[COMPLETED] My Mafia Husband Cooked Our Anniversary Dinner—Then Another Woman Called, and Her Ultrasound Was on His Phone

I agreed to meet Sofia because I wanted answers, not because I wanted to forgive her.

Robin advised me to choose a public place and to make no promises. My mother offered to accompany me, but I declined. There were certain conversations that became harder when someone who loved you was sitting nearby, trying not to interrupt.

We met at a small hotel café in the Loop, far from Ilvento-style luxury and even farther from the restaurants associated with Moretti Holdings. Sofia arrived early. I recognized her through the window before she saw me.

She wore a red wool coat and had tied her hair back without her usual careful styling. She looked tired. For a moment, she resembled the college friend who had once stayed up all night helping me prepare a presentation. Then she looked up, and I remembered Adrian's call history.

“Thank you for coming,” she said.

“Tell me why you called.”

She glanced at the empty chair opposite her.

“Could you sit down?”

I remained standing for another second. Then I took the chair, placing my handbag beside my feet.

Sofia folded her hands around a cup of tea she hadn't touched.

“I knew it was your anniversary.”

“I assumed that much.”

“I knew he'd be home.”

“Then why pretend you dialed the wrong number?”

“Because when I heard your voice, I panicked. I wanted him to tell you. I didn't think I'd be the one who did it.”

I stared at her. Even now, she was describing a choice as though it had happened to her.

“You called his phone,” I said. “You said you were pregnant. And afterward you tried to convince me I hadn't heard what I heard.”

“I know.”

“Did you expect me to be grateful?”

“No.”

Her answer came without hesitation. It stopped me more effectively than an apology would have.

She said Adrian had learned about the pregnancy the previous morning. The ultrasound had been taken during an appointment she'd scheduled after a positive home test. She had sent him the image. He had called her immediately, and they'd argued about what would happen next.

“He said he needed time,” she told me.

“Time for what?”

“To tell you.”

I looked out at the street. People moved past the café windows with shopping bags and paper cups. Their ordinary errands made my own life feel strangely unreal.

“For six months, he found plenty of time to lie.”

Sofia lowered her eyes.

She didn't ask me to believe that Adrian had promised to leave me. That would have been an easier story for her to tell. Instead, she admitted he had repeatedly described our marriage as complicated and had said he couldn't imagine his life without me.

“Then you knew he was married,” I said.

“Yes.”

“You knew he loved telling me we were waiting to have children.”

“No. I didn't know that.”

I searched her face. She might have been telling the truth about that small detail. It changed nothing important.

Sofia explained that she'd begun working on a Moretti Holdings development project eight months earlier. She traveled between Chicago and New York to coordinate contracts, vendors, and site meetings. After several late dinners with Adrian, the relationship became personal. Six months ago, they began sleeping together.

The timeline matched what I had confronted him with on our anniversary. I hated that matching details could now feel reassuring. I wanted certainty so badly that even confirmation of betrayal seemed preferable to more uncertainty.

“The steakhouse photograph,” I said. “Why post it?”

Her cheeks reddened.

“I wanted you to notice.”

“And when I liked it?”

“I realized you'd trusted both of us.”

I remembered tapping the little heart beneath her caption. A gesture so automatic I had barely thought about it. Sofia had been looking for a response while I was congratulating my friend on a pleasant dinner.

“That's cruel,” I said.

“I know.”

She wiped a tear from her cheek, then appeared embarrassed that I had seen it. I didn't comfort her. There was room in the world for her regret and my anger, but I couldn't carry both.

“Is the baby Adrian's?” I asked.

“I believe so. There hasn't been anyone else.”

She wasn't offering proof, and I understood the distinction. At that moment, she was telling me what she knew and what she believed. Neither of us had the certainty a later test might provide.

“Are you planning to keep the baby?”

“Yes.”

“That's between you and him.”

“It should be,” she said. “But something else isn't.”

She pulled a folded receipt from her handbag. It showed a Chicago hotel where she'd stayed during a project review. At the bottom was a corporate billing reference belonging to Moretti Holdings.

“Adrian authorized the room,” she said. “I thought it was ordinary travel reimbursement at first. Later, there were nights when I wasn't working on the project.”

I examined the paper without touching it.

“Why are you showing me this?”

“Because someone in finance knows about us. When I told Adrian I was pregnant, Marco Bellini called me before Adrian did.”

“Who's Marco?”

“Chief financial officer. He approves the development expenses. He told me my position depended on keeping personal matters out of the office.”

I felt a new kind of unease. Adrian's affair was painful enough. I had no desire to become involved in the internal politics of a company the newspapers discussed in careful language.

“Did Adrian send him?”

“I don't know.”

That answer sounded honest. It was also the first time Sofia had admitted not knowing something.

She pushed the receipt toward me. I left it where it was.

“If you think somebody is threatening your job,” I said, “find your own lawyer. Don't make me responsible for fixing it.”

“I don't expect you to.”

“Then why tell me?”

“Because Marco said your name yesterday.”

I leaned forward despite myself.

“What about me?”

“He said the household paperwork had to be finished before anyone started telling stories.”

“Household paperwork?”

Sofia shook her head.

“He didn't explain.”

I remembered Robin's warning about signing documents. A month earlier, Adrian had brought home a folder about refinancing a property. He'd described the forms as routine. I had asked to read them later, then forgotten about them when he left for New York.

At the time, his patience had looked like respect for my schedule. Now I wondered what the papers had been intended to accomplish.

I stood. Sofia didn't try to stop me.

“Claire,” she said as I turned away. “I'm sorry I hurt you.”

“You helped him do it,” I answered. “Don't leave that part out.”

Outside, I called Robin and told her about the receipt and the reference to household paperwork. She asked me to come to her office before speaking to Adrian.

When I reached my hotel, an envelope was waiting at reception. It had been delivered by a messenger from Moretti Holdings, not by Adrian himself. Inside were several copies of routine-looking property forms, accompanied by a note asking me to review them when convenient.

The first page concerned a building that had been part of our marital finances for nearly two years.

On the last page, beneath a paragraph I hadn't yet read, someone had placed a yellow tab beside the words SPOUSAL AUTHORIZATION.