Chapter 4 - THE LIE INSIDE MY MARRIAGE
I wanted to laugh.
Not because anything was funny.
Because the alternative was to believe my entire marriage had been built on a lie so elaborate that I no longer knew where it began.
“Isabella wasn't Dante's mistress?” I repeated.
Teresa shook her head.
“Not in the way you think.”
“Then explain the hotel photographs.”
“Staged.”
“The bracelet?”
“Purchased through a company account.”
“The phone calls?”
“Part of the arrangement.”
I stared at her.
“And the way Dante spoke to her in my hospital room?”
Teresa looked away.
“That part I don't understand.”
Neither did I.
And I wasn't about to let a stranger rewrite what I'd seen with my own eyes.
“Even if Carlo paid her,” I said, “Dante participated.”
Teresa nodded.
“Yes.”
That mattered.
I wasn't going to let a conspiracy excuse my husband's cruelty.
Teresa sat beside my bed.
“Isabella worked for Carlo's private intelligence company. He hired her two years ago to get close to Dante.”
“Why?”
“To create a scandal that would destroy your marriage.”
“Why would Carlo care whether Dante and I stayed married?”
Luca answered.
“Because Dante's marriage to you gave him an independent power base.”
I turned toward my brother.
He continued.
“Dante inherited control of the Moretti organization, but Carlo still controls several financial companies. Your father's trust is one of the few assets Carlo can't reach directly.”
Rebecca opened her laptop.
“There's a clause in the trust requiring an independent fiduciary to manage the assets for your children. But Carlo has been trying to establish that Sophia is unfit, so someone aligned with him can seek appointment.”
I felt sick.
“The affair. The divorce. The hospital.”
“All part of a larger effort,” Luca said.
Teresa wiped her eyes.
“Isabella told me she had started feeling guilty when she learned Sophia was pregnant with four babies.”
I looked at her.
“Guilty enough to stop?”
“No.”
Her honesty surprised me.
“She kept taking the money. She told herself she wasn't hurting anyone because Dante knew what he was doing.”
I stared at the wall.
There it was again.
Dante knew.
Dante chose.
Whatever Carlo planned, my husband had still handed me divorce papers hours after childbirth.
Teresa continued.
“Three days ago, Isabella discovered Carlo had ordered a medical report altered.”
My pulse quickened.
“What report?”
“Yours.”
She took an envelope from her purse.
Inside was a photocopy of a medical consultation.
At the bottom, beneath my name, someone had written:
POSTPARTUM PSYCHIATRIC INSTABILITY — RECOMMEND PERMANENT SEPARATION FROM INFANTS.
I stared at it.
“I've never been evaluated for that.”
Rebecca took the document.
“Then it's evidence of attempted fraud.”
Teresa nodded.
“Isabella said Carlo wanted a medical justification to remove you from the children's lives.”
“And if that failed?” Luca asked.
Teresa's face crumpled.
“She said there was another plan.”
Silence settled over the room.
I looked toward the nursery.
My babies slept peacefully, unaware that adults had turned their existence into a battle over money and power.
“What happened to Isabella?” I asked.
“I don't know.”
“Did she tell Dante?”
Teresa shook her head.
“She was afraid he would tell Carlo.”
I thought about Dante's warning.
Don't trust my uncle.
Maybe he'd finally discovered the truth.
Or maybe he was simply frightened because his own plans had gone wrong.
I couldn't know.
And I couldn't afford to guess.
That night, I received a video message.
The sender was unknown.
I pressed play.
Isabella appeared on the screen.
Her hair was disheveled.
Her eyes were swollen from crying.
“Sophia,” she whispered, “if you're watching this, I'm probably already dead.”
I gripped the phone.
“I need you to know something about your husband.”
She glanced over her shoulder.
Then she leaned closer to the camera.
“Dante knew Carlo wanted your babies.”
My chest tightened.
“But he didn't know why.”
The video flickered.
Isabella swallowed.
“And there's something else.”
She held up a photograph.
It showed Dante standing beside a woman I had never seen before.
The woman was holding a little boy.
May you like
Isabella whispered:
“Your quadruplets aren't the first children Carlo tried to steal from this family.”
