Chapter 3: What Liam Had Been Carrying
I called in sick to the diner.
I never called in sick.
I had worked through a sprained ankle, a fever of a hundred and two, and the anniversary of my mother's death.
But I stood in the hallway with my phone in my hand and told my manager I couldn't come in, and then I walked back to the kitchen table and sat down across from Liam.
He was already there, both hands wrapped around his mug, not drinking.
"Tell me," I said.
"Emma—"
"Don't." My voice was steadier than I expected.
"Seven years, Liam.
Seven years you've been the only person I trust.
So don't sit there and protect me from something I'm already standing in the middle of."
He looked at the table for a long moment.
Then he got up, went to his bedroom, and came back with a manila envelope.
He set it between us without a word.
I opened it.
Inside were photographs.
Printed, not digital.
Alessandro Vitali at what looked like a construction site, shaking hands with a man I didn't recognize.
Alessandro at a city council meeting, seated beside a woman with silver hair and a sharp expression.
Alessandro signing documents at a long conference table while men in suits stood behind him.
"What am I looking at?"
"His family has been trying to acquire a block of properties on the south side for three years," Liam said.
"Affordable housing.
Forty-two families.
The Vitali Group has been buying up the surrounding lots and applying pressure — code violations that appeared from nowhere, permits that got delayed, a fire in one building that the insurance company is still investigating."
I set the photographs down.
"You think Alessandro is behind that."
"I think his company is.
Whether he knows every detail—" Liam stopped.
"I don't know."
"Then why did you send me to that gala?"
He finally looked at me.
"Because my cousin is one of those forty-two families.
She has three kids, Emma.
She's been fighting eviction for eight months.
I thought if someone could get close enough to Vitali, get him talking, maybe find out who was actually running the pressure campaign—" He stopped again.
"It was stupid.
I know it was stupid."
"You used me."
The words landed between us like something dropped from a height.
"Yes," he said quietly.
"I did.
And I've been sick about it every day since."
I stood up.
Walked to the window.
The street below was ordinary — a woman walking a dog, a delivery truck double-parked, two kids on bikes.
Nothing that looked like the edge of something dangerous.
"Does anyone know I was there that night?
Connected to you?"
"No.
I was careful."
"Liam." I turned around.
"I need to tell you something."
He waited.
"I'm pregnant."
The color left his face so completely it was almost frightening.
"Emma—"
"It's his." I didn't let him speak.
"Alessandro's.
And before you say anything, I need you to understand that this changes everything about what you just told me.
Because if his company is doing what you're describing, and he finds out about this baby—" I pressed my hand flat against the table.
"I need to know exactly what kind of man he is.
Not what the newspapers say.
What you actually know."
Liam was quiet for a long time.
"There's someone you should talk to," he finally said.
"A woman named Diane Marsh.
She was a paralegal at the firm that handled the first round of property acquisitions.
She left eight months ago.
She reached out to me two weeks after you came back from that gala." He paused.
"She says she has documents."
My heart was beating too fast.
"What kind of documents?"
May you like
Liam picked up his coffee mug, looked into it, set it back down.
"The kind that show someone signed off on the pressure campaign personally."
