Chapter 9 - A Marriage on Trial|
By the following morning, the story had reached the newspapers.
A Moretti company was under investigation. A financial officer had disappeared. A woman connected to the family had been attacked at a clinic. Anonymous sources claimed Roberto Moretti’s wife had been involved in suspicious transfers.
The last headline was the one that hurt.
MAFIA HEIRESS OR INNOCENT WIFE? ELENA MORETTI’S SIGNATURE AT CENTER OF FINANCIAL SCANDAL.
I was not an heiress. I had never controlled a company account. Yet strangers had already decided who I was.
Ms. Harper filed a formal statement establishing that my authorization had been used without my informed consent. The investigators froze the disputed transfers, but the money had already passed through several layers of accounts.
“Your best defense is transparency,” she told me. “No private settlements. No threats. No attempts to pressure witnesses.”
“I want the truth on record.”
“Then you must be prepared for the truth to hurt people you care about.”
I knew whom she meant.
Roberto had been questioned for hours. His attorneys warned him that cooperation could expose him to criminal liability for failing to investigate earlier warnings. He did not withdraw his offer.
Instead, he signed a statement acknowledging that he had permitted Bianca access to confidential information without proper oversight and had failed to investigate the suspicious transfers promptly.
It was not a confession to theft.
It was an admission of negligence.
For a man who had built his identity around being untouchable, that mattered.
That afternoon, he asked to speak to me in a small conference room.
“I won’t ask you to come home,” he said.
“Good.”
“I won’t ask you to forgive me.”
“Also good.”
He almost smiled, then stopped.
“I do want to tell you something I should have said months ago. I knew Bianca and I had crossed a line. I told myself it was temporary, that I could end it when the investigation was finished. Every day I waited made it easier to lie to you.”
“Why didn’t you end it?”
“Because I was selfish. And because I thought I could keep the consequences contained.”
I looked at him for a long time.
“Did you ever think about what it would do to me if I found out?”
“Yes.”
“And you did it anyway.”
“Yes.”
There was no defense left for either of us to hide behind.
“I loved you,” I said. “I still have feelings I don’t know what to do with. But love cannot be the only reason I stay.”
“I know.”
“If we ever have another conversation about our marriage, it will be after the investigation. Not before. And it will happen because I choose it.”
He nodded.
“Then that’s what I’ll wait for.”
“No promises you can’t keep.”
“No promises,” he agreed. “Just actions.”
As I left the room, a detective stopped me.
“We have a lead on the original ledger. A courier has agreed to meet us tomorrow.”
“Where?”
“Union Station.”
“Why would he come forward?”
“He says the ledger contains a name that will change the entire case.”
I looked toward the hallway where Roberto stood speaking with his attorney.
“Whose name?”
May you like
The detective lowered her voice.
“Yours.”
