Chapter 7 - Celina Had Found Aldo’s Private File
Celina eventually admitted one piece through her attorney.
She discovered Grace’s file eight months before the wedding.
A locked cabinet had been moved during renovations.
Inside were papers belonging to Aldo Moretti.
Among them:
Copies of Grace’s old signature.
A draft custody waiver.
A residential placement memo concerning infant Ellie.
Notes from a private investigator.
And correspondence with a family-law attorney discussing “permanent separation of mother from child if voluntary relocation can be documented.”
Luciano read the phrase twice.
Voluntary relocation.
His father had planned to make Grace disappear from Ellie’s legal life.
Maybe not physically.
But on paper.
The drafts stopped before completion.
Then Grace disappeared.
Celina found that history and saw opportunity.
Instead of bringing it to Luciano, she repurposed it.
She created new documents.
Forged Luciano’s name.
Revived the idea of removing Ellie.
Used Grace’s old file to make it appear the child came from an unstable maternal history.
Then she added invented behavioral problems.
Why?
Because Celina wanted a marriage without Ellie.
That part was almost painfully ordinary.
She did not want to become stepmother to a grieving child.
She wanted Luciano.
The estate.
The Moretti name.
The necklace.
The social position.
And eventually children of her own.
Ellie complicated the picture.
So Celina decided the child could be moved elsewhere.
Not murdered.
Not physically harmed.
Removed.
Institutionalized politely.
Explained away.
Exactly the way Aldo had once tried to remove Grace.
May you like
Celina had taken an old family cruelty and modernized it.
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