Chapter 7: Room 1520, Again
I chose the Obsidian Hotel deliberately.
If Alessandro noticed, he didn't say so.
He was already in the room when I arrived — standing beside the same window, Chicago spread out behind him in the same grey afternoon light.
His tie was on this time.
His expression was not the one I remembered from six weeks ago.
He looked like a man who hadn't slept.
"You came," he said.
"Don't," I said.
"This isn't that."
He nodded once and gestured toward the small table near the window.
Two chairs.
No one else in the room.
I had made him agree to that in writing, through Liam, before I came.
I sat down.
He sat across from me.
"You know my real name," I said.
"Elizabeth Calloway.
Your father was Thomas Calloway.
He worked for a subsidiary of Vitali Holdings for eleven years." He folded his hands on the table.
"I didn't know that when we met.
I want you to understand that."
"Tell me about the file."
He didn't flinch.
"Three and a half years ago, I received a memo from my head of internal compliance.
A man named Victor Hale.
The memo said there was a routine purge of outdated audit files scheduled for end of quarter and that my sign-off was required as a formality." He paused.
"I signed it.
I didn't read the individual file names.
I trusted Victor."
"And then my father died."
"Six months later.
I didn't connect them.
I had no reason to." He looked at his hands.
"Two years ago, one of the south side tenants filed a lawsuit.
During discovery, my legal team flagged an anomaly — a gap in the compliance records from that quarter.
I started asking questions.
Victor told me the gap was a digitization error." Alessandro's jaw tightened.
"I believed him again."
"When did you stop believing him?"
"Eight months ago.
A source inside the firm told me Victor had been running the pressure campaign on the south side properties independently, using a fund that was structured to look like routine operating expenses.
The payments to inspectors, the permit delays — none of it came across my desk.
It was designed not to." He looked up at me.
"Victor Hale has been using the Vitali name and the Vitali infrastructure to run his own operation for at least four years.
Possibly longer."
"And the file order.
The one with my father's complaint."
"I believe Victor put it in front of me knowing I wouldn't read the individual items.
He needed my signature to make the destruction look authorized." Alessandro's voice was steady but something behind it was not.
"Your father found evidence of the fund.
He reported it internally.
Victor saw the complaint before anyone else did because he ran internal compliance.
He buried it.
And then—"
He stopped.
"Say it," I said.
"And then your father had an accident." Alessandro looked at me directly.
"I don't have proof that Victor arranged it.
But I have been trying to find proof for eight months, and I believe he did."
The room was very quiet.
"Your mother called me," I said.
"Yesterday."
Something moved across his face.
"What did she say?"
"She offered me money to disappear.
She said you going public would destroy you."
"She's probably right about the cost," he said.
"She's wrong that it matters."
"Alessandro." I leaned forward slightly.
"I'm pregnant."
He went very still.
I watched his face carefully — every fraction of movement, every micro-adjustment.
What I saw was not calculation.
It was not the expression of a man deciding what to do with a problem.
It was something rawer than that, and it lasted only a second before he controlled it.
"How long?" he asked.
"Six weeks."
He nodded slowly.
His hands stayed flat on the table.
"I want to be clear about something," I said.
"I didn't come here because of the baby.
I came here because Victor Hale may have had my father k*lled, and you have evidence I don't have, and I have evidence you don't have.
The baby is a separate conversation.
This one is about whether we trust each other enough to finish what my father started."
Alessandro looked at me for a long moment.
"What evidence do you have?" he asked.
I reached into my bag and placed Diane's folder on the table between us.
He opened it.
He read in silence for four minutes.
When he looked up, his expression had changed completely.
"Diane Marsh," he said.
"I wondered where she went."
"She was afraid."
"She was right to be." He closed the folder.
"Victor doesn't know she has these."
"He may suspect.
Your mother knows I met with her."
Alessandro's eyes sharpened.
"My mother told you that?"
"She knew where I'd been.
Which means someone reported it to her." I held his gaze.
"Or to Victor, and Victor told her."
He sat back slowly.
"You think Victor has been feeding my mother information," he said.
"I think your mother has been trying to protect you by keeping this quiet.
And I think Victor has been using that instinct against both of you." I paused.
"She warned me off to protect you.
But if Victor is the one who told her I exist — he wasn't protecting anyone.
He was finding out how much I know."
Alessandro stood up and walked to the window.
He stood there with his back to me for a moment, looking at the city.
"I have a meeting with the full board in four days," he said.
"I've been building a case against Victor for eight months.
I wasn't ready to move yet." He turned around.
"With Diane's documents, I am."
"If you move against him inside the company first, he'll know it's coming.
He has allies on that board."
"I know." He came back to the table.
"Which is why I don't think the board meeting should be the first move."
I looked at him.
"Liam knows a journalist," I said.
Something that was almost a smile crossed his face.
May you like
Gone before it fully arrived.
"Tell me about the journalist," he said.
