He Chose His First Love After She Strangled Our Daughter—So I Married His Nemesis
Chapter 1
The Moretti family had a rule written in blood.
Any man who betrayed his wife and children would kneel before the statue of the Blessed Mother and face the judgment of the family.
In the third year of my marriage to Bradley Moretti, he knelt on the freezing marble floor of the chapel beneath the old estate, looked me in the eye, and asked for a divorce.
All because his first love—the woman who had been missing for three years—had come back.
His hand never trembled as he slid the divorce papers across the table.
“Wallis, Zora was destroyed because of me,” he said evenly. “I already owe her more than I can ever repay.”
I tightened my arms around our daughter.
Anne was only a month old. She was so tiny, so impossibly fragile, that even her softest cries made my heart ache.
“What about Anne?” I asked.
Bradley said nothing. The silence stretched long enough for the chapel candles to burn noticeably lower.
At last, he looked away.
“Zora can’t have children anymore. She can’t bear to look at mine.”
I stared at him, and the man before me suddenly felt like a stranger.
He continued, “Anne will be removed from the Moretti family trust. She’ll have no inheritance rights. I’ll find a safe family to take her in, and I’ll make sure she’s provided for throughout her life.”
In that moment, I remembered the first time we met.
It had been a winter night in New York. Outside a crumbling theater in Brooklyn, he had stepped between me and a drunk, tucked his bloodied hand into his coat pocket, and said quietly,
“Don’t be afraid, Miss Finn. Not all Morettis are monsters.”
I had believed him.
His mask had simply been more convincing than the others’.
I slipped the divorce papers into the inside pocket of my coat.
“Fine.”
Everyone in the chapel went still.
Bradley looked up sharply, as if he had misheard me.
I held Anne close and made sure there was no mistaking my words.
“I’ll sign. But Anne comes with me.”
“From this moment on, my daughter and I have nothing to do with the Moretti family.”
“Not anymore.”