Chapter 5
Niko remained beside me but slightly back, leaving the choice of greeting entirely to me.
Dad stepped forward.
I did not hug him.
He stopped.
“Come inside.”
The house smelled faintly of cedar and dust.
Most of the furniture was covered in pale sheets. We passed the dining room where my mother had once insisted on Sunday breakfasts, the staircase where I had sat waiting for her the night she was hospitalized, the piano nobody had played since she died.
Dad led us into the library.
On the desk sat a wooden box.
I recognized it instantly.
My mother’s.
She had kept letters inside it.
Dad closed the door.
“I should have told you before the wedding,” he said.
“Yes.”
“I kept convincing myself there would be a better time.”
“There wasn’t?”
“No.”
He looked at Niko.
“Do you know why your father wanted this marriage?”
Niko’s expression became guarded.
“He said it would settle an old obligation.”
My father nodded.
“That’s what he told me too.”
My heartbeat quickened.
“What obligation?”
Dad opened the wooden box.
Inside were photographs, letters, and a narrow leather journal.
He removed a picture and handed it to me.
My mother stood in a garden wearing a pale blue dress.
Beside her was a woman I had never seen.
And behind them, unmistakably younger but instantly recognizable, stood Niko’s father.
Vittorio Santoro.
I looked up.
“What is this?”
“Your mother knew the Santoros.”
Niko took the photograph.
His composure slipped.
“The woman beside her is my mother.”
I stared at him.
His mother had died years earlier.
“You knew?”
“No.”
Dad lowered himself into the desk chair.
“Elizabeth and Elena were friends before either of them married.”
“My mother never mentioned her.”
“After Elena married Vittorio, their lives separated. Publicly, at least.”
“What does publicly mean?”
Dad rubbed a hand over his face.
“It means your mother occasionally helped Elena.”
“With what?”
“Legal matters. Financial documents. Charitable trusts.”
My mother had studied law before leaving practice when I was born.
“She never told me.”
“She wanted you away from that part of her life.”
Niko opened the leather journal.
“Why would my father describe that as an obligation?”
Dad looked at him.
“Because during a federal investigation twenty-four years ago, Elena learned that someone had falsified documents inside one of Vittorio’s companies. Elizabeth discovered enough to prove Elena hadn’t been involved.”
Niko’s face hardened.
“Who had?”
“I don’t know.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“I know what Elizabeth told me, nothing more.”
I stepped closer.
“What does any of this have to do with my wedding?”
Dad opened a second envelope.
“Your mother created a trust.”
“For me?”
“For both of you.”
Silence settled over the room.
Niko frowned.
“That makes no sense.”
“The trust controls a property company Elizabeth and Elena purchased together. It has been managed independently since their deaths. Neither family could touch its principal until specific conditions were satisfied.”
My head began to ache.
“What conditions?”
Dad looked at me.
“One heir from each family had to jointly authorize its future.”
Niko’s expression became colder.
“That does not require marriage.”
“No.”
The word landed heavily.
I stared at Dad.
“Then why am I married?”
“That,” he said, “is what frightened me.”
He reached into the box and removed another letter.
“Three weeks ago, Vittorio brought me a copy of an amendment supposedly signed by your mother. It stated that control of the trust would transfer only if you and Niko married.”
Niko took the paper.
“And you believed it?”
“At first.”
“Why?”
“Because the signature looked perfect.”
I felt suddenly cold.
“At first?”
Dad looked at me.
“Last Wednesday, I found your mother’s original papers.”
“The day before you told me?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“The marriage amendment wasn’t among them.”
The silence that followed seemed to fill every room in the house.
Niko read the document again.
“You think this was forged.”
“I think someone wanted both families to believe marriage was necessary.”
May you like
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
