Chapter 6: The Mother's Warning
I didn't speak for a moment.
Liam looked up from his phone.
I held up one finger and walked to the window.
"How did you get this number?" I asked.
"The same way we found your name," Renata Vitali said.
"It wasn't difficult." A pause.
"I understand you've been speaking with a former employee of ours.
A paralegal."
My grip tightened on the phone.
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"Miss Calloway.
I'm not calling to threaten you.
I'm calling because my son is about to make a very serious mistake, and I believe you may be the reason he makes it." Her voice was precise and unhurried, the voice of a woman who had never needed to raise it to be heard.
"Alessandro has developed a misplaced sense of guilt about your father.
He believes he was manipulated.
He wants to fix it.
That impulse is going to destroy him, and I will not allow that."
"So you're asking me to walk away."
"I'm asking you to consider what you actually want.
You're twenty-five years old.
You work in a diner.
You have no legal resources, no institutional protection, and no allies with any real power." A brief silence.
"Walk away from this.
I will ensure your student loans are paid in full.
I will ensure you have enough to finish nursing school and start your life properly.
No conditions.
No contact.
You simply disappear."
I turned away from the window.
Liam was watching me, very still.
"And the forty-two families on the south side?" I asked.
"The ones being pushed out of their homes?"
"That situation is being managed."
"By the same people who managed my father?"
The silence this time was different.
Sharper.
"You're smarter than I expected," Renata said.
"That's not a compliment in this context."
"I'm going to meet with Alessandro," I said.
"If he's telling the truth about what he knew, then we want the same thing.
And if he's lying, I'll know."
"You won't know," Renata said flatly.
"My son is very good at seeming honest.
It's his most dangerous quality."
"Then why are you warning me instead of him?"
Another silence.
Longer.
"Because I already tried," she said.
"He won't listen to me." The precision in her voice shifted — not softening exactly, but something beneath it moved.
"Alessandro has been trying to find out who buried that complaint for three years.
He's been doing it quietly, without telling me, without telling the board.
If he finds the answer, he will go public with it.
He believes that is the right thing to do." A pause.
"He does not fully understand what going public will cost him.
Or what it will cost the people around him."
"Including me," I said.
"Including you.
Including your child, if the rumors my staff have reported are accurate."
The air went out of the room.
I hadn't told anyone except Liam.
I hadn't made a single call, searched a single thing online, bought anything at a pharmacy that could be traced.
"How do you know about that?" My voice was very quiet.
"I know everything that happens in my son's orbit, Miss Calloway.
That is how I have protected him for thirty-two years." Another pause.
"That is also why I am asking you, one more time, to take the money and go."
"No," I said.
Renata Vitali was quiet for three full seconds.
"Then I hope you're as strong as you sound," she said.
"Because what's coming is not something you can prepare for by reading documents in a paralegal's apartment."
The call ended.
I stood at the window for a moment, phone in my hand, watching the delivery truck pull away from the curb below.
"Who was that?" Liam asked.
"His mother." I turned around.
"She knows about the baby."
Liam stood up.
"Emma—"
"Someone on their staff has been watching us." I moved back to the table.
"Which means Diane may not be safe either.
Call her.
Tell her to go somewhere else tonight." I picked up the note Alessandro had sent and read the last line again.
May you like
*Whoever is behind this knows you exist now, and they are more dangerous than I am.* "He wasn't talking about himself," I said quietly.
"He was talking about her."
