Updated Oct 23, 2025 • ~9 min read
LINA’S POV
The email came at three AM.
I only saw it because I was up pumping—the glamorous life of a new mother whose baby was still in the NICU. My phone screen lit up with a notification that made my blood run cold.
Subject: You Should See This
From an email address I didn’t recognize. No message. Just a link.
I shouldn’t have clicked it. Every internet safety rule screamed at me not to.
I clicked it anyway.
It was a blog post. Some gossip site I’d never heard of. The headline made me want to throw up.
“Tech Executive’s Green Card Marriage Exposed: Wife Pregnant with Another Man’s Baby”
Below it, photos. Of Seb and me at the courthouse on our wedding day. Of me, visibly pregnant, with Jasper at a parenting class. Of our apartment building. Of the hospital where Celeste was born.
Someone had been following us. Documenting everything.
I read with shaking hands:
“Sebastian Santoro, senior engineer at TechCore Solutions, married Lina Moreno in a rushed courthouse ceremony last September—just weeks after they met. Sources close to the couple reveal the marriage was arranged to prevent Santoro’s deportation.
But the plot thickens. Moreno was already pregnant at the time of the marriage—with another man’s child. The biological father, software developer Jasper Bennett, initially filed for custody before mysteriously dropping the case.
Immigration fraud? Custody manipulation? We reached out to TechCore Solutions for comment, but they declined to respond…”
The article went on. And on. Details about our timeline. About the custody battle. About the home study and the immigration interview. Everything we’d fought to keep private, laid bare for the world to see.
“Seb,” I whispered. Then louder: “SEB!”
He appeared in the doorway, half-asleep. “What’s wrong? Is it Celeste?”
I handed him my phone.
I watched the color drain from his face as he read.
“Who would do this?” he asked quietly.
“I don’t know. But Seb, they have everything. Photos, timeline, details about the custody case—someone’s been watching us for months.”
“The article says ‘sources close to the couple.’ Who would talk to a blogger about us?”
My mind raced through possibilities. Someone from the parenting class? A nurse? Jasper’s lawyer?
Then I remembered. The anonymous tip to immigration. The one that had started this whole nightmare.
“This is the same person,” I said. “Whoever reported us to immigration, they’re behind this too.”
“But why? What do they gain from exposing us now? The immigration investigation is closed. The custody case is settled.”
“Maybe that’s the point. Maybe they’re angry we won.”
Seb scrolled through the article again. “This mentions TechCore by name. Lina, they could fire me for this. Immigration fraud, custody drama—it’s a PR nightmare.”
“They wouldn’t—”
“They absolutely would. I signed a morality clause. If this reflects badly on the company…” He ran a hand through his hair. “I need to call HR. Get ahead of this before they see it online.”
“At three AM?”
“The article is already online. It’s only a matter of time before someone at work sees it.”
He was right. And judging by the comments section—which I’d stupidly scrolled to—people were already sharing it.
“Immigration fraud is a serious crime. This guy should be deported.”
“Poor kid, being born into this mess.”
“The biological father should have fought harder for his daughter.”
I closed the comments before I could read more.
“We need to find out who’s behind this,” I said. “Before they leak anything else.”
“Or we go public ourselves. Control the narrative.”
“And say what? ‘Yes, our marriage started as fraud, but it’s real now?’ That’s not going to help.”
“Then what do we do?”
I looked at the article again. At our private life dissected for strangers’ entertainment. At the comments section tearing us apart.
“We fight,” I said. “Like always.”
SEB’S POV
By nine AM, my phone was exploding.
Texts from Declan: “WTF is this article? Call me.”
From my mother: “Sebastiano, what is happening? The internet is saying terrible things.”
From coworkers I barely knew: “Dude, is this real?”
And then the one I’d been dreading. From my boss.
“My office. Now.”
I looked at Lina, who was reading her own flood of messages. “I have to go to work.”
“What are you going to say?”
“The truth, I guess. That we started as an arrangement and fell in love. That everything since has been real.”
“They’re going to fire you.”
“Maybe. But I can’t hide from this.” I kissed her forehead. “Go to the hospital. Be with Celeste. I’ll deal with work.”
“Seb—”
“I mean it. Don’t let this take away time with our daughter. She needs her mom.”
After I left, I drove to TechCore with my stomach in knots. The office felt different today. People whispered. Stared. Someone actually pulled out their phone when I walked by.
My boss, Preston Hughes, was waiting in his office.
“Sit,” he said. Not kindly.
