Chapter 4 - The Three-Year Lie Behind My Engagement
Dante did not let Judge Harrow into the room alone.
Neither did I.
“Open it,” I said.
“Elena—”
“Open the door.”
Dante studied me.
Then stepped aside.
Judge William Harrow entered.
Sixty-three.
Silver hair.
Black judicial robe folded over one arm.
A man my mother had called trustworthy.
A man Adrian insisted officiate because he'd “known the family forever.”
He looked at my wedding dress.
Then at Dante.
Then at Luca and Victoria.
His composure vanished.
“This is not what I expected.”
I held up Adrian's phone.
“Neither was this.”
The judge's eyes dropped to the screen.
For one second, I saw fear.
Then it was gone.
“I can explain.”
“That seems popular today.”
“Elena.”
“Don't call me that like you know me.”
He swallowed.
Dante said, “Were you aware a marriage certificate using Ms. Rossi's forged signature was filed yesterday?”
The judge hesitated.
“Yes.”
My mother surged forward.
“You bastard.”
I caught her arm.
“Mom.”
The judge lifted a hand.
“The certificate was never meant to become legally effective.”
I laughed.
“That's your defense?”
“It was a protective filing.”
“For who?”
“You.”
“Everybody keeps protecting me by committing crimes.”
He looked genuinely ashamed.
“I was trying to buy time.”
“From what?”
He glanced at Luca.
“You tell her.”
Luca shook his head.
“No. This one's yours.”
Harrow looked at me.
“Adrian came to me yesterday.”
My heartbeat jumped.
“He knew about the second employer?”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
“He wouldn't say.”
“Why not?”
“He said saying the name without evidence would get people killed.”
Dante's eyes sharpened.
“What evidence?”
“A ledger Alexander hid before his death.”
Luca closed his eyes.
“God.”
“You know it?” Dante asked.
“I helped him create it.”
Victoria went still.
“What ledger?”
Luca looked at his sister.
“The real ownership records.”
Her face changed.
I noticed.
So did Dante.
“What ownership records?” I asked.
Luca leaned both hands on the table.
“Moretti Atlantic wasn't simply Alexander's company.”
Dante's jaw tightened.
“It belonged to four partners.”
“My father,” he said.
“Alexander.”
“Who else?”
Luca looked toward Victoria.
“Me.”
Dante's eyes moved to her.
“And?”
Luca didn't answer.
Judge Harrow did.
“Isabel.”
I turned toward my mother.
Silence.
“Mom?”
She stared at the floor.
“No.”
Victoria stood so quickly her chair struck the wall.
“You owned part of it?”
Mom's eyes filled.
“I didn't want it.”
“You lied to me.”
“You would've taken it.”
“It was ours.”
“No. Alexander created the shares because I helped build the company.”
I could barely process it.
“You helped build Moretti Atlantic?”
She looked at me.
“I was not a receptionist.”
Apparently understatement was hereditary.
“What did you do?”
“Accounting. Early operations. Contracts.”
Dante looked genuinely surprised.
“My father never told me.”
“Your father knew.”
“Then why hide?”
“Because when Alexander found the theft, we realized someone among us was involved.”
Victoria's face hardened.
“You thought it was me.”
“I didn't know.”
“Yes, you did.”
“I didn't know.”
Victoria laughed bitterly.
“You disappeared with the evidence and his child.”
“Because somebody murdered him!”
Her voice cracked through the room.
For the first time, everyone fell silent.
Mom pressed both palms to the table.
“I was twenty-eight years old. Pregnant. Marco loved me. Alexander was dead. Luca disappeared. And someone followed me home for six nights.”
Luca stared at her.
“You never told me that.”
“You were supposed to be dead.”
“I wasn't.”
“I didn't know!”
Her anger broke into tears.
“I left because Elena was all I had left to save.”
Nobody spoke.
I looked at Dante.
“What does the ledger prove?”
“If it's authentic,” he said, “it could show who controlled the shell companies.”
“And who killed Alexander?”
“Possibly.”
Judge Harrow said, “Adrian believed whoever hired him wanted the ledger destroyed before Elena's thirtieth birthday.”
“Why then?”
“Because your trust activates fully at thirty,” Dante said. “You'd gain voting rights, access to sealed corporate records, everything.”
“So they needed me controlled before then.”
“Yes.”
I stared at Adrian's phone.
“Three years.”
Dante said nothing.
I opened Adrian's texts again.
Scrolled upward.
Months.
Years.
Messages describing me.
SHE TRUSTS SLOWLY.
MOTHER IS PRIMARY OBSTACLE.
SUBJECT IS UNAWARE OF PATERNITY.
RELATIONSHIP PROGRESSING.
She trusts slowly.
I wanted to throw the phone.
Instead, I kept reading.
Then something changed.
