Chapter 15
Almost a year after the banquet, Laura agreed to attend another large Moretti family dinner.
Not at the old estate.
At a private restaurant.
Neutral ground.
Emma was four now.
She wore a blue dress she had chosen herself.
David was seventeen and deliberately arrived without a suit because nobody could convince him a family dinner required one anymore.
Vincent did not complain.
The seating arrangement had been prepared before they arrived.
Laura sat with both children.
Emma beside David.
Exactly where she had been the night Margaret kicked away her chair.
This time nobody moved it.
Nobody removed her plate.
Nobody asked whether adoption changed where she belonged.
Halfway through dinner, Emma leaned toward Vincent.
“Grandpa?”
“Yes?”
“Can I have David’s dessert?”
David immediately pulled it away.
“No.”
Emma frowned.
Vincent laughed.
Normal sibling injustice.
He had never appreciated it so much.
Margaret was not present.
Her contact restriction concerning Emma remained.
She had completed counseling and complied with every court requirement.
Through attorneys, she had asked once whether Laura would consider allowing a letter to David.
Not Emma.
David.
Laura left the decision to her son.
The letter arrived sealed.
David carried it in his backpack for three weeks.
He did not open it.
After dinner, he and Vincent walked outside while Laura helped Emma with her coat.
David pulled the envelope from his pocket.
“She says my name on the front like nothing happened.”
Vincent looked at it.
“Do you want to read it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then don’t.”
“What if she apologizes?”
“You still don’t owe her an answer.”
“What if she doesn’t?”
“Same answer.”
David looked through the restaurant window.
Emma was trying to button her own coat and getting every button wrong.
Laura was laughing.
David smiled.
Then the smile disappeared.
“I loved Aunt Margaret.”
Vincent nodded.
“I know.”
“Part of me still does.”
“I know.”
David looked at him.
“Is that stupid?”
“No.”
The teenager folded the unopened letter once.
Then stopped.
He did not tear it.
He did not open it.
He put it back in his pocket.
“Maybe someday.”
Vincent accepted that.
The central question had already been answered.
Emma was family.
David was not an heir waiting to be claimed.
Laura was free to raise both children outside the Moretti hierarchy.
Margaret had faced consequences for using a child’s adoption as a weapon and another child’s bloodline as a chain.
Only one question remained.
Whether David would someday want a relationship with the woman who had loved him deeply enough to want his future—and controlled him deeply enough to nearly ruin it.
That answer belonged to David.
Nobody else.
May you like
And after everything the Morettis had learned, Vincent finally understood that leaving the choice in the boy’s hands was not the loss of family authority.
It was the first responsible use of it.