I sat.
“I’m going to ask you a question, and I need you to be honest. Did you commit immigration fraud?”
“It’s complicated.”
“That’s not an answer.”
I took a breath. “When I married Lina, it was an arrangement. I needed to stay in the country. She needed financial help. We both got what we needed.”
“So yes. You committed fraud.”
“At first. But then we fell in love. By the time we applied for the green card, the marriage was real. We passed every interview, every home study. Immigration approved it.”
“Because you lied effectively.”
“Because we weren’t lying anymore.” I leaned forward. “Preston, I know how this looks. But my marriage is real. My daughter is real. This article is someone trying to destroy that.”
“And they’re succeeding. We’ve had three clients call this morning asking if TechCore employs criminals. Our PR team is in crisis mode. The board wants your resignation by end of day.”
The words hit like a physical blow. “You’re firing me?”
“I’m giving you the option to resign. Looks better for everyone.”
“I have a daughter in the NICU. I have medical insurance through this company that’s paying for her care—”
“Which is why I’m offering resignation instead of termination. You’ll have insurance through the end of the month. After that…” He shrugged. “You should have thought about that before committing federal crimes.”
“It wasn’t a crime. Not by the time—”
“Sebastian. This conversation is over. Resignation letter by five PM, or we terminate you. Your choice.”
I walked out of that office in a daze.
Six years at TechCore. Gone. Because someone decided to expose our past.
In the parking lot, I called Natalia.
“Have you seen the article?” I asked.
“I’m looking at it now. Seb, this is bad. Whoever leaked this has detailed knowledge of your case. Court documents. Immigration records. Things that should be confidential.”
“Can we sue them? For invasion of privacy or something?”
“We can try. But the damage is already done. And honestly, if everything in the article is true—which it appears to be—you don’t have much of a case.”
“So we just let them destroy us?”
“No. We figure out who’s behind it and why. And we prepare for the fallout.” She paused. “Seb, immigration might reopen your case. If they think you lied during your interview—”
“We didn’t lie. Everything we said was true.”
“But the timing will look suspicious. Marriage for green card, pregnancy with another man’s baby, rushed adoption—it reads like a scheme.”
“It’s not a scheme. It’s my life.”
“I know. But you need to prepare for the possibility that this isn’t over.”
After we hung up, I sat in my car and tried not to fall apart.
I’d lost my job. My reputation. Possibly my green card. And Celeste was still in the NICU, fighting to get strong enough to come home to a family that was crumbling around her.
LINA’S POV
I was holding Celeste when Seb arrived at the hospital.
One look at his face told me everything.
“They fired you,” I said.
“Asked me to resign. Same thing.” He collapsed into the chair next to me. “End of the month, and then no more insurance.”
“But Celeste—”
“I know. I’ll figure something out. Maybe Medicaid, or—I don’t know. I’ll figure it out.”
I wanted to scream. To throw something. To find whoever wrote that article and make them understand what they’d done.
But Celeste was in my arms, warm and alive and depending on us. So I breathed through the rage and focused on what mattered.
“We’ll figure it out,” I said. “Together.”
“You keep saying that. But Lina, I don’t know if we can figure this one out. Whoever is behind this leak—they’re not going to stop. They want to destroy us.”
“Then we find them first.”
“How?”
“I don’t know yet. But Seb, we’ve survived everything else. The custody battle. The immigration investigation. The premature birth. We can survive this too.”
“Can we? Or are we just delusional?”
“Maybe both.” I shifted Celeste in my arms. “But she’s counting on us. So we’d better figure it out fast.”
His phone buzzed. Another call. He looked at the screen and his expression darkened.
“Who is it?” I asked.
“Immigration services.”
My stomach dropped. “Answer it.”
He did, putting it on speaker.
“Mr. Santoro? This is Officer Callum Rivers. We need you to come in for a follow-up interview. Tomorrow. Nine AM. Non-negotiable.”
“On what grounds?”
“New information has come to light regarding your marriage. We need to verify its legitimacy.”
“We already verified it. We passed your interview.”
“That was before this article. Nine AM tomorrow, Mr. Santoro. Don’t be late.”
He hung up.
Seb and I stared at each other.
“They’re going to take away your green card,” I whispered.
“Not if we can prove the marriage is real.”
“We already proved it!”
“Then we’ll prove it again. And again. As many times as it takes.”
But I could see the fear in his eyes. The same fear I felt.
Someone was systematically destroying our life.
And we had no idea who.
Or how to stop them.
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