My Best Friend Stole an Heir, So I Cleared House as the Lawful Wife Chapter 02
Donna Serena hurried to scoop up a spoonful of soup and bring it to Vera’s lips herself. The three of them stood together like one happy family. The sight stung more than I wanted to admit.
“Mr. Moretti, Donna Serena,” I said. “Damian and I are not divorced. Isn’t it a little early to pop champagne? What happens if Vera doesn’t get a cent of Don Vito’s estate? What happens if she never gets a seat at the Moretti main table?”
Vera nearly choked on the chicken soup. She shoved the two elders aside, cradled the baby, and looked at me from the corner of her eye.
“So what if you still have the title of wife?” she said. “The Moretti family doesn’t need a woman who can’t produce an heir and treats the Donna title like jewelry. Who knows which man you were meeting when you came back to the estate at ten every night? Maybe your private life was so dirty you ruined your own body. When my son grows up, he’ll never marry a woman like you, someone who wears a wedding ring like jewelry and treats family rules like a joke.”
She lowered her head and kissed the baby, her voice soft enough to pass for prayer.
“Baby, don’t learn from her. If a woman wants to stand beside the family’s main table, she needs to be clean, obedient, and smart enough to know where she should kneel.”
Donna Serena helped Vera sit, then looked at me and let out a cold laugh.
“This baby is definitely a Moretti. Those eyes. That nose. He looks exactly like Damian when he was little.”
Vera’s smile grew.
“Olivia, I know it hurts that I gave birth to Damian’s son,” she said. “But lying to everyone’s face? Has jealousy rotted your brain because you couldn’t give him a child?”
Every word was slander. Somehow, she still wore the face of a victim. The worst part was that the distant Moretti relatives actually started to waver.
“Damian’s Donna had that kind of private life? No wonder she didn’t give the Family an heir in three years.”
“Thank God Vera gave birth to a boy. Otherwise, the main Moretti bloodline would have ended.”
“But Olivia sounds so sure. Could there really be something wrong with the child?”
The second Vera heard that, her eyes reddened. She clung to Donna Serena’s arm, her voice light and trembling.
“Donna Serena, you can tell whether this child belongs to the Morettis just by looking at him. I know everyone is thinking of Damian and the Family. If the capos don’t believe me, I can take Noah for another DNA test.”
She lowered her head as if tears might fall at any second. Donna Serena’s face tightened with pity.
“I’d like to see anyone dare put the little Moretti heir through that,” she snapped. “Those eyes and that nose are Damian’s. If he isn’t my grandson, whose grandson is he? Olivia, stop testing us. This child has been accepted by the Moretti family.”
I looked at the woman in front of me, and pain cut through my chest. Donna Serena used to be kind to me. I had believed it, foolishly. I had treated her like family. Now, after a few poisonous words from Vera, she looked at me as if I were dirt under her shoe. Nicholas finally lost patience. He waved for the soldiers.
“One jealous remark from her, and Vera, the woman who gave this family its bloodline, is crying like this,” he said. “Escort Olivia out. Don’t let her keep embarrassing the Family.”
I looked around the chapel, then met Nicholas’s eyes.
“You really think Vera gets the inheritance just because she gave birth?” I asked. “Even if the consigliere comes, she won’t get a single dollar.”
The chapel went dead silent. Nicholas slammed his cane against the floor.
“Take her out. I don’t want this madwoman making a scene at Don Vito’s funeral.”
Two soldiers stepped forward and grabbed my arms. I forced down my anger and shook them off.
“Hands off me,” I said. “If you hurt the baby I’m carrying, none of you can pay the price.”
I pulled a pregnancy report from my bag. The report said it plainly: twelve weeks pregnant. Nicholas and Donna Serena exchanged a glance. Then they sneered. Vera snatched the report from my hand, scanned it, and laughed.
“So you’re pregnant. Big deal. It’s only been three months. Nobody knows whether it’s a boy or a girl. What makes you think you can use a child no one can even identify yet to fight my Noah for Don Vito’s position?”
She threw the report back at me.
“Has the Donna title made you forget you have no leverage, Olivia? Fine. Today I’ll let you hear exactly what the will says.”
Half an hour later, the Moretti consigliere stepped out of a long black car with a briefcase in his hand. Every eye in the chapel locked on him. He walked to the center, opened the briefcase, took out the will, and read it clearly.
“Considering that the testator, Don Vito Moretti, was advanced in age but mentally sound and capable of expressing his true wishes at the time this will was created, the testator wishes to transfer and entrust his legal assets, family trust, and related shares to the biological mother of Damian Moretti’s first son.”
Vera grabbed a copy and shoved it in front of my face.
“Did you hear that? The biological mother of the first son. Even if you give birth to a boy someday, he’ll spend his life carrying my son’s shoes.”
Nicholas and Donna Serena looked at me as if they wanted to cut me open with their eyes.
“I heard it,” I said. “Clearly.”
My gaze dropped to the line in the will. First son. Then I looked back at Vera.
“I want to see how long you stay arrogant after you fail to get that estate.”
Donna Serena was busy comforting Vera. Nicholas’s finger nearly stabbed my face.
“How can you be this cruel?” he demanded. “You can’t produce an heir, so now you curse Vera and the child? Will you only be satisfied if the main Moretti bloodline ends with you and the enemy families laugh at us? This is Don Vito’s will. These are family rules. They are not props for your little tantrum.”
Damian’s older sister, Camilla Moretti, walked over and pretended to advise me.
“Olivia, normally, it’s bad enough that you sneak around behind Damian’s back and embarrass the Family,” she said. “But today is a family matter. You don’t get to act out. Even if you’re jealous of Vera, don’t be this vicious.”
Every sentence poured filth over me. She made me sound like a bitter, jealous wife. Whispers drilled into my ears.
“Exactly. Now that there’s a child, who knows where Damian’s heart will land?”
“The Moretti family treated Olivia like the rightful Donna. Who knew she was so wild behind closed doors?”
“She should sign the divorce papers right now. Freeze her access to every family trust while we’re at it.”
I clenched my hand until my knuckles turned white. Then I lifted my phone and called the family doctor.
“Dr. Miles, bring a full set of testing equipment to the compound chapel. Run a full workup on Vera’s child.”
