Chapter 4 - The River Secret
Rebecca identified the mill in the photograph as the original site of Romano Timber, a business that had burned down twenty-eight years earlier. Sophia had grown up believing the fire was an accident that bankrupted her family. Her grandmother rarely spoke about it.
"The Morettis acquired the land afterward," Rebecca explained. "But the title history is incomplete."
Sophia touched the photograph. "My grandmother used to tell me that the river remembers everything."
The words led them to a retired county clerk named Walter Greene. He had kept copies of records after a courthouse flood destroyed the originals. When Emma and Rebecca visited him, he produced a deed, a sworn affidavit, and a letter from Sophia's grandmother.
The deed showed that Romano Timber's riverfront acreage had been transferred to a Moretti holding company using a forged signature. The affidavit named Vittorio as the person who arranged the transfer. The letter described a promise Dante's grandfather had made: if the truth ever surfaced, the land would return to the Romano heirs.
"My family didn't lose everything by accident," Sophia said when Rebecca called. "It was taken."
"The evidence suggests fraud," Rebecca answered. "We'll have to prove it in court."
Meanwhile, Dante visited the old mill. Its brick shell stood beyond a fence, surrounded by weeds and rusted machinery. His father had once brought him there and said, Never mistake the man who keeps the keys for the man who owns the door.
He had never understood. Now he did.
Marco met him beside the river and handed over the recording of Isabella and Vittorio. Dante listened without moving. When it ended, he stared at the water.
"How long have you known?" he asked.
"Not long enough," Marco replied. "I should have warned Sophia sooner."
"So should I."
Dante sent the recording to Rebecca, along with copies of Vittorio's internal financial ledgers. It was the first time he had handed evidence against his own family to someone outside it.
Sophia listened to the audio that night. She heard Isabella threaten Vittorio, and she heard Vittorio speak about moving faster. The threat was real. Yet what troubled her most was the image of Dante standing alone beside the ruined mill, according to Marco's report.
She wanted to hate him without complication. He had made that impossible by beginning, at last, to do something right.
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Then a court officer delivered an emergency filing: Vittorio was petitioning to place the quadruplets under the control of a family-appointed guardian, alleging Sophia was medically unfit.
The hearing was set for forty-eight hours later.
