Chapter 3 - The Unopened Letters
The wooden shoebox sat on the small dining table between us.
It was an old cardboard box, taped around the edges, filled to the brim with twenty-four white envelopes. Each envelope was addressed to Mr. Vincent Moretti, Private Residence, Old Westbury, NY. Every single envelope bore an official red postal stamp: RETURN TO SENDER — RECIPIENT REFUSED.
Dominic sat in a wooden kitchen chair, his long legs folded uncomfortably, picking up the envelopes one by one.
He examined the dates on the cancellation stamps. The earliest was dated seven years ago. The latest was dated six months before his father’s death.
“Twenty-four letters,” Dominic whispered, his eyes burning with quiet rage. “All routed through the Moretti family private post office box in Manhattan.”
“I tried to mail them directly to the estate,” I said, sitting across from him, holding a hot cup of tea with trembling hands. “Every single one came back within a week. After the tenth letter, I gave up trying to reach him. I assumed your father wanted nothing to do with us.”
“With us?” Dominic looked up sharply, catching the plural pronoun. “What do you mean, us?”
I took a deep breath, looking toward the living room where Lily was sitting on the rug, coloring in a sketchbook with her crayons.
“My mother, Elena Carter, was your father’s personal executive secretary for twenty-two years,” I explained softly.
Dominic nodded slowly. “I remember Elena. She retired eight years ago. She passed away shortly after, didn't she?”
“She didn't retire, Dominic,” I said, tears glistening in my eyes. “She was forced out. Two weeks before she died of heart failure, she gave me a sealed leather binder. She told me that if anything ever happened to her, I was to deliver it directly to Vincent Moretti. Not to his brothers. Not to his associates. To Vincent himself.”
Dominic’s breathing turned heavy. “What was inside the binder, Anna?”
I reached beneath the stack of returned envelopes, pulled out a thick yellowed document wrapped in protective plastic, and laid it flat on the table.
“I didn't open the binder for five years,” I confessed. “I was terrified. I just worked my job in the auditing department, kept my head down, and tried to raise Lily. But two years ago, when I heard your father was gravely ill, I finally broke the seal.”
Dominic reached out, taking the document from the plastic sleeve.
It was a heavy parchment legal contract, drafted by a top international law firm, bearing the official seal of the New York State Supreme Court.
At the bottom of the last page were two signatures.
The first was the signature of Vincent Moretti, written in his bold, dark ink.
The second was the signature of my mother, Elena Carter.
Dominic’s eyes scanned the heavy legal text at the top of the page. As his gaze read the clause titled SECTION 4: TRUST TRANSFER AND ASSET CONSOLIDATION, his face went completely gray.
“My God...” Dominic breathed out.
“Read it, Dominic,” I whispered.
The document was an irrevocable testamentary trust deed executed twenty years ago. It stated that twenty-five percent of the non-criminal holding assets of the Moretti Group—specifically the port shipping docks in New Jersey and the prime commercial real estate holdings in Midtown Manhattan—did not belong to the Moretti family bloodline.
They had been placed into a private, tax-exempt trust held in the name of Elena Carter and her direct heirs.
The trust was valued at over four hundred million dollars.
And buried inside the final clause was the condition that activated the transfer: Upon the death of Vincent Moretti, full administrative voting rights of the holding trust transfer automatically to Elena Carter’s eldest living child upon their thirty-fifth birthday.
I turned thirty-five two weeks ago.
Dominic raised his head, his gray eyes locking onto mine with an intensity that made the air in the small room feel thick.
“This wasn't an HR mistake,” Dominic realized out loud, his voice dropping into a deadly whisper. “Sterling didn't fire you because of budget cuts.”
“They found out I turned thirty-five,” I said, my voice shaking. “Someone inside your company monitored my employment file. They knew the moment I reached thirty-five, the trust would legally trigger.”
Dominic looked back at the document, his thumb running over his father’s original signature.
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“Who else knew about this document, Anna?”
“Only your father, my mother... and your uncle Anthony.”
