Chapter 8 - TWO YEARS EARLIER
The second waiver was dated twenty-seven months earlier.
Before Harold Price.
Before Derek knew the Moretti name.
At least supposedly.
My signature.
Not mine.
But Derek could not have forged what he did not know about.
So who submitted it?
First Commonwealth traced it to an estate lawyer named Thomas Bell.
Retired.
He remembered Sofia.
“She asked me to maintain Lena’s privacy.”
“After Lena turned twenty-five?” Leah asked.
“Yes.”
“Did Lena sign?”
“I received a signed document from Sofia.”
My mother.
Still alive then.
“Did you verify Lena’s signature?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Sofia had acted as family contact for years.”
The document was not a full waiver.
It said:
I request no direct contact regarding any Moretti family matter until further notice.
My mother forged my signature.
Or had someone do it.
The realization hurt more than Derek’s fraud.
Derek wanted control.
Mom wanted protection.
Both removed my choice.
Motives differed.
Violation remained.
The trustee’s lawyers agreed the document was invalid.
No permanent loss.
But the court needed to determine whether Sofia committed fraud affecting the trust.
She was dead.
No criminal case.
Still findings.
Vincent looked furious when he learned.
“At her?”
“At the system.”
“Not her?”
He hesitated.
“Both.”
Good.
I read Sofia’s cancer journals.
Found in storage with her belongings.
At first:
Pain.
Appointments.
Recipes.
Then:
Carlo’s people are asking again.
Vincent says he can protect Lena’s name, but I do not trust any system built by that family.
Another:
Lena is happy. Derek seems serious. I will not drag her into old blood.
I stopped.
Mom knew Derek.
She had met him shortly before death.
Journal:
I don’t like the way Derek answers for her.
My stomach tightened.
She saw it.
Then:
Maybe I am seeing Carlo everywhere—men who turn charm into ownership.
I cried for an hour.
Mom had recognized something.
Did not tell me.
Maybe she tried.
I remembered one conversation.
“Does Derek make you feel safe?”
“Yes, Mom.”
“That wasn’t what I asked.”
I got angry.
Called her judgmental.
She died four months later.
I had carried guilt about that last argument for six years.
Now I understood the question.
Not prophecy.
Observation.
The trust activation hearing remained scheduled.
Meanwhile, police searched Derek’s old cloud backups.
The Moretti research started four months ago.
So the two-year waiver was unrelated to him.
Good.
No retroactive conspiracy.
But Derek had something else.
A scanned copy of Sofia’s journal page.
How?
He had gone through my storage.
No permission.
One photograph showed:
Carlo’s people are asking again.
That was likely how he got the name before Harold Price.
Derek saw Moretti.
Searched.
Then found Price.
The chain became clear.
Abuse first.
Financial motive later.
Exactly what Vincent said.
Then Vincent brought the playground photo.
I was three.
Pink jacket.
Missing one shoe.
Sofia crouched behind me.
On the back:
For C. She has your eyebrows. That is the only thing you get credit for.
I laughed through tears.
My mother had not erased Carlo completely.
She had controlled distance.
Badly.
Lovingly.
Both.
Then Vincent showed me one more thing.
A letter Carlo wrote but never sent.
Sofia—
If Lena ever wants nothing to do with us, I will fund that choice too.
That line changed how I understood the trust.
May you like
Maybe it was never meant to drag me into the family.
Maybe it was meant to make leaving possible.
