Chapter 6 - THE BOY BEHIND THE LOCKED DOOR
For three years, I had lived at the Moretti estate.
I knew the west wing smelled of polished cedar.
I knew the library windows rattled during thunderstorms.
I knew Dante kept a photograph of his mother inside the bottom drawer of his desk.
But apparently, I hadn't known everything.
“There's a child in our house?” I whispered.
Dante sounded ashamed.
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“In the old guest wing.”
“The wing you told me was being renovated?”
“Yes.”
I closed my eyes.
“How long?”
“Two years.”
I felt physically ill.
“Dante, I lived there.”
“I know.”
“You let me live there without knowing there was a child?”
“I thought I was protecting him.”
“From whom?”
“Carlo.”
I laughed bitterly.
“Your favorite explanation lately.”
Dante didn't argue.
“Daniel's mother asked me to hide him after Carlo tried to take him. She believed someone inside the family was helping Carlo.”
“So you hid him inside the family mansion?”
“In a secured section Carlo couldn't access.”
“And you never told your wife?”
“I was afraid the fewer people who knew, the safer he would be.”
I stared at the ceiling.
“You didn't trust me.”
“No.”
The honesty hurt.
Then Dante added:
“And I was wrong.”
I didn't answer.
He continued.
“Daniel is safe. Amelia knows where he is. I'm arranging to reunite them.”
“Good.”
“Sophia—”
“Don't.”
“I need to see the babies.”
My hand tightened around the phone.
“You can make that request through Rebecca.”
“I know.”
“Then do it.”
He was quiet for a moment.
“Are you recovering?”
I almost laughed.
The question came three days too late.
“I'm alive.”
“Sophia, I—”
I ended the call.
That evening, Rebecca brought me a copy of the divorce agreement.
“There's a provision here you need to see.”
She pointed to a paragraph buried in the financial section.
The agreement required me to acknowledge that the seventy-million-dollar payment represented a complete settlement of all marital and parental claims.
I frowned.
“Parental claims?”
“It's an attempt to make it appear you voluntarily surrendered your position regarding the children.”
“But I never agreed to that.”
“You signed a document containing the language. However, the circumstances surrounding the signature are highly relevant, and a private agreement cannot simply erase parental rights.”
I remembered the pain.
The blood loss.
Dante standing over me.
His cold voice.
Sign it.
“Can we challenge it?”
“Yes.”
“Then do.”
Rebecca looked at me carefully.
“There's something else. The signature page has been attached to a revised version of the agreement.”
I stared at her.
“What?”
“The version filed by Carlo's attorney contains provisions that weren't in the copy you were shown.”
“That's fraud.”
“Potentially serious fraud.”
She placed two documents side by side.
The signatures matched.
The pages didn't.
I felt a strange calm settle over me.
Carlo had spent years assuming women were too frightened, too emotional, or too dependent to challenge him.
He had underestimated me.
“Preserve everything,” I said.
Rebecca nodded.
“We already have.”
The next morning, a court hearing was scheduled.
Dante would be there.
Carlo would be there.
And for the first time since my babies were born, I would be there too.
Not as a wife begging her husband to love her.
As a mother demanding the truth.
Before the hearing, Luca visited my room.
He carried a small wooden box.
“I found this in our father's storage unit.”
Inside lay an old silver locket.
I recognized it immediately.
Our mother had worn it every day.
Luca opened it.
Instead of a photograph, there was a folded piece of paper.
On it were three words written in our father's handwriting.
TRUST NO MORETTI.
I stared at the message.
Then I looked at Luca.
“Not even Dante?”
May you like
My brother's eyes filled with sadness.
“Especially not Dante.”
