Chapter 6: What Marco Knew
The attorney's name was Edmund Reyes.
Giovanni gave me the address — a narrow brownstone in Lincoln Park, three steps down from street level, the kind of place that had been a law office for forty years and looked it.
The brass nameplate beside the door was worn smooth in the center from decades of hands.
I rang the bell at ten on a Tuesday morning, my day off.
A woman in her sixties answered.
His daughter, she said.
Edmund was having a good day, but I should keep it brief.
He was seated in a wingback chair by the window, a blanket across his knees despite the warmth of the room.
His hands shook slightly, but his eyes were sharp.
"Miss Hale," he said.
"Giovanni told me you'd come.
Sit down."
I sat.
"You want to know about the clause."
"I want to know if it will hold."
He considered this.
"The clause is valid.
I drafted it myself.
Aurelio was examined by two physicians in the month prior — standard practice for estate amendments of that size.
Both certified his capacity." He paused.
"Marco knows this.
He has copies of the same certifications."
"Then why is he challenging it?"
"Because he can delay.
And delay costs money.
And he is betting that you don't have the resources or the will to outlast him." Edmund looked at me steadily.
"He's done it before.
There was a bequest to a former employee — a woman named Clara Voss.
Marco's attorneys filed objections for fourteen months.
She withdrew.
She needed the money more than she needed the fight."
"I'm not Clara Voss."
"No," he said.
"You're not.
You have something she didn't."
"What's that?"
"Giovanni." He said it simply.
"Marco has spent twenty years managing this family's finances.
He controls the operating accounts, the investment portfolios, the property holdings.
He controls them because Giovanni's father trusted him and Giovanni was abroad building his own company and had no interest in the family business." Edmund's hands folded together on the blanket.
"But Aurelio never fully trusted Marco.
That's why he wrote the clause the way he did.
It wasn't just a gift to your father's memory.
It was a test.
To see who in the family would fight to honor it and who would fight to bury it."
I sat with that for a moment.
"He was watching them even from the will," I said.
"Aurelio was always watching." Edmund almost smiled.
"He told me once — a man who helps you when you have nothing is worth more than a man who helps you when you have everything.
He never forgot your father.
Not in thirty years."
I took out my phone and showed him the photograph of the card.
He looked at it for a long time.
"This is enough," he said quietly.
"Combined with my testimony, the physician certifications, and the original draft notes I kept — this is enough."
"Will you testify?"
He looked up at me.
"I've been waiting for someone to ask."
I was back on the sidewalk, pulling my coat closed, when my phone rang.
Not an unknown number this time.
Tyler.
I almost didn't answer.
"What do you want?"
"I need to tell you something." His voice was different.
Lower.
The performance was gone.
"About Marco Conti."
"I'm listening."
"He called me last night.
He knows we have a history.
He wanted to know if I could — persuade you to withdraw." A pause.
"He offered me money, Jess."
My jaw tightened.
"How much?"
"Thirty thousand."
"And?"
"I said no." He exhaled.
"I know that doesn't fix anything between us.
I know it doesn't change what I did.
But I said no, and I thought you should know he's reaching further than you think."
I stood on the sidewalk outside Edmund Reyes's door and said nothing for a moment.
"Tyler.
Why are you telling me this?"
A long pause.
"Because you were right," he said.
"I was twenty-four and I was a coward and I left.
And you raised Lily alone and you worked double shifts and you never asked me for a single thing." His voice cracked slightly at the edges.
"The least I can do is not take money to make your life harder."
I didn't forgive him in that moment.
That wasn't what the moment was.
But I said: "Thank you for telling me."
And then I called Giovanni.
"Marco approached Tyler," I said when he answered.
"He's building a wall around me."
Giovanni was quiet for exactly two seconds.
"Then we move the hearing date up," he said.
"I know the judge.
I'll have my attorney file for an expedited review tomorrow morning."
"Can he do that?"
"Marco has been delaying this estate for eight months.
A judge who sees a pattern of obstruction and a key witness in poor health will grant it." A pause.
"Jessica.
Are you ready for this to move fast?"
I thought of Lily asleep in her room.
I thought of my father's card in a shoebox for thirty years.
I thought of Edmund Reyes in his wingback chair saying *I've been waiting for someone to ask.*
May you like
"Yes," I said.
"Move it."
