Chapter 3 - The Man at My Father's Door
My father answered on the fourth ring.
"Emmie?"
I covered my mouth so he wouldn't hear the sound that escaped me.
"Where are you?"
"Home. Where else would I be?"
"Were you outside the clinic tonight?"
"Of course. That's where the physical therapist is." He paused. "Are you all right?"
"Lock your door."
"Emma—"
"Please, Dad. Right now."
He heard something in my voice that stopped his questions. I listened to the scrape of his cane, the television playing an old baseball game, then the bolt sliding into place.
"Done. Tell me what's wrong."
"I'm coming."
I hung up before I had to explain why I was shaking.
Chicago blurred past the car windows. Streetlights struck Luca's face, leaving one half in shadow. He had loosened his tie but still looked as though he belonged on a magazine cover advertising danger, money, and everything I had been taught to avoid.
"Your father's name is Patrick," he said.
I turned toward him.
"How do you know?"
"You put it on your emergency contact form."
"You read my employee file?"
"Sofia pulled it when I told her about the threat. I asked for your contact information, not your history."
"Good. Because my history isn't your property."
He absorbed that without arguing.
"You're right."
I had expected a man like him to make excuses. He didn't, which made it harder to decide what to think.
"What happened in 2019?" I asked.
His gaze shifted to the windshield.
"A great many things."
"That isn't an answer."
"No. It isn't."
I showed him the second message.
He read it twice.
"In 2019, my company acquired several properties on the West Side. One of the deals became controversial. Small businesses said they had been pressured to sell."
My skin prickled.
"What properties?"
"The old Harrison Street block. Near Saint Anthony's."
I couldn't speak.
My mother's restaurant had stood on that block.
Reed's Kitchen, with its cracked red booths, crooked Christmas lights, and a photograph of my parents on opening day. My mother had served meatballs and lemon chicken there for twenty-six years. I had learned to count change behind the counter and translate the evening news for my grandmother.
Then came the inspections.
The unpaid penalties.
The notice ordering us to close.
My father said the city had simply decided we weren't worth saving.
I had believed him because believing anything else would have meant admitting how much had been taken.
"My mother owned Reed's Kitchen," I whispered.
Luca turned.
"On Harrison?"
"Yes."
For the first time that night, he looked completely unprepared.
"Emma, I didn't know."
"You bought the block?"
"The holding company did."
"Your holding company."
"Yes."
The car seemed suddenly too small.
"You said it was controversial."
"It was. I ordered a review. I was told the violations were legitimate."
"And you believed them?"
His jaw tightened.
"I believed people who worked for me."
"That seems to be a theme."
He accepted the blow in silence.
We arrived at my father's two-flat twenty minutes later. Luca's driver parked across the street, not in our driveway. I noticed that. I also noticed Luca watching every parked car before he opened his door.
"I'll go in alone," I told him.
"All right. I'll stay out here."
"No guards in the house."
"None."
I hurried up the steps and knocked in our old pattern: two fast, one slow.
Dad opened the door with his cane in one hand and a wooden spoon in the other.
"What happened? You look like you ran all the way from Michigan Avenue."
I threw my arms around him.
In the narrow hallway hung a photograph of my mother holding a birthday cake shaped like a baseball. She had insisted every family needed one picture of a disaster, because the cake had collapsed before Dad could blow out his candles. We had laughed for years about it.
I stared at that photograph as Dad pulled me inside. There were so many things I had assumed would always be there: the old radiator ticking, his slippers beside the door, the ridiculous ceramic rooster on the counter. Seeing his picture on a stranger's phone had made them suddenly fragile.
"You never call me three times in a row unless something's wrong," he said.
"I know."
"Whatever it is, we'll handle it."
He spoke with the certainty that had carried us through years of bad news, even though his face was pale. I wished he didn't have to be strong for me again.
He smelled like coffee and the old cedar soap he bought in bulk.
"Easy, sweetheart. I'm not made of glass."
I held on anyway.
After I showed him the photograph, his face changed.
He sat down heavily at the kitchen table.
"I hoped this was finished," he murmured.
"What was finished?"
He rubbed his thumb across the worn head of his cane.
"The restaurant business. The people who wanted that block."
I pulled out a chair.
"Dad. Tell me."
He looked toward the front window.
"A man came by this afternoon. Dark coat. Gray hair. Silver cuff links. Said he was checking on an old insurance claim."
"What insurance claim?"
"The one from the crash."
Five years ago, a delivery truck had struck my father's car at an intersection. His leg healed badly. We won a small settlement, and somehow it had disappeared into medical bills before the first year ended.
"I thought the insurance company handled that," I said.
"They did. Eventually."
"Who came here?"
"He didn't give a business card. Just asked whether you still worked for the Morettis."
The room went silent except for the clock above the refrigerator.
"You should have told me."
"I didn't want to frighten you."
"I'm already frightened."
He reached across the table.
"I know."
My father had survived layoffs, a collapsed business, and more surgeries than any man should have to endure. It wasn't easy to watch him look afraid in his own kitchen.
"Your mother kept records," he said. "After the inspectors came. She said the numbers didn't add up."
"What records?"
"A blue ledger. She put it away before she got sick. I thought it was just supplier bills."
"Where?"
He gave me a rueful smile.
"You know your mother. If something mattered, she hid it somewhere nobody would clean."
I looked around the little kitchen.
The chipped ceramic rooster. The tin of old recipe cards. The cupboards Dad hadn't emptied because my mother's handwriting still marked the shelves.
I felt tears press behind my eyes.
"I'll find it."
There was a knock at the door.
Three slow beats.
Dad stiffened.
I went to the window and saw Luca on the porch, hands visible, standing several steps back.
"He's with me," I said.
Dad looked at him for a long moment.
"That's Luca Moretti?"
"Yes."
"The man who bought our block?"
My throat closed.
"Yes."
Dad took his cane and stood.
"Then I'd like to meet him."
I opened the door, expecting an argument.
What happened was worse.
My father looked Luca straight in the eye.
"Do you know what your company did to my wife?"
Luca didn't move.
"Not enough, sir. But I intend to find out."
"She worked until she couldn't stand. She cooked soup for people who had nowhere to go. Then your people called her dishonest in front of the entire neighborhood."
"I'm sorry."
"Sorry doesn't open a restaurant."
"No," Luca said. "It doesn't."
Dad stepped aside, not forgiving him, merely allowing him to enter.
For an hour we searched the kitchen. I opened drawers I had not touched since the funeral. Luca stood back unless I asked him to lift something. Dad told stories of my mother while we worked, as if the memories were the only thing holding the room together.
I found the ledger behind the false bottom of a recipe box.
Blue cover.
Her initials, G.R., in fading gold ink.
Inside were invoices, inspection notices, and handwritten dates. One page held a photograph: my mother outside Reed's Kitchen beside a smiling man in a tailored coat.
I knew his face.
I'd seen it in Vanessa's family photographs at the mansion.
Adrian Bellini.
On the back, in my mother's handwriting, were seven words.
HE OFFERED TO SAVE US. THEN HE LIED.
Before I could show Luca, Dad reached for the photograph.
His hand shook.
"That's him," he said.
"The man who came today?"
"No. The man who came before the crash."
May you like
His eyes filled with an old terror.
"Emma, your mother's restaurant wasn't the first thing they took from us."
