stay with me. Thinking about tomorrow’s pitch is making it hard to breathe again.”In the past, that look would have kept him there. This time, he pulled his arm free. “You’ve been calm for two hours.”She stared at him. “But you said you’d never abandon me, no matter what happened.”“I said the same thing to my wife.”Only then did he re

Chapter 6

North Shore’s investment pitch crashed and burned the next morning.Madeline’s deck was riddled with unverified figures. The cost estimate was off by two zeros, and she had included a competitor’s hotel in North Shore’s portfolio. The investors walked out after ten minutes.Ethan threw the file onto the conference table. “Who approved this version?”No one spoke.Madeline stood with tears in her eyes. “I made it. Aless promised to help, but she only called data recovery. She didn’t fix anything for me.”Ethan almost asked how I could do that to her.Then he stopped.The presentation was Madeline’s job. Why had everyone assumed I would clean it up?For the first time, he looked at her as an employee. Her title, salary, and credit belonged to a creative director, but whenever she failed, she cried, claimed she wasn’t good enough, and waited for someone to rescue her.“Redo it,” he said. “I want a presentable version by tonight.”She blinked. “But I’m not in a good place right now.”“Then

Chapter 7

The Moretti name rarely appeared in the news, but no one between New York, Boston, and Sicily mistook it for an ordinary name.The family’s shadow stretched across docks, casinos, private security, and international shipping. No one could say exactly how much they controlled, and smart people didn’t ask.Ethan finally understood why I never discussed my family—and that I had given up far more than an inheritance to marry him.His friend Jonah pushed the investigator’s report back across the table. “You’re seriously going after her?”“I have to bring her home.”“Bring her home?” Jonah laughed without humor. “You still think she belongs to you.”Ethan said nothing.“Do you love Madeline?”“No.” The answer came instantly.Madeline’s mother had taken Ethan in when he was a teenager. His father was in prison, his mother had disappeared, and everyone at school treated him like trouble. Mrs. Avery was the only person who gave him a bedroom and a seat at the dinner table.Looking after Madelin

Chapter 8

Ten days after returning to my family, I took my seat in the boardroom of Moretti Holdings.Five years earlier, I had walked away from my law degree at NYU, the board seat my father kept for me, and my place as the Moretti heir. I had carried one suitcase to Boston and lived under my mother’s last name while building North Shore from nothing beside Ethan.He thought I negotiated well because I was gifted. He didn’t know I had listened to men fight over ports and shipping routes at the family dinner table from the age of thirteen. By eighteen, I could make directors thirty years older than me reopen a contract.I had hidden every sharp edge so Ethan wouldn’t feel he had married a dangerous woman.[That hadn’t been love. It had been a betrayal of myself.]My father never asked why I had returned. He pushed an acquisition file across the table. “Adriatica Capital needs a chief executive.”I opened it. “Aren’t you worried I’ll run away for another man?”“Love whoever you want,” he said. “B

Chapter 9

The divorce became final three months later.Ethan sent ninety-nine letters, each describing something he regretted. I opened none of them.[An apology could prove he finally saw the wound. It couldn’t order the wound to welcome the knife back.]Over the next year, I closed twelve international acquisitions and increased Adriatica Capital’s profit by forty-seven percent.In my free time, I went to every place that had once been pinned to the travel map. I watched a volcano in Iceland, learned to make wine in Tuscany, and greeted the new year from the Alps.When no one was there to take my picture, I handed the camera to a stranger. When no one was free to travel with me, I arrived alone anyway.My father’s legal adviser, Luca DeSantis, occasionally joined me. He never made decisions for me, and he didn’t assume that strength meant I never needed care.Whenever I said, “I can handle it,” he answered, “I know. You shouldn’t have to handle everything alone.”I wasn’t in a hurry to fall in

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