“Damien Cross,” he said softly. The name sounded like poison in his mouth. “You work for Cross.”
“I don’t! I did it once. I didn’t take anything that night. I swear on my parents’ graves, I didn’t take a single file. I was scared and I left before—” I sucked in a breath. “He’s texting me now. He says I took something from your room and he’ll tell you if I don’t meet him tonight.”
Liam stepped forward. “He’s been harassing her for weeks.”
Alessandro finally looked at Liam again, really looked at him. “And you are?”
“Liam Carter. Her best friend. Her family. The person who’s been watching her throw up every morning for a week and pretend it’s a stomach bug.”
Silence fell so complete I could hear the old radiator ticking.
Alessandro turned back to me. His eyes searched my face, then dropped, just for a second, to where my coat hung open over my stomach. He didn’t touch me. He didn’t move at all.
“Are you in trouble, Elizabeth?” he asked, and his voice was barely audible. “Are you safe?”
The kindness in it undid me.
“No,” I whispered. And then, because I couldn’t carry it one more second, I put both hands over my belly. My fingers trembled against the cheap fabric. “I’m pregnant.”
The chapel air seemed to leave the room.
Alessandro stared at my hands. His lips parted. No sound came out. Color drained from his face, then rushed back. He took one involuntary step toward me, then stopped himself, his hand lifting and hovering in the space between us like he was afraid to touch me and afraid not to.
“Mine?” he asked, voice hoarse.
I nodded, tears streaming now. “Six weeks. From that night. I found out this morning.”
He made a sound, small and gutted. He closed his eyes for a second, and when he opened them they were bright with something fierce and shattered and trying not to shatter me too.
He knelt.
Right there on the cold chapel floor, in front of the pew, Alessandro Vitali knelt so his eyes were level with my waist, with my hands. He didn’t touch. He just looked up at me, breathing hard.
“Hey,” he whispered to me, to us. “Hey, look at me.”
I looked through tears.
“I’m here,” he said. “You’re not alone in this. Do you hear me? You are not alone.”
A sob broke out of me so loud it echoed off the wood. I covered my mouth.
The chapel door slammed open with a bang that made us all jolt.
“Touching. Really touching.”
Damien Cross stood in the doorway, flanked by Marla, my supervisor, clutching her purse like a shield. Damien was in his fifties, silver hair slicked back, smile that never reached his eyes. He clapped once, slowly.
“Did you really think you could play both sides, sweetheart?” he said to me. “Emma, Elizabeth, whatever you’re calling yourself today.” He looked at Alessandro with open contempt. “Vitali. Always so noble. You didn’t even background-check your one-night girl? She’s been on my payroll for a month. She took photos of your ledger. She took the Obsidian contract. I have her on camera.”
Alessandro rose slowly to his feet. He moved in front of me without seeming to move at all, one hand back, just brushing my wrist, telling me to stay behind him.
“You’re lying,” Alessandro said calmly, but his shoulders were steel.
“Am I?” Damien pulled out his phone. “I have the texts. The payment receipt. I have Marla here to swear she saw you slip a USB into your little borrowed clutch that night. Chicago PD would love to hear how the great Vitali Foundation leaks donor data through its whores—”
“Don’t you dare,” Liam snarled, stepping forward.
Marla flinched. “He made me,” she burst out, voice thin. “He said he’d fire me if I didn’t give her the envelope. I didn’t know he’d—”
“Enough,” Alessandro said. He didn’t raise his voice. It cut anyway. He looked at Marla. “Did you see her take anything?”
Marla’s eyes darted to Damien, to me, to the floor. Her hands shook. “No,” she whispered. “She didn’t take anything. She left the envelope on the table. She— she was crying when she left the ballroom. I told Damien that, but he—”
Damien grabbed her arm hard. “Shut up.”
That was when the second door at the side of the chapel opened.
Two uniformed CPD officers stepped in, followed by a woman in a sharp navy suit with a badge on her belt. Detective Sarah Monroe. And behind her, hands in his pockets, was Father Michael, the hospital chaplain, holding a small black recorder.
Detective Monroe smiled thinly at Damien. “Mr. Cross. Perfect timing. We’ve been wanting to talk to you about extortion, coercion, and falsifying evidence. And about the little matter of you forging foundation documents to try to tank a children’s hospital wing.”
Damien’s face went slack. “What? Who called you?”
“I did,” Liam said. His voice was steady now. “Twenty minutes ago. From the hallway. I recorded your texts to Elizabeth on speaker. And Father Michael records all counseling sessions in this chapel with consent.” He looked at me. “You consented, remember? When you asked to meet here? I asked you, and you said yes.”
I stared at him, stunned. He winked, just barely, tears still in his eyes.
Alessandro didn’t look away from Damien. “You paid a twenty-five-year-old nursing student to commit a felony for you because you lost a bid for the riverfront to my foundation. You used her name, her fear, her grief. You told her Emma was real.”
Damien sneered, recovering. “So what? She still lied to you. She still spread her legs for a paycheck—”
Alessandro moved.
It wasn’t violent. It was precise. He crossed the three feet between them and took Damien’s phone from his hand before Damien could react, and held it out to Detective Monroe.
“Check his cloud,” Alessandro said, his voice ice. “You’ll find the photos he staged. The ledger he mocked up. And the transfers to Marla. My security team has been tracking his forgeries for two months. We were just waiting for him to try to use them.”
Detective Monroe took the phone. “Mr. Cross, you need to come with us.”
“You can’t— I’m Damien Cross—”
“You can be Damien Cross in an interview room,” she said, and nodded to the officers.
They moved. Damien struggled, shouting, his face red, his silver hair coming loose. “You’ll regret this, Vitali! You and your little liar and her bastard—”
Alessandro flinched as if struck, but he didn’t turn. He kept his body between me and Damien, his hand now firmly holding mine, his thumb pressed hard into my pulse.
The doors closed behind them. The chapel fell silent again, except for Marla’s quiet sobbing as Detective Monroe gently led her to a pew to take her statement.
