Chapter 8 - Before Sunrise
The headline appeared at six in the morning: MORETTI HEIR'S BIZARRE OUTBURST AT ENGAGEMENT PARTY. It described Michael as unstable, suggested he had demanded alcohol, and quoted an anonymous family friend saying his return to addiction was inevitable.
I found Michael in the kitchen, staring at his phone. He hadn't slept. He kept touching the edge of the graduation photograph through its case.
"I can survive somebody lying about me," he said. "What I can't survive is losing the homes before they open."
"Then make the board look at the actual homes," I told him. "They can't vote on a headline without someone asking about the vacant lot."
He smiled faintly. "You make it sound simple."
"It isn't. That's why I'm angry."
Nora obtained the event seating chart from the printer, not from anyone in Carlo's office. It showed six extra guests added late, including Pike, the Northline contractor's lawyer, and a reporter whose article had gone live before sunrise. Luca had invited none of them.
Vanessa called me directly. I almost let it ring out.
"Emily," she said when I answered, suddenly gentle, "you're young. You can start over someplace else. I'll pay you two years' salary if you sign a statement saying you misread the glass."
"That's not what happened."
"You don't understand what you're interfering with."
"Tell me, then."
"I can't."
"Because somebody would hear you tell the truth?"
She hung up. I wrote down the time and exact words, then gave the notes to Nora. I wouldn't meet her alone.
That afternoon Dad met me outside the staff entrance with a thermos of coffee. "I know what they owe our family," he said. "But you don't owe them a lie."
I hugged him. He slipped a folded receipt into my palm.
May you like
"This was in my old papers," he said. "Northline used to pay Carlo's drivers cash, years ago."
On the back, in Carlo's handwriting, were two words: KEEP QUIET.