Around fourteen months ago, the tone shifted.
NO MORE SURVEILLANCE AT HER OFFICE.
WHY?
UNNECESSARY. RELATIONSHIP STABLE.
Later:
DO NOT APPROACH HER MOTHER DIRECTLY.
ORDER STANDS.
Then:
SHE IS NOT PART OF THIS.
Response:
SHE HAS ALWAYS BEEN PART OF THIS.
A week later:
I'M DONE AFTER THE WEDDING.
Response:
THERE IS NO AFTER.
My throat tightened.
Adrian had known something was wrong.
Maybe late.
Maybe far too late.
But he knew.
“What happened fourteen months ago?” I asked.
Nobody answered.
I remembered.
Fourteen months ago, my father Marco's old workshop caught fire.
A small electrical blaze.
No injuries.
I had lost boxes of photographs.
Adrian stayed awake all night helping me salvage what we could.
The next morning, he asked strange questions about Marco.
Did he ever keep papers somewhere else?
Did Mom have a safe-deposit box?
Did Dad ever mention Alexander?
I hadn't noticed at the time.
Now every memory had teeth.
“He was looking for the ledger,” I whispered.
Luca nodded.
“Probably.”
“And when he couldn't find it?”
“He stayed.”
Victoria crossed her arms.
“Maybe because he loved you.”
I turned on her.
“You don't get to romanticize a man you paid to stalk me.”
She accepted that.
Fair.
I looked at Judge Harrow.
“Why forge the marriage certificate?”
“To create a record that would conflict with whatever they planned to file after your ceremony.”
“That makes no sense.”
“It does if both filings exist. An investigation freezes authority.”
Dante understood first.
“You created legal noise.”
“Yes.”
“So whoever tried to use Adrian's spousal rights couldn't move immediately.”
“Exactly.”
I stared at him.
“You forged my name to protect me from someone forging my name.”
He winced.
“When you put it that way—”
“There's no better way.”
“No.”
“At least we're clear.”
Dante's phone rang.
He answered.
Listened.
“Where?”
Another pause.
“We're coming.”
He hung up.
“What?” I asked.
“They found Adrian.”
Everything inside me stopped.
“Alive?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“St. Matthew's Hospital.”
My mother grabbed her purse.
“What happened?”
“Car accident.”
Luca said, “His car was found miles away.”
“Different car.”
Dante looked at me.
“He stole one.”
Despite everything, relief punched through my chest.
I hated it.
Adrian had betrayed me.
Used me.
Watched me before I knew him.
But three years of loving someone did not disappear because the truth arrived.
“I want to see him.”
Dante's jaw tightened.
“Not alone.”
“I didn't ask.”
We left the estate through a service exit.
I changed nothing.
No one suggested I remove the dress.
Maybe nobody knew how.
Twenty minutes later, I walked through a hospital emergency entrance in a wedding gown.
People stared.
I didn't care.
Adrian was in a secured trauma room.
Concussion.
Broken wrist.
Three cracked ribs.
A laceration above his eyebrow.
When I entered, his eyes were closed.
I stopped beside the bed.
Three years.
The face I had planned to wake beside for fifty more.
His eyes opened.
“Elena.”
The way he said my name nearly destroyed me.
I forced my voice steady.
“You're alive.”
“I'm sorry.”
“That isn't enough.”
“I know.”
Dante remained near the door.
Adrian saw him.
His expression changed.
“You came.”
“Yes.”
“I wasn't sure.”
Dante said nothing.
I looked at Adrian.
“Who hired you?”
He closed his eyes.
“Victoria.”
“I know about Victoria.”
His eyes opened.
“And someone else.”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
Fear crossed his face.
Real fear.
“Before I tell you, you need to know something.”
“No more conditions.”
“Elena—”
“Who?”
He looked toward Dante.
Then toward the hallway.
“The second person knew your mother before Alexander died.”
My pulse quickened.
“Who?”
Adrian swallowed.
“I never met them in person.”
“Name.”
“They used initials.”
“What initials?”
“MR.”
Dante's face changed.
My mother stepped into the room behind us.
She had heard.
Her hand flew to her mouth.
I turned.
“What?”
She stared at Adrian.
“No.”
“Mom.”
Her eyes filled with terror.
“Marco Rossi.”
My father.
The man who raised me.
The man who had been dead for five years.
I shook my head.
“That's impossible.”
Adrian reached weakly toward the bedside drawer.
“There’s something in my jacket.”
Dante found the jacket.
Inside was a key.
Small.
Brass.
A number engraved on it.
Adrian looked at me.
“Your father left that for you.”
“My father is dead.”
Adrian's voice dropped.
“That's what I thought too.”
Then every light in the hospital room went out.
May you like
A second later, the emergency alarm began screaming.
And someone locked the door from the outside.
