Chapter 8 - THE WEDDING THAT WAS NEVER ABOUT LOVE
“You knew our marriage would help Salvatore control the money?”
Lorenzo stared at Victoria.
She stood beside the cassette player, gripping its edge.
“Yes.”
Emma felt anger rise.
“Then why did you agree to marry him?”
Victoria looked at Lorenzo.
“Because I thought I could use the wedding to find my mother.”
Lorenzo shook his head.
“Eleven years.”
“What?”
“For eleven years, my family has been controlled by fear. And you planned to marry me without telling me any of this?”
Victoria lowered her eyes.
“I thought I could fix it before you found out.”
“You don't fix someone else's life by taking away their choices.”
The sentence seemed to strike her.
Emma remembered Anna asking who got to decide where she lived.
Now Lorenzo was asking the same question about his future.
Victoria had spent her childhood being manipulated.
Then she'd begun manipulating others.
She had convinced herself it was survival.
“Salvatore promised he'd show me what happened to Elizabeth after the wedding,” Victoria said.
“You believed him?”
“Not completely. But I knew he wanted the trust arrangement finalized. I thought keeping him interested would give me time.”
Emma looked toward the old suitcase.
“What does the marriage actually change?”
Victoria opened a folder on the sitting room table.
It contained trust summaries and financial schedules.
“Your father established two separate family trusts,” she said. “The Moretti trust supports his children. Elizabeth's trust was supposed to secure my future.”
“Why would my father establish a trust for you?” Lorenzo asked.
“Because he knew Salvatore had used my identity to hide stolen family money.”
Victoria pointed to a handwritten note.
“Leonardo wanted the accounts reviewed and the money returned to its rightful owners. But after he died, Salvatore became trustee of both funds.”
Lorenzo frowned.
“And my marriage?”
“Salvatore drafted a new consolidation agreement. He told us it simplified inheritance planning.”
Daniel examined the documents.
“He can't simply take ownership through a marriage. These papers still require signatures, approvals, and proper legal authority.”
Victoria nodded.
“That's why he needed both of us to cooperate.”
Emma understood.
The wedding itself was not magic.
It was leverage.
A public celebration that would make a complicated financial arrangement appear harmless.
“And Anna?” Emma asked.
Victoria looked away.
“The Moretti trust requires certain distributions to Lorenzo and Sophie when they reach adulthood.”
Lorenzo's expression hardened.
“Then Sophie being alive threatens Salvatore's control.”
“Yes.”
“But why keep her alive at all?” Emma asked.
Victoria's voice grew quiet.
“Because Catherine left instructions that her portion could not pass to Salvatore if Sophie was confirmed dead. It would go to an outside children's charity.”
Lorenzo stared.
“So he needed her alive.”
“And hidden,” Victoria answered.
Emma felt sick.
For eleven years, Sophie had been more than a frightened little girl to Salvatore.
She had been a signature he wanted to control.
A living obstacle to his fortune.
That afternoon, Lorenzo returned to St. Catherine's.
He told Anna what they had discovered, but not every painful detail at once.
They sat beneath the pavilion.
Emma remained nearby.
“Salvatore was managing money that should have helped you,” Lorenzo explained.
Anna considered that.
“Is that why he kept telling me I couldn't leave?”
“We think it was part of the reason.”
She looked down.
“I wanted to go to art school.”
“Then let's find out what schools you like.”
“Would you pay for it?”
“Your own resources may already cover it. And if they don't, I'll help.”
Anna studied his face.
“You're not going to choose for me?”
“No.”
She smiled faintly.
“I'd like to paint the ocean.”
Lorenzo looked at the distant trees.
“There's plenty of ocean in Newport.”
“I know.”
Then she glanced toward Emma.
“Can I ask something strange?”
“Of course,” Emma answered.
“Why did everyone think I drowned when I remember learning to swim twice?”
Lorenzo frowned.
“Twice?”
Anna nodded.
“Once with Daddy when I was little. And once after I went to Margaret's.”
Emma leaned closer.
“Who taught you the second time?”
“A woman with short brown hair. She smelled like oranges.”
“Do you remember her name?”
Anna thought carefully.
“Liz.”
Emma looked toward Lorenzo.
Elizabeth.
Victoria's mother.
She had survived the incident at Pier Six.
The question was whether she had also survived the months afterward.
“Did she stay with you?” Lorenzo asked.
“For a little while.”
“Did Margaret know her?”
“Yes.”
Anna turned a page in her sketchbook.
“I drew her once.”
The portrait showed a woman seated in a garden chair.
Short hair.
A soft smile.
