Chapter 7 - THE WIFE THEY ERASED
“You married my brother?”
Gabriel held the certificate carefully.
Rosa nodded.
“Two weeks before he died.”
“Where?”
“At the courthouse in Beacon.”
Gabriel looked again.
Two signatures appeared beneath the county clerk's seal.
One belonged to Matteo.
The other belonged to Rosa.
A witness had signed beside them.
Walter Dempsey.
Gabriel sat down slowly.
For almost four years, he had believed Matteo died alone.
Now he was staring at proof that his brother had been a husband.
And that Gabriel had ignored the woman left behind.
“Why didn't he tell me?”
“He planned to,” Rosa said. “After the Hudson Landing inspection.”
She touched the ring.
“He said he wanted to bring me to Sunday dinner and introduce me properly.”
Gabriel remembered his brother's last telephone call.
Matteo had asked whether they could have dinner the following week.
Gabriel had refused.
He'd told him not to come around until the missing money was returned.
Matteo had said, “You'll understand when you see what I've found.”
Gabriel had hung up.
He pressed his hand against his forehead.
“I had no idea.”
Rosa's voice softened.
“He loved you.”
Gabriel looked up.
“We barely spoke that last year.”
“He talked about you constantly.”
She gave a sad smile.
“He said you were stubborn, impossible, and always certain you were right.”
Despite everything, Gabriel almost laughed.
“That sounds like him.”
“He also said you were the person who taught him never to leave somebody behind.”
Gabriel's expression collapsed.
He hadn't lived up to that lesson.
Isabella stood near the doorway, staring at the marriage certificate.
“Father told me Matteo was only seeing Rosa casually.”
Rosa faced her.
“You knew he loved me.”
“I knew he cared about you.”
“Don't change the word.”
Isabella looked away.
Rosa continued.
“You saw us together. You knew I was pregnant. And you still helped convince everyone I was looking for money.”
“I never said you were.”
“You said it this morning.”
Isabella's lips parted.
Then closed.
Rosa was right.
Gabriel folded the certificate and returned it to her.
“This is yours. Keep it.”
He turned toward Mr. Bell.
“Have copies made of every original record we've found. One set goes to the county investigators. Another stays somewhere outside this house.”
Isabella stiffened.
“You don't trust your own staff?”
Gabriel looked at her.
“I trusted the wrong people for four years.”
Nobody spoke.
That afternoon, Gabriel asked Rosa to accompany him to the old estate chapel.
It stood beyond the rose garden, a small stone building with wooden pews and stained-glass windows.
His mother had loved it.
Matteo had once spent an entire summer repairing its roof with Walter and the estate groundskeeper.
Rosa hadn't been inside since her wedding.
She stopped beside the entrance.
“Why are we here?”
Gabriel unlocked the door.
“Because my brother should have had a place where his family could remember him without shame.”
A small marble plaque stood beneath the eastern window.
MATTEO ANTHONY MORETTI
1988–2022
BELOVED SON AND BROTHER
Rosa stared at it.
The plaque had been installed quietly after the funeral.
There had been no public memorial.
No celebration of Matteo's life.
Just a stone bearing his name.
Gabriel looked at Rosa.
“I want to change this.”
She shook her head.
“Don't put my name on anything because you feel guilty.”
“That's not what I'm trying to do.”
“Then listen.”
He waited.
“Matteo doesn't need a bigger stone. He needs people to know he wasn't the man the newspapers described.”
Gabriel nodded.
“And Lily needs to grow up knowing her father did something good.”
He looked toward the plaque.
“Then that's where we start.”
They remained in the chapel for several minutes.
Rosa told him about their wedding.
Matteo had forgotten the flowers.
Walter had arrived wearing work boots.
The courthouse clerk had lent Rosa a pen because hers stopped writing halfway through the ceremony.
Afterward, Matteo took her to a diner.
They shared apple pie.
“He kept calling me Mrs. Moretti,” Rosa said.
A smile broke through her tears.
“I told him to stop because the waitress was staring.”
Gabriel laughed softly.
For a moment, his brother felt alive again.
Then Rosa reached into her bag.
She removed a small blue notebook.
“This belonged to him.”
Inside were lists of possible baby names.
Little sketches of cribs.
A reminder to repair the leaking kitchen faucet in Rosa's apartment.
On the final page, Matteo had written:
Whatever happens with the riverfront, make sure Rosa and the baby never have to be afraid of my name.
Gabriel read the sentence several times.
Then he closed the notebook.
“I'll make sure of it.”
Rosa studied him.
“Don't promise me something you haven't figured out how to do.”
He nodded.
“Fair.”
Back at the mansion, Gabriel called an emergency meeting with his finance director and company accountant.
The records confirmed what Rosa's marriage certificate made possible.
Matteo's trust interest had been preserved for any surviving child.
If Lily was legally recognized as his daughter, the proposed sale of the family riverfront holdings could face a serious challenge.
The trust's terms required additional consent before any transfer affecting her interest.
Vittorio Romano needed the sale completed.
Without it, his company faced enormous financial pressure.
Gabriel finally understood why the truth had been buried.
But money alone didn't explain everything.
Someone had approved dangerous materials twice.
Someone had suppressed the original warnings.
And someone had used Gabriel's anger toward Matteo to make the coverup possible.
That evening, Isabella approached Gabriel in his study.
“I need to show you something.”
He looked up from the records.
She carried a thin black folder.
Inside were photocopies of the original Romano Construction purchasing orders.
Gabriel studied the first page.
The original specifications required high-grade steel fasteners rated for heavy riverfront loads.
The second page showed a substitution.
Cheaper materials.
Lower strength.
A significant price reduction.
He looked at the authorization line.
“Who approved this?”
Isabella said nothing.
Gabriel followed her gaze.
At the bottom of the page was her signature.
Isabella Romano — Executive Procurement Approval.
He stared at her.
“You signed this?”
Her eyes filled.
“Yes.”
“Two days before Matteo died?”
“Yes.”
Gabriel slowly closed the folder.
All day, he had been reconsidering the woman he'd planned to marry.
He had begun to believe that fear of her father explained her silence.
Now he understood something worse.
She hadn't merely hidden what happened after the accident.
She had participated in a decision that made the accident possible.
Gabriel stood.
“Tell me you didn't know these materials were dangerous.”
Isabella's lips trembled.
She looked at the photograph of Matteo on his desk.
Then she answered.
“I knew the engineer had rejected them.”
May you like
Gabriel stared at her.
“And I signed anyway.”
