“Damien Cross. He owns half the riverfront. He said Alessandro ruined him. He found me through Marla, my catering supervisor. He said it was easy money. I needed the money for tuition.” My voice broke. “I was supposed to be invisible. I was supposed to never see Alessandro again.”
Liam pulled back just enough to look at me. His jaw was tight. “And did you see him again?”
I stared at the floor. My bare toes curled against the cold tile.
“Once,” I whispered. “That night.”
Understanding moved across Liam’s face slowly, then all at once. His eyes dropped to my stomach before he could stop them, then shot back up, full of shock and something softer.
“Oh,” he said quietly. “Oh, Elizabeth.”
I shook my head hard, tears coming faster. “Don’t. Don’t say it. If I say it out loud it becomes real and I don’t know how to be real right now.”
He didn’t say it. He just crouched a little so we were eye level, his hands on my shoulders.
“Does Alessandro know who you are? The real you?”
“No. He thinks I’m Emma. A catering girl.”
Liam exhaled through his nose. “You have to tell him. Both things. Before Cross does.”
Fear ripped through me so fast my knees almost gave. “He’ll hate me. You don’t know what these people do to people who lie to them.”
“Then let him hate you for the truth instead of letting someone else sell him a lie,” Liam said. His voice was firm, but his hands were shaking too. “You know where he is?”
I nodded, wiping my face with my sleeve. I had never deleted the card. Room 1520 had been one night, but the number on the heavy cream stationery tucked in my drawer was his private cell. He’d written it himself under a single line: *If you ever need that conversation again.*
“I have his number.”
“Then call him. Right now. Before you lose your nerve. I’ll be right here.”
My phone buzzed again in my hand. This time it wasn’t Damien.
An unknown Chicago number, but this one I recognized. I’d stared at it for six weeks without ever daring to dial it.
Alessandro.
I answered before I could think, my voice a broken whisper. “Hello?”
Silence on the other end for half a second. Then that low, familiar voice, rough like he hadn’t slept.
“Emma.”
My throat closed. Liam’s eyes widened. He mouthed, *Put it on speaker.*
I did, with a trembling thumb.
“Hi,” I said.
“I wasn’t sure you’d pick up,” Alessandro said. “I’ve called every day for three weeks. I thought—” He stopped himself. I could hear city traffic behind him, wind. He was outside. “Are you alright? You sound—”
“I need to see you,” I blurted. “Today. Now. Can you come? Not the hotel. Somewhere quiet.”
A pause. Then, without hesitation: “Tell me where. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
Liam scribbled on a takeout receipt: *MERCY HOSPITAL CHAPEL – neutral, public.*
“There’s a chapel on the ground floor of Mercy General,” I said, my voice cracking. “On Harrison. It’s empty in the afternoons.”
