Chương 4 - SOFIA DIDN’T ASK ME TO FORGIVE HER
Sofia Vale asked to meet me three weeks later.
I said no.
She asked again through Mara.
I said no.
Then she sent one sentence:
I have an email from Luca that Dante has never seen.
I agreed.
Public café.
Mara two tables away.
I was almost eleven weeks pregnant by then.
Nausea had become a personality trait.
Sofia arrived in black trousers and a camel coat.
No red lipstick.
No apology costume.
She sat.
“Thank you.”
“Don’t.”
She nodded.
Fair.
For several seconds neither of us spoke.
Then I asked:
“How long?”
She knew what I meant.
“Four months emotionally.”
“Three physically.”
“Did you know about me?”
“Yes.”
“Pregnancy?”
“No.”
“Would it have mattered?”
Sofia looked down.
“I want to say yes.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
She looked back up.
“I don’t know.”
Good.
Painful.
Honest.
“Did you love him?”
“Yes.”
That hurt.
“Did he love you?”
“He never said it.”
“Did he say he would leave me?”
“No.”
“Did he complain about me?”
“Yes.”
Of course.
“What did he say?”
Sofia hesitated.
“I don’t think repeating intimate complaints helps you.”
I almost hated her for being reasonable.
“Summarize.”
“He said you stopped asking him questions.”
I laughed.
“That’s rich.”
“He said the house felt like a place where everyone needed something from him.”
“He said you were focused on trying to get pregnant.”
“He felt outside it.”
I absorbed.
Some of that might have been true.
None of it caused an affair.
Sofia said:
“I knew his marriage existed.”
“I participated anyway.”
“That is mine.”
Good.
“What email?”
She opened her phone.
Forwarded it to Mara and me.
From Luca to Dante.
Six months earlier.
Need spousal consent on MHM bridge. Don’t drag Lena into mechanics. I’ll have estate counsel handle it.
Dante’s response:
Fine. Keep her away from anything tied to South Side exposure. She has enough with treatments. Do what you need.
My stomach dropped.
Not forgery authorization.
Worse in a more ordinary way.
Permission not to ask me.
Dante had explicitly told Luca to keep me out.
Because I had “enough.”
Fertility appointments.
Hormones.
Hope.
Apparently those made me incapable of receiving information about companies carrying my legal name.
Sofia watched my face.
“I found that during diligence.”
“When?”
“October.”
“Before you kissed him?”
“Yes.”
“Did you ask Dante about it?”
“Yes.”
“What did he say?”
“That he was protecting you from criminal exposure.”
“And you accepted that?”
Sofia’s face tightened.
“I was already in love with him.”
There it was.
Convenient beliefs again.
She continued.
“I told myself his secrecy was evidence that he loved you.”
I stared.
“How?”
“He kept saying you were the one person he wanted outside that world.”
I laughed.
Quietly.
“Outside?”
“My name was on the loan.”
“I know that now.”
She looked ashamed.
“I should have understood the difference between not knowing and not being involved.”
Exactly.
“Why show me this?”
“Because Dante will blame himself for Luca’s forgery.”
“He should blame himself for part of it.”
“Yes.”
“But not all.”
“And?”
Sofia breathed.
“I am done helping men blur responsibility because the clean version makes them easier to love.”
That sentence surprised me.
I studied her.
“Are you still seeing him?”
“No.”
“Who ended it?”
“I did Christmas night.”
“Before or after I walked in?”
“After.”
Of course.
“He came to my apartment.”
My chest tightened.
Sofia continued before I could ask.
“He stayed twenty minutes.”
“I told him I was finished.”
“He asked me not to make decisions that night.”
I almost laughed.
Very Dante.
“Did you sleep together?”
“No.”
“Did he try?”
“No.”
“What did he say about me?”
Sofia looked directly at me.
“That he had destroyed the only place he ever felt like he didn’t have to be Dante Moretti.”
I looked away.
He had remembered home after breaking it.
Typical.
Sofia placed another document on the table.
Her resignation from Vale Advisory’s Moretti account.
“I’m leaving Chicago.”
“Because of him?”
“Because I became someone I don’t respect here.”
That was enough.
I did not forgive her.
I also did not need to punish her.
Before she left, Sofia said:
“You should know one thing.”
I almost smiled.
Apparently everybody loved that sentence.
“What?”
“Dante had already started closing the South Side gambling operation before your anniversary.”
I frowned.
“Why?”
“He said he wanted the criminal side gone before you had a child.”
My hand moved toward my stomach.
“He didn’t know.”
“No.”
“He didn’t know you were pregnant.”
“Then why?”
Sofia’s voice softened.
“Because he knew how badly you wanted a family.”
That hurt differently.
Dante could love the future child enough to start changing.
And still betray the future child’s mother.
Contradictions.
No clean villains.
No clean heroes.
When I returned to Mara’s office, Dante was waiting by video.
He had asked for a scheduled update on the audit.
I showed him Luca’s email.
He read his own response.
His face emptied.
“I remember this.”
“I assumed you would.”
“I meant keep you away from the gambling records.”
“My company guaranteed the loan.”
“I didn’t know Luca would—”
“Stop.”
He did.
“I believe you didn’t authorize the forgery.”
His shoulders dropped slightly.
Then:
“I also believe you created the exact environment where Luca knew he didn’t have to bother asking me.”
The relief disappeared.
Good.
“That part is yours.”
“Yes.”
No argument.
Then Dante said:
“I’m closing everything illegal.”
Mara looked up.
“What does that mean?”
“Private gaming.”
“Unlicensed lending.”
“Cash clubs.”
“All of it.”
Julian, his own lawyer, looked alarmed.
“Dante, we should discuss—”
“No.”
Dante looked at me through the screen.
“I’m done building a world where everyone thinks keeping Lena uninformed is loyalty.”
I stared.
“Don’t do it for me.”
His face tightened.
“Why?”
“Because if I never come back, you’ll resent me for the cost.”
Silence.
“Do it because you believe it should be done.”
Dante leaned back.
For the first time, he seemed to understand that I was no longer willing to become the reason for his redemption.
May you like
That job belonged to him.
---
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