Chapter 4 - A Promise With a Price
Patrick pushed the photograph toward me, then pulled it back like he was afraid I might touch it.
“Tell me the whole truth,” I said.
“The first pictures came from a private security company. A man named Daniel Rusk called me when I started asking about Mia's father.”
“Rusk?”
The name had only been words on Lydia's yellow legal pad that morning. Now it was sitting at my dining table in Patrick's mouth.
“He said Marcello's family had been looking out for you. That they wanted Mia left alone. He offered to have someone check whether Marcello was becoming a problem.”
“And you paid for that?”
Patrick pressed his lips together. “I paid for security reports. I didn't hire anyone to watch you inside your own house.”
The distinction did not make me feel better.
“How long?”
“Since January.”
Six months. Six months of school drop-offs, grocery trips, and the routes Mia took to the library. I looked toward the back window and understood why the dark SUV parked across our street had seemed familiar.
“Were you going to tell me before we moved to Raleigh?”
“I thought after the wedding, once we were settled—”
“After I'd married you and given up my job?”
“You weren't giving it up. You could work remotely.”
He was right that we'd talked about remote work. I restored antique furniture for a Savannah shop and could do some consulting online. But my clients, my equipment, my mother’s kitchen where Mia still ate Sunday lunch with Celia, all belonged here. Patrick had treated those things as details to be negotiated away.
“Mia and I are staying with Celia tonight.”
“Don't take her away from me.”
His voice cracked. I saw fear beneath the anger, and it hurt because that fear was real. Patrick had loved the family we were building. But love wasn't permission to make decisions in the dark.
“You can call her tomorrow,” I said. “I'll tell her this isn't her fault. You should say the same.”
I packed two small bags. Mia carried her picture folded into a book of sea animals. As we left, she looked back at Patrick standing by the kitchen island.
“Can you still come to my school concert?”
He crouched. “If your mom says it's okay.”
“Maybe,” I told her. “We'll decide together.”
I called Marcello.
He answered on the first ring. “Is Mia all right?”
“Yes. I'm calling because Patrick was paying Daniel Rusk for photographs of me.”
Silence.
“Marcello?”
“I'm outside my father's office.”
I closed my eyes. “Don't go in there angry.”
“You think I can ask him politely why he threatened a pregnant woman?”
“I think you can make him tell the truth, and throwing him against a wall won't help.”
He exhaled slowly. “You're right. I'm listening.”
It was the first time I could remember him saying those words without a fight afterward.
His father, Salvatore DeLuca, had spent forty years building a freight company along the coast. In the stories people told, he had been ruthless, brilliant, untouchable. To me he was the man who sat silently at dinner while his son checked his phone every time I laughed. He had once told me that women came and went, but family companies had to survive.
Marcello called back an hour later. His voice sounded rubbed raw.
“He says he didn't know you were pregnant.”
“You believe him?”
“No. He admitted he had Rusk deliver the forged letter to me. He says he was trying to keep us apart because the board was negotiating an investment and he'd decided you were a distraction.”
“Did he say why Rusk came to my apartment?”
“He says Rusk went beyond his instructions. I asked for the payment records. My father refused.”
“So nothing has changed.”
“Something has. I told him I'm stepping down from operations until we understand what happened.”
“Marcello, don't throw your livelihood away over a conversation.”
“I'm not throwing it away. I'm refusing to keep signing off on things he won't show me.”
That sounded less like a grand gesture and more like a difficult choice. It frightened me more.
“There's something else,” Marcello said. “I found the first letter I sent to you, the one my father told me had been returned.”
“Did he give it to you?”
“No. His assistant had kept an electronic copy. The tracking shows it was signed for at your mother's house.”
My mother had always sworn that no letter from Marcello arrived there.
“Who signed?” I asked.
“A name I've seen all day.”
May you like
He spoke it carefully.
“Patrick Hale.”
