Chapter 25 - Gabriel’s Choice
Gabriel requested breakfast Sunday morning.
At my flower shop.
Not a hotel.
Not a private club.
My shop.
I almost refused.
Then I realized why he chose it.
Everything came back to Parcel 47-B.
He arrived at eight wearing jeans and a navy sweater instead of his usual gray armor.
His injured arm rested in a sling.
“You look human,” I said.
“I’m told it happens occasionally.”
Massimo stood beside me.
“You have ten minutes.”
Gabriel glanced at him.
“Marriage softened you.”
Massimo smiled without humor.
“Eight minutes.”
I poured coffee.
Gabriel looked around the shop.
Sunlight filled the front windows.
Buckets of roses lined the counters.
A young employee trimmed tulips near the cooler.
“This is the famous property,” he said.
“This is my business.”
“Yes.”
I liked that correction.
Gabriel placed a document on the counter.
“What is it?” I asked.
“A settlement.”
Massimo did not touch it.
“What terms?”
“Moretti Capital withdraws its forty-percent claim.”
I stared at Gabriel.
“In exchange for?”
“Nothing.”
Massimo laughed.
“There is always something.”
Gabriel looked at him.
“I spent half my life trying not to become my father.”
His voice was quiet.
“Then I filed a lawsuit threatening another family because I convinced myself it was strategy.”
He looked toward me.
“I became him anyway.”
I studied the document.
“You used us.”
“Yes.”
“You photographed Claire.”
“Yes.”
“You frightened my employees.”
“Yes.”
“Did you burn the conservatory?”
“No.”
I believed him.
Not because he deserved trust.
Because everything we had discovered supported it.
Gabriel continued.
“Dominic’s arrest exposed enough criminal contamination inside Moretti Capital that our board is likely to dissolve several divisions.”
“What happens to you?”
“I resign tomorrow.”
Massimo’s suspicion eased slightly.
“Why withdraw the claim before the court rules?”
“Because the release clause is real.”
He removed another folder.
Inside was a notarized copy dated 1998.
My breath caught.
“Where did you find this?”
“My mother’s files.”
Gabriel looked at me.
“She knew Dominic altered the official trust copies.”
Massimo took the page.
It matched the version from my father’s ledger.
Parcel 47-B.
Independent transfer.
Permanent cancellation.
The lawsuit was over.
Or it should have been.
“Why didn’t you give us this earlier?” I asked.
“Because I found it yesterday.”
He smiled faintly.
“My mother hid things better than my father.”
Massimo reviewed the notarization.
“This proves everything.”
“Yes.”
“So Monday?”
“We present a joint stipulation. Moretti Capital’s claim disappears.”
I should have felt victorious.
Instead, something bothered me.
“Why did my father take the trust seal?”
Gabriel’s expression changed.
“He didn’t.”
“What?”
“My mother did.”
The room became silent.
Gabriel explained that his mother, Felicia Moretti, had discovered Dominic creating false amendments.
She stole the original seal.
Then she gave it to my father for safekeeping.
Thomas Miller hid it.
Dominic spent decades searching.
“Where is it?” Massimo asked.
Gabriel looked at me.
“I think Sophie already has it.”
I laughed.
“I definitely do not.”
“Your father left you his old work tools?”
“Yes.”
“Anything unusual?”
I thought about the toolbox in Claire’s garage.
Wrenches.
Voltage meters.
Elevator keys.
Then I remembered one object.
A brass stamp Dad used as a paperweight.
Heavy.
Round.
I had played with it as a child.
My heart jumped.
We drove to Claire’s apartment.
The toolbox sat in storage.
I opened it.
Beneath a layer of old shop towels was the brass stamp.
Gabriel inhaled sharply.
“That’s it.”
I turned it over.
Bellini Trust.
Chicago.
Est. 1952.
Massimo wrapped his arms around me from behind.
“Your father protected this for twenty-five years.”
I stared at the object.
My father had not left me money.
He had left something better.
Proof.
Monday morning, we walked into court with the seal, the ledger copy, the original notarized release clause, and Gabriel’s signed withdrawal.
Judge Prescott read everything.
Then she looked at me.
“Mrs. Romano, apparently your flower shop is worth considerably more than its market appraisal.”
I smiled.
“Not for sale, Your Honor.”
She almost smiled back.
The Moretti claim was dismissed with prejudice.
Massimo retained one hundred percent control of Romano Logistics.
Outside the courthouse, reporters shouted questions.
For once, nobody answered.
Massimo took my hand.
We walked through the cameras together.
Then his phone buzzed.
He checked it.
“What?”
His expression changed.
I read the message.
DOMINIC MORETTI REQUESTS TO SPEAK WITH SOPHIE ROMANO.
May you like
He had confessed to multiple crimes.
But only if he could see me first.