A bright orange scarf.
Beneath it, Anna had written:
LIZ SAID SHE'D COME BACK.
Emma remembered Margaret insisting Elizabeth had disappeared.
Maybe she'd meant that Elizabeth stopped visiting.
Maybe there was more to the story.
Margaret arrived at the courtyard thirty minutes later.
When she saw the drawing, she pressed her hand over her mouth.
“Where did you get this?”
Anna looked confused.
“I drew it.”
Margaret sat heavily.
“I thought you'd forgotten her.”
“Everyone keeps saying that.”
Anna's frustration was unmistakable.
“I didn't forget everything. You just stopped asking me.”
Margaret began to cry.
Emma let the silence settle.
Finally, Margaret looked at Lorenzo.
“Elizabeth was alive when your mother died.”
Lorenzo leaned forward.
“Where did she go?”
“Salvatore arranged for her to receive treatment after the dock incident. She'd suffered a head injury.”
“Where?”
“Initially, a private hospital near Providence.”
“And afterward?”
Margaret twisted her rosary.
“She wanted to take Rebecca away from him. She kept insisting Salvatore had stolen her daughter's future.”
“What happened?”
“She disappeared from the hospital's records. I was told she'd been transferred out of state.”
Anna studied Margaret.
“Did she stop coming because she didn't like me?”
The elderly woman looked devastated.
“No, sweetheart. She loved you.”
“Then why didn't you tell me?”
Margaret reached for her hand.
“Because Salvatore told me that if I kept asking questions, I'd lose the money for your care.”
Anna withdrew her hand.
“I would have rather had the truth.”
Margaret nodded.
“I know that now.”
Lorenzo stood.
“We need to locate Elizabeth.”
Daniel had already begun working with an investigator experienced in locating missing adults through lawful records and institutional archives.
They found a lead within several hours.
An Elizabeth Sinclair had entered a long-term rehabilitation program in Massachusetts in late 2015.
Her records were later transferred to a private residential facility.
But the most recent address was not in Massachusetts.
It was in Newport.
A small assisted-living residence less than four miles from the Moretti mansion.
Emma stared at the address.
“She's been here?”
“For at least three years,” Daniel answered. “We'll need her consent to confirm her identity and speak to her.”
Victoria, who had been sitting silently beside the window, suddenly stood.
“Take me there.”
Lorenzo watched her.
“Why should I trust you?”
“You shouldn't,” Victoria answered. “Not yet.”
She looked toward the picture of Elizabeth.
“But she's my mother.”
The assisted-living residence had a modest brick entrance and a garden of yellow roses.
A staff member welcomed them into a private visiting room after confirming that the resident wished to meet Victoria.
An older woman sat beside the window.
Her hair was short and nearly white.
She wore an orange scarf.
Victoria stopped breathing for a moment.
“Mom?”
The woman looked up.
Her expression changed slowly.
“Rebecca?”
Victoria crossed the room and fell to her knees beside the chair.
Emma watched from the doorway.
For eleven years, Victoria had believed her mother abandoned her.
Now Elizabeth Sinclair was touching her daughter's face with trembling hands.
“My little girl,” she whispered.
Victoria began crying.
“Why didn't you come for me?”
Elizabeth's eyes filled with tears.
“I tried.”
Victoria pressed her forehead against her mother's hand.
“Salvatore told me you didn't want me.”
Elizabeth shook her head.
“Never.”
Lorenzo stepped forward.
“Mrs. Sinclair, I'm Lorenzo Moretti.”
Elizabeth studied him.
“You look like your mother.”
“I need to know what happened in 2015.”
Elizabeth glanced at Victoria.
“Does she know?”
“Some of it,” Lorenzo answered.
Elizabeth's expression darkened.
“Then Salvatore hasn't told you the worst part.”
“What part?”
She looked toward the garden.
“Your mother didn't die because she was sick.”
Lorenzo went still.
Elizabeth turned back.
“She was ill, yes. But the night she died, she tried to change Sophie's guardianship.”
Emma felt the room tighten.
“What happened?” Lorenzo asked.
Elizabeth reached into the pocket of her cardigan.
She withdrew a small silver key.
“Catherine gave me this before Salvatore took her away.”
Lorenzo stared.
“Took her where?”
Elizabeth's voice broke.
“To the hospital where she died.”
She placed the key in his hand.
“It opens the safety box containing Catherine's last instructions.”
May you like
Then she added the words that made Victoria cover her mouth.
“And those instructions name the person who was supposed to raise Sophie—not Salvatore, not Margaret, but you, Lorenzo.”
