The Moretti Daughter They Denied novel · Chapter 15 of 24

Chapter 15: Out of Kindness

Nora's POV

Salvatore didn't look at the ledger. He kept looking at my hand.

"Rosa," he said.

He hadn't said that name aloud in a very long time.

"Rosa Lenti," I said. "She died on the third of March, in a charity ward on the West Side. Her baby didn't."

His face went slack.

"They told me the baby was born dead," he said. "Antonella's cousin was the nurse. She came out and told me."

He turned.

"Antonella. You were with me in the car."

"Salvatore, listen to me."

"You held my hand in the car, and you said the child never breathed."

"You were going to throw your life away on a waitress with a cough," Antonella said.

Her calm had gone. Her voice was high and fast, and her pearls shook at her ears.

"You were engaged to me. The families had shaken hands. A child would have ended it. I fixed it, and I gave you twenty-eight years of a good house."

"You fixed it," my father repeated.

"I took her home. I raised her. I fed her at my own table."

I heard Carmela make a small noise behind her mother's chair.

"Mama," she said. "What did you do?"

"Quiet."

"Mama, the ledger has your name."

"I said quiet."

I let go of the chair.

My legs weren't steady, and I didn't care. I walked up the length of the table, past the empty place where I had sat for twenty years, past the men by the wall.

I stopped in front of Antonella.

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