Chapter 3: What the Envelope Knew
Gabriel didn't open it there.
He slid the envelope into his jacket pocket, straightened his cuffs, and looked at my three sons the way a man looks at something he is trying very hard not to lose his composure over.
"What are their names?"
I hesitated.
"Eli.
Noah.
And Marcus."
He repeated them quietly, once, like he was memorizing them.
Marcus — the boldest one — was still watching him.
"You didn't answer.
Are you our dad?"
Gabriel crouched down so he was level with Marcus.
His voice came out lower than I expected.
Careful.
"I think I am.
But your mom and I need to talk first.
Is that okay?"
Marcus considered this with the gravity only a five-year-old can manage.
Then he nodded.
Gabriel stood.
His eyes found mine.
"Not here."
One of his men appeared from nowhere — they always did — and within ten minutes the boys were settled in a private lounge off the main hall with two staff members, a plate of chocolate-covered strawberries, and a tablet loaded with cartoons.
Eli immediately grabbed the tablet.
Noah arranged the strawberries by size.
Marcus watched the door.
He had always been the one who watched the door.
Gabriel led me to a smaller room off the corridor.
Dark wood paneling.
A single lamp.
He closed the door and we were alone for the first time in five years.
He pulled out the envelope.
"Before I open this," he said, "I need you to tell me about Rome."
My stomach dropped.
"What about Rome?"
"You were there.
Eight months before the divorce." He set the envelope on the table between us but didn't touch it.
"I need to hear it from you."
I looked at him.
"I was at a medical conference.
You knew that."
"I knew what you told me." His jaw tightened.
"Serena told me something different."
"Serena lied to you for five years about your own children.
You're going to take her word over mine?"
Something moved across his face.
Not quite shame.
Close to it.
"Tell me what happened in Rome, Claire."
I pulled out the chair across from him and sat down.
My hands were steady.
I made sure of it.
"I went to Rome for a cardiology conference.
I was there four days.
I came home.
That's everything."
"Did you meet with Marco Vitelli?"
The name landed like a stone in still water.
Marco Vitelli.
I hadn't heard that name in five years.
Gabriel's oldest rival.
The man Gabriel had spent a decade trying to dismantle.
"Why would I meet with Marco Vitelli?"
Gabriel finally picked up the envelope.
He opened it slowly, removed a single photograph, and placed it face-up on the table.
It was me.
Standing outside a restaurant in Rome.
And beside me, close enough that our shoulders were touching, was a man I had never seen before in my life.
"Serena told me that man is Vitelli's lawyer," Gabriel said.
"She told me you handed him documents."
I stared at the photograph.
My own face stared back at me, caught mid-laugh at something the man beside me had apparently said.
"I don't know who that is."
"Claire—"
"I don't know who that is." I looked up.
"Gabriel.
Someone staged that photograph.
I don't know that man.
I never handed anyone any documents.
I was at a conference.
I ate dinner alone three of the four nights I was there."
He studied me.
"Then who took this picture?"
"The same person who hired someone to surveil me after I left." I pushed the photograph back across the table toward him.
"Serena."
The silence between us was long and very specific.
Gabriel looked at the photograph.
Then at me.
Then back at the photograph.
"If she fabricated this," he said slowly, "then the divorce—"
"Was built on something she constructed." I kept my voice even.
"Yes."
He stood up.
Walked to the window.
His back was to me and I could see the tension in his shoulders, the way his hands stayed very still at his sides.
"She told me about this photograph two weeks before I filed for divorce," he said.
"She said you were selling information to Vitelli.
That you had been doing it for months."
I let that settle.
"And you believed her."
He didn't answer.
Which was its own answer.
"Gabriel." My voice came out quieter than I intended.
"You ended our marriage over breakfast.
You didn't ask me a single question."
He turned around.
His face was something I didn't have a word for.
"I know."
"You chose her version of me over me."
"I know."
The lamp between us hummed softly.
Somewhere down the corridor, faintly, I could hear Marcus asking one of the staff members whether the strawberries had seeds in them.
Gabriel sat back down.
He placed both hands flat on the table.
"I need to find out how far this goes," he said.
"The photograph.
The divorce.
What she told me about you." His eyes met mine.
"Will you give me time to do that?"
I thought about the five years I had spent in a two-bedroom apartment in Brooklyn, nursing three infants alone, telling myself I had made the right choice.
"You have until morning," I said.
He nodded once.
May you like
Then his phone buzzed on the table between us, screen up, and we both saw the name before either of us could look away.
Serena.
