Chapter 3 - The Man Who Decided My Marriage Was Disposable
At eight the next morning, Matteo Moretti walked into my office wearing a charcoal suit and the expression of a man who believed blood made him untouchable.
He was sixty-two, silver-haired, elegant, and dangerous in the quiet way older men often are. Matteo had taught me how to read a room before I was old enough to drive. He had stood beside my father at funerals and weddings. He had placed a hand on my shoulder after my father died and told me the family would follow me.
For years, I had considered him the closest thing I had left to a parent.
That was why betrayal from him felt personal.
Nico stood near the door.
Matteo glanced at him, then at me.
"You called?"
I slid a printed phone record across the desk.
"Explain it."
Matteo looked down.
He did not touch the paper.
That told me everything.
"I don't know what I'm looking at."
"Three calls from Sophie. All deleted. Your credential."
His expression barely moved.
"After the divorce?"
"Three days after it became final."
He gave a small shrug.
"Then I probably assumed she was calling about money."
I stood so slowly that Nico shifted his weight.
"She was calling because she had leukemia."
For the first time, Matteo's face changed.
Not much.
But enough.
"Leukemia?"
"You didn't know?"
"No."
I watched him closely.
He looked genuinely surprised.
That did not make me less angry.
"Why delete the calls?"
Matteo exhaled through his nose.
"Because you were useless after that woman left."
The room went silent.
"Choose your next words carefully."
"You asked for an explanation. I'm giving you one." He stepped closer to the desk. "You spent three years trying to save a marriage that was dragging you down. Two miscarriages. Endless doctors. Therapy appointments. You stopped thinking like a leader. Every time she cried, you abandoned meetings. Every time she was upset, you questioned whether you should leave this life."
I stared at him.
"And that frightened you."
"It endangered us."
There it was.
Not hatred.
Fear.
Sophie had represented a future Matteo could not control.
A house outside the city.
Children who might never learn the family business.
A version of me who might someday walk away.
"So you decided I shouldn't hear from my own wife."
"Ex-wife."
I moved around the desk.
Nico's voice came low from behind me.
"Ethan."
Not a warning for Matteo.
A warning for me.
I stopped three feet away from my uncle.
"You don't get to correct me about Sophie."
Matteo's jaw tightened.
"You divorced her."
"I did. That's my sin. You don't get to use it as permission for yours."
His eyes narrowed.
"She made you weak."
"No. Losing her exposed how weak I already was."
That surprised both of us.
I had spent most of my life believing weakness meant fear, hesitation, mercy.
Now I understood something I should have learned years ago.
It was easy to order men around.
Easy to control a business empire.
Easy to scare people.
It had been harder to sit beside my grieving wife without trying to fix her pain.
So I had run from it.
That was weakness.
"You're done," I said.
Matteo laughed once.
"Done with what?"
"Family operations. Moretti Holdings. Every account you control. Every office you enter because of my name."
His face went still.
"You can't remove me."
"Watch me."
"Your father built this with me."
"My father is dead."
The words came out colder than I intended.
Matteo flinched.
I did not apologize.
"And I am done letting dead men decide how I treat the living."
For a moment, I thought he might threaten me.
Instead, he looked almost disappointed.
"She will die anyway," he said.
Nico moved before I did.
His hand closed around Matteo's arm.
But I raised mine.
"No."
Nico stopped.
I looked at my uncle.
Every instinct in me demanded violence.
Sophie had spent years fearing what my world could turn me into.
I would not honor her by becoming that man now.
"Get out," I said.
Matteo's mouth curled.
"You think choosing her will change what you are?"
"No."
I held his gaze.
"But choosing what I do next might."
Nico escorted him out.
I stood alone for less than thirty seconds before my phone rang.
Hospital.
My heart stopped.
I answered.
"Moretti."
Dr. Patel's voice was calm.
"Sophie asked for you."
I was already moving.
I reached St. Vincent twenty minutes later.
This time, the nurse let me into Sophie's room.
She was lying beneath a white blanket, an IV pump beside her and a mask covering her mouth and nose. Her eyes were closed.
For one terrible second, I thought I was too late.
Then she opened them.
"Hey," she whispered.
I moved to the chair beside her bed.
"Hey."
"You look worse than I do."
"Impossible."
She almost smiled.
It was the smallest thing.
It felt like sunrise.
"Dr. Patel says the antibiotics are working," she said.
"She told me."
"She also told me you didn't call the hospital president."
I frowned.
"Was that an option?"
Her laugh turned into a cough.
I reached for the water, then stopped.
"Can I?"
She looked at my hand.
Then nodded.
I helped her lift the cup.
The moment felt absurdly intimate.
After she drank, I set it down.
"I found out who deleted your calls."
Her eyes sharpened.
"Who?"
"My uncle Matteo."
She stared at me.
"Why?"
"Because he thought you were trying to pull me away from the family."
A long silence.
Then Sophie closed her eyes.
"I knew he hated me."
"He said he didn't."
"That's worse."
"I removed him from everything."
Her eyes opened again.
"You did what?"
"He won't have access to my office, my company, or our operations."
"Ethan, your uncle has been part of the Moretti family business longer than you've been alive."
"I know."
"And you removed him because he deleted my calls?"
"No."
I leaned forward.
"I removed him because he believed he had the right to decide whether I heard them."
Sophie looked at me for a long time.
"You still would have divorced me."
The sentence was quiet.
Honest.
Necessary.
"Maybe," I said.
Her eyes filled.
I hated the answer, but I would not lie to her now.
"I was already running away from us. Matteo didn't create that. He just took advantage of it."
A tear slipped into her hair.
I did not wipe it away.
I waited.
Then Sophie lifted her hand a few inches from the blanket.
I understood.
I put mine beneath it.
Her fingers rested weakly against my palm.
"Thank you for saying that," she whispered.
I looked down at our hands.
"I keep wanting to ask you for another chance."
"Don't."
"I know."
"I'm serious."
"So am I."
I met her eyes.
"I'm not going to ask you while you're sick. I don't want you wondering whether you said yes because you were scared or because I was here."
Her lips trembled.
"Then why are you here?"
It was the question I had been asking myself all night.
My answer came easily.
"Because I love you."
She turned her face toward the window.
I continued before she could stop me.
"You don't have to do anything with that. You don't owe me forgiveness because I love you. You don't owe me a marriage. You don't owe me a future."
Her fingers tightened around mine.
"I just need you to know that I finally understand love isn't the same as possession."
For a long time, neither of us spoke.
Then Sophie whispered, "I'm scared, Ethan."
My throat closed.
In five years of marriage, I had heard her say those words many times.
After the first miscarriage.
Before the second procedure.
During nights when gunshots outside a restaurant made her wonder if my enemies had found us.
Too often, I had answered by telling her not to be afraid.
As if fear were disobedience.
This time, I said the only honest thing.
"I am too."
She looked back at me.
May you like
And for the next hour, I sat beside her without trying to fix anything.
It was the most useful thing I had done for her in years.
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