Chapter 4 — The Promise He Made

“Because Vale was moving toward you, and I tried to stop him,” Sebastian said. “Your employer was using your name on transfers you’d never approved. I contacted your boss to have you removed from the accounts. He fired you instead.”

My fingers remained wrapped around his sleeve.

“The building?”

“I bought it after learning your landlord intended to clear it and disappear with the deposits. The vacancy order came before my attorney could stop him.”

“And Ethan?”

“He took Vale’s money.”

The name seemed to empty the room.

“To leave me?”

“To deliver you to a hotel in Queens.”

I released Sebastian.

For a moment, I could hear only the rain against the front windows.

“He told me we weren’t working anymore.”

“He was supposed to convince you to go away with him. When my people approached him, he panicked. He took the money, abandoned you, and left before either side could find him.”

“You said you expected me somewhere.”

“Your landlord had been instructed to offer temporary accommodation. A car was waiting outside the building. You never came down to it.”

“I left through the back.”

Ethan had been standing in the front hallway with his suitcase. I hadn’t wanted him to watch me carry away what remained of our life.

Sebastian nodded.

“We searched the neighborhood. Then the stations. We didn’t find you until Lexington.”

I looked at the phone in his hand.

“The email said to terminate my employment.”

“It was part of a longer exchange. Vale sent you the last instruction without the messages explaining why it was necessary.”

“Necessary for whom?”

“For you to be removed from a company preparing to put your signature on its crimes.”

“Then show me.”

He called someone, asked for the correspondence, and handed back my phone.

Within minutes, a file arrived.

I read the messages in order.

There were questions about account access, requests to preserve records, a warning that my credentials appeared on transactions outside my duties. My supervisor’s replies grew increasingly evasive.

Then came the instruction Vale had sent me.

I couldn’t verify everything standing in a foyer. But the conversation existed, and it changed the meaning of that single line.

It also didn’t give me my job back.

“You could have called me.”

“Yes.”

“You could have explained before I spent the night outside.”

“Yes.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“I thought keeping you unaware would make it harder for Vale to use you.”

Marta lowered her head.

Sebastian watched me read the final page.

“I was wrong.”

I wanted that admission to help more than it did.

“You keep making decisions that leave me holding the consequences.”

“I know.”

“No. You know now because I’m standing here telling you.”

He accepted that too.

I put my phone away.

“My mother. Start there.”

He glanced toward the hall.

“There are things I need to show you.”

“Then show me. Don’t send me upstairs to rest.”

“I won’t.”

He led me into a library.

Marta followed us.

Books lined the walls from floor to ceiling. Above the fireplace hung a portrait of an older man with Sebastian’s eyes and none of his restraint.

“My father,” he said. “Vittorio Romano.”

“Did my mother work for him?”

“She handled his accounts.”

“And Vale?”

“My father trusted him.”

Sebastian opened a desk drawer and removed a photograph.

My mother stood on the front steps of the house, her brown hair blown across one cheek. She was smiling at someone beyond the camera.

Beside her stood a young man.

Sebastian.

I recognized the eyes before anything else.

Behind them was Adrian Vale, one hand resting on my mother’s shoulder.

I took the photograph.

I hadn’t seen a new picture of her in twenty years.

Her blouse had a loose button near the collar. She was holding a folder against her hip. I remembered that folder—or one like it—on our kitchen table, covered in warnings not to spill juice.

“How old were you?”

“Nineteen.”

“You’re in the picture because she worked here?”

“I lived here. She was one of the few people who didn’t pretend my father was always right.”

Marta sat near the window.

I kept looking at my mother’s face.

“What did she find?”

“Money moving through charities, pension funds, hospitals. Accounts that looked legitimate until she followed where the payments went.”

“Vale was stealing it.”

“Yes. My father helped make it possible. Whether he understood every part of the scheme didn’t change what he’d allowed.”

“Did she report it?”

“She tried. The detective assigned to help her told Vale.”

My grip tightened on the photograph.

“She came to you?”

“She asked me to arrange a car and a safe place for both of you. I thought I could do it without anyone noticing.”

His gaze dropped to the desk.

“I was nineteen. I had access to my father’s drivers, his properties, his money. I mistook that for knowing whom I could trust.”

Something stirred behind my eyes.

A car window.

A light passing overhead.

My mother reaching backward without turning around.

“The bridge,” I whispered.

Sebastian went still.

“You remember?”

“Not really.”

I set the photograph down before I bent it.

“Sometimes I dream about a streetlight spinning. I thought it was from something I saw on television.”

“It was the Queensboro Bridge.”

I pressed a hand against my stomach.

“The car exploded.”

“Yes.”

Marta made a faint sound near the window.

Sebastian waited until I looked at him again.

“Vale learned the route.”

“Were you there?”

“I was following in another car.”

“What happened to me?”

“You were thrown out near the rear window. I found you on the road.”

A fragment of green eyes surfaced.

You have to stay awake.

I couldn’t tell whether it was memory or something I was inventing because he had given me a place to put it.

“You carried me.”

“Yes.”

“And my mother?”

He looked toward Marta.

She had turned her face to the glass.

“Tell me,” I said.

“The fire spread too fast. By the time help arrived, there was almost nothing left to bury.”

I remembered the coffin.

My aunt telling me not to touch it.

I had thought adults were frightened of grief. Now I understood they had been frightened of what I might ask.

“Why don’t I remember you?”

“You had a head injury. You were eight. There are things you may never recover.”

“My aunt knew?”

“She knew enough to take you away. She used another name for a while.”

Then my aunt had died, and I had moved through houses where my belongings had to fit in a bag.

I looked at Sebastian.

“You said you kept me safe.”

“I kept Vale from finding you.”

“Those aren’t the same thing.”

“No.”

“Did you know I went into foster care?”

“Yes.”

The answer hurt more because he didn’t hesitate.

“I made sure there was money for your care and later for school. I stayed away because anyone connected to this family could lead him to you.”

“You knew where I was.”

“Yes.”

“All that time?”

His hand closed over the edge of the desk.

“From a distance.”

I thought of birthdays, graduation, the nights I had been sick and wanted someone who knew how I liked my tea.

He had been somewhere in the same city.

“Why?”

He looked at the photograph.

“Because before she got into that car, your mother made me promise I wouldn’t let him take you.”

I waited.

Sebastian raised his eyes.

“I told her I would protect you for as long as it took.”