Chapter 10 - THE LETTER FOR MY UNBORN SON
I opened Lorenzo’s letter with shaking hands.
Dante stood across the conference room.
For the first time since the gala, neither of us was thinking about Natalia.
The letter was dated twenty-three years earlier.
Long before our first meeting.
Isabella,
If you are reading this, then Carlo failed to keep our children apart, or perhaps we were arrogant enough to believe parents can design the hearts of adults.
I almost smiled.
Lorenzo knew my father well.
The letter explained the foundation.
He and Carlo had created it together as a future destination for assets they wanted permanently removed from Moretti criminal control.
Not hidden.
Not recycled.
Given away.
Hospitals.
Housing.
Education.
Exactly what the foundation had become.
My work had unknowingly fulfilled their plan.
Then came the pregnancy clause.
If Dante and Isabella have a child, North Meridian must transfer all remaining legitimate family holdings into an independent generational trust.
No Moretti patriarch would control them.
No spouse could seize them.
No criminal debt could attach to them.
The child would inherit only after age thirty and only if the foundation’s independent board certified the assets clean.
I looked at Dante.
“Our son.”
His eyes filled.
Lorenzo had planned a way to end the cycle.
Not by making our child powerful.
By preventing power from owning him.
Then I reached the final paragraph.
There is one more thing Isabella deserves to know.
Carlo believed Dante would become dangerous if raised by Vittorio.
I saw Dante flinch.
But Lorenzo continued.
I believe the opposite.
I believe the right woman may remind him that strength without conscience is only fear wearing a good suit.
Dante looked away.
I finished reading.
If Dante becomes Vittorio, leave him.
Do not save him.
Let losing you become the thing that teaches him what the rest of us failed to.
Silence filled the room.
Dante gave a broken laugh.
“My father predicted my divorce before I met you.”
“We’re not divorced.”
“Not yet.”
I appreciated that he did not pretend otherwise.
Then an agent entered.
Natalia and Rafael had arrived voluntarily.
Rafael carried Lorenzo’s original recording.
The truth could finally become public.
But Natalia had something else.
A hotel security file from seven weeks earlier.
The first night she and Dante slept together.
I did not want to see it.
Then she said:
“You need to.”
“Why?”
“Because Dante lied to both of us.”
Dante went still.
Natalia looked at him.
“You told me your marriage was already over.”
I turned toward my husband.
He did not deny it.
My heart broke in a new place.
Then Natalia added:
“But that isn’t the lie Isabella needs to hear.”
She opened the video.
At 12:14 a.m., Dante entered Natalia’s hotel suite.
At 12:19, another man entered through the adjoining door.
Rafael.
Dante stared at the screen.
“That never happened.”
Rafael’s face drained.
The video had been altered.
Someone had manufactured evidence showing Dante and Rafael meeting secretly with Natalia.
Why?
Rafael whispered the answer.
“Because somebody is preparing a murder case.”
“For whose murder?” I asked.
May you like
He looked at me.
“Yours.”
