Chương 10
Luca looked away.
“You did not tell him to suppress a witness.”
“No.”
“You did not tell Keefe to intimidate her.”
“No.”
“You did not cause another adult to forge a document.”
“No.”
“Then carry what is yours.”
Luca’s mouth tightened.
“And the rest?”
“Let the people who own it carry it.”
He hated that answer.
Mostly because Sophia’s therapist had been saying a version of the same thing for months.
That evening, Hannah made pasta in Luca’s kitchen because she refused to eat another meal delivered by a chef.
Luca’s home occupied three floors of a restored limestone building near Lincoln Park.
Hannah looked around the kitchen and said, “This refrigerator is bigger than my first apartment.”
Sophia said, “You say that every time.”
“I’ve been here twice.”
“I know.”
Luca sat at the island with foundation documents spread around him.
Hannah pointed a wooden spoon.
“No work at dinner.”
“This isn’t dinner.”
“It’s six thirty.”
“That doesn’t make papers dinner.”
“It makes now dinner.”
Sophia nodded solemnly.
“She’s right.”
“You two formed an alliance very quickly.”
Hannah tasted the sauce.
“Your leadership creates opposition.”
Sophia laughed.
Luca gathered the documents.
“Happy?”
“No,” Hannah said. “But less annoyed.”
He moved them to the counter.
Sophia watched him.
“Daddy?”
“Yes?”
“Did Mr. Voss try to hurt me?”
Hannah stopped stirring.
Luca had known the question was coming.
He had not known when.
“No one has proved that.”
“Did he know the bad car?”
“We don’t know.”
“Did he know Daniel?”
“Yes.”
“Did Daniel hit us?”
“We don’t know.”
“You say that a lot.”
“Because it’s true.”
Sophia looked down at the table.
Her legs hung from the chair.
One foot moved nervously.
The other did not.
“Was Anthony bad?”
Luca froze.
Hannah turned down the burner.
“Why do you ask?”
Sophia shrugged.
“Kids at therapy talk.”
Luca’s voice hardened.
“Which kids?”
“Daddy.”
“Which—”
Hannah looked at him.
He stopped.
Sophia rolled her eyes.
“You can’t arrest children.”
“I wasn’t going to arrest anyone.”
“You make that face.”
“What face?”
“The arresting face.”
Hannah covered a cough.
Luca ignored her.
“Sophia, Anthony did bad things when he was younger.”
“Like you?”
The kitchen went very still.
Luca looked at his daughter.
Hannah’s hand rested on the stove knob.
Sophia did not appear afraid.
That made it worse.
“Yes,” Luca said.
“How bad?”
“Bad.”
“Did you kill people?”
Hannah closed her eyes.
Luca’s heartbeat slowed.
There were questions parents prepared to answer.
Where babies came from.
Why people died.
Why mothers sometimes left.
He had never imagined answering this one between pasta sauce and garlic bread.
Sophia watched him.
He could lie.
He had lied to her before.
Small lies.
Protective lies.
Your mother had to go away because she was sick.
Anthony works in transportation.
Daddy has a meeting.
Men like Luca built entire family structures from sentences that were technically adjacent to truth.
“No,” he said.
Sophia’s face changed.
He added, “But I have hurt people.”
Hannah looked at him.
Sophia’s brow furrowed.
“With your hands?”
“Sometimes.”
“With guns?”
Luca took a breath.
“I’m not going to give you details.”
“That means yes.”
“It means some things are not appropriate for seven.”
“You said lying is worse.”
“I said hiding evidence is worse than telling an uncomfortable truth.”
“That sounds the same.”
“It is not.”
Hannah turned off the stove.
“Pasta needs three minutes.”
No one answered.
She moved to the sink.
The ordinary clatter helped.
Sophia said, “Were you bad?”
Luca looked at his daughter.
“I did bad things.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
He almost smiled despite himself.
“No. It isn’t.”
Sophia waited.
Luca had spent half his life surrounded by men who called brutality duty and greed survival.
He had called his own choices necessary.
Protection.
Business.
Family.
Words that made ugly things easier to carry.
“Yes,” he said.
Sophia stared at the table.
“Are you still?”
He could have said no.
He wanted to.
Instead he looked at Hannah, then away.
“I’m trying not to be.”
Sophia nodded slowly.
“Okay.”
That was all.
No absolution.
No dramatic embrace.
She asked whether the garlic bread was burnt.
Hannah said it was “aggressively toasted.”
Sophia ate two pieces.
Later, after she went upstairs with Clare for stretching, Hannah stood at the sink washing a pan.
Luca said, “You don’t have to do that.”
“I know.”
“We have people.”
“I know.”
“You’re doing it anyway.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s a pan.”
He leaned against the counter.
Hannah looked over.
“You answered her.”
“Yes.”
“Was it true?”
“Yes.”
“All of it?”
“As much as she can carry.”
Hannah went back to washing.
“That’s probably more honest than most fathers.”
“Don’t praise me.”
“I wasn’t.”
“Good.”
A minute passed.
Then Hannah said, “My dad lied about drinking.”
Luca looked at her.
She dried the pan.
“For years. He’d hide bottles in the garage. Trunk. Laundry basket. Once inside a bag of potting soil, which was especially stupid because he hated gardening.”
Luca said nothing.
“He wasn’t violent. Just… unreliable. He’d promise things. Then disappear into himself.”
“Is he alive?”
“No.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I was angry when he died.”
“That doesn’t make you less sorry.”
She looked at him.
“No.”
Luca understood that kind of contradiction.
He suspected most adults did.
On Monday, Daniel Keefe was arrested.
Not for the crash.
For witness intimidation and obstruction related to Hannah.
Police had recovered messages, vehicle records, and a deleted audio note from his phone backup in which he told Martin, “She’ll shut up. She’s got no appetite for this.”
The Audi was found in a storage facility under another company name.
Its front-right body panels had been replaced.
The original damaged fender was gone.
But investigators found paint transfer deep inside the wheel housing.
Black metallic paint.
Anthony’s SUV had been black.
Not proof.
Enough for testing.
Martin hired counsel and stopped cooperating voluntarily.
The foundation board placed him on administrative leave.
May you like
Elaine resigned before anyone could fire her.
Her resignation letter became public within six hours.
