Chapter 4 - What His Father Knew
Adrien's father had been dead seven months.
One month after Elena disappeared, Salvatore Moretti had suffered a stroke in the upstairs study and never regained consciousness.
Adrien had spent the funeral accepting condolences from men who had feared his father, loved his father, borrowed money from his father, lied to his father, and in several cases had quietly hoped to outlive him.
Not once had Adrien imagined that Salvatore had carried Elena's pregnancy into the grave.
He stood in Teresa's kitchen while she made espresso with deliberate hands.
"Tell me exactly," he said.
"Sit down."
"No."
"Then stand and make yourself tired."
She placed a cup in front of the empty chair anyway.
Teresa sat across from it.
"Elena came to me two weeks after she left. She looked terrible. She had been sleeping in a motel outside Erie. She said someone had approached her after a doctor's appointment and told her that if she told you about the pregnancy, the child would become a pressure point."
Adrien's jaw tightened.
"Marco told me that much."
"Marco knew about the threat. He did not know what she told me next."
Adrien waited.
His mother rubbed one thumb over the rim of the cup.
"The man used a phrase. He said, 'Blood complicates succession.'"
Adrien frowned.
It was not language from the street. It sounded older, almost formal.
Teresa continued. "Your father used that exact phrase at a dinner here three nights before Elena was approached."
Adrien's stomach dropped.
"About what?"
"About you. About marriage. About heirs."
"Who was at dinner?"
Teresa counted quietly. "Your father. Me. Vittorio. Marco. Carlo Rinaldi. Father Anthony for the first hour. And your cousin Nico came late."
"Elena wasn't there."
"No."
"So somebody carried the phrase out of this house."
"Yes."
Adrien began pacing.
"You told Dad she was pregnant."
"I did."
He stopped.
"Why?"
Teresa's chin lifted. "Because at the time I believed your father could control his own house better than you could."
There was no softness in the confession.
That made it worse.
"And could he?"
"No."
Adrien turned away.
Teresa's voice changed.
"He was furious with me. Not because Elena was pregnant. Because I had helped her leave."
Adrien looked back.
"He wanted her found?"
"He wanted her protected."
"Same thing, in this family."
Teresa gave a sad half-smile. "That is exactly what Elena said."
She stood and crossed to a drawer beside the refrigerator. From it she removed a cheap paper envelope, creased and softened from being handled too often.
Adrien did not reach for it.
"What is that?"
"A letter your father wrote three days before the stroke."
Adrien almost refused to take it because he understood immediately how dangerous a dead man's words could become. They could not be argued with. They could not be corrected.
Teresa pushed the envelope across the counter.
"Read it later. Not because it contains a solution. It doesn't. He was still your father. He still thought in terms of control. But he knew he had made something worse."
Adrien picked it up.
"Did he know who threatened her?"
"He had a suspicion."
"Who?"
Teresa met his eyes.
"Vittorio."
Adrien's uncle.
His father's younger brother.
The man currently sitting in Adrien's chair at the unfinished summit.
Adrien's first response was relief, which disgusted him. Vittorio made sense. Vittorio was ambitious, rigid, obsessed with bloodline and continuity. He had hated Elena from the first Sunday lunch because she had looked at him without fear.
Then Teresa shook her head.
"Do not do what you're doing."
"What am I doing?"
"Turning suspicion into certainty because certainty lets you act."
Adrien stared at her.
She continued, "Your father never proved it. He confronted Vittorio privately. Vittorio denied it. They fought. Two days later your father had the stroke. That timing has poisoned your thinking ever since, but there was no evidence Vittorio caused it."
"I never said he did."
"You were about to think it."
Adrien looked away.
His mother knew him too well.
"What did Dad do after the confrontation?"
"He called Elena."
"He had her number?"
"I gave it to him."
Adrien laughed once without humor. "Everyone had her number except me."
"She changed it after he called."
"What did he say?"
"I only know what Elena told me later. He apologized for frightening her. He told her he had never ordered anyone to approach her. He said if she wanted to stay gone, he would make sure no one followed."
Adrien looked at the envelope again.
"Did he?"
"For a while."
The words settled between them.
"Until now," Adrien said.
Teresa nodded.
His phone vibrated.
A text from Marco.
ELENA'S ROOM GOT A CALL FROM THE FRONT DESK. MAN ASKED IF BABY MORETTI HAD BEEN MOVED TO NICU. STAFF DIDN'T ANSWER. SECURITY IS PULLING CAMERA.
Adrien showed the message to his mother.
Teresa's face lost color.
"You see?" he said. "I don't have the luxury of waiting for certainty."
"And that is how men in this family have justified every terrible decision for fifty years."
He looked at her.
She stepped closer.
"Protect your child. But if you turn this into a war before you know who the enemy is, you may hand the enemy exactly what they want."
Adrien put the envelope inside his coat.
"I'm going back."
Teresa caught his sleeve.
"There is something else."
He waited.
"When Elena came to me, she asked for one thing besides help leaving."
"What?"
"She asked me to make sure that if anything happened to her, you would never be allowed to raise that child inside the Moretti house."
Adrien did not move.
May you like
Teresa released his sleeve.
"She was not only afraid of whoever threatened her," she said. "She was afraid Sofia would become you."
