Chapter 3 - What Liam’s Father Burned
No one spoke for several seconds.
Naomi heard the refrigerator hum.
Rain tick against the windows.
Her own breathing.
Then she stood.
“I’m leaving.”
Liam did not block her.
“Marco can drive you.”
“I don’t want anything from you.”
“Understood.”
She walked toward the bedroom for her clothes.
Liam’s voice followed.
“My father ordered the fire. I did not know until six months after it happened.”
Naomi stopped but did not turn.
“He was laundering money through South Meridian. A federal audit was getting close.”
“My father worked there.”
“Yes.”
“Did your father know workers were inside?”
“I don’t know.”
She spun around.
“There it is again.”
“I know.”
“Did you punish him?”
“My father died before I learned everything.”
“How convenient.”
His face tightened.
“Yes.”
The word disarmed her more than defense would have.
He continued.
“I inherited accounts, men, enemies, and crimes I had not chosen. Some I shut down. Some I used. I won’t make myself cleaner for you.”
Naomi’s hands shook.
“Was my father part of it?”
“I don’t know.”
Marco placed another folder on the counter.
“We might.”
Inside were scanned records from Vincent Orsini’s private archive.
Samuel Reed’s name appeared on maintenance invoices.
Then on a list of confidential informants.
Naomi sat again.
“What does that mean?”
Liam answered.
“Your father was working with federal investigators.”
The room tilted.
“He was informing on your family.”
“Yes.”
“Then your father tried to kill him.”
“Likely.”
Naomi covered her mouth.
Liam stayed where he was.
He did not reach for her.
She appreciated that against her will.
“Why didn’t Samuel go to police after the fire?” Teresa asked.
Marco read further.
“Witness relocation request was denied.”
“Why?” Naomi whispered.
“No immediate family relocation package approved.”
Liam looked sick.
“They wouldn’t take Naomi and her mother.”
“So he disappeared alone?” Teresa asked.
Naomi stood again.
“No.”
Everyone looked at her.
“My mother died two years after the fire.”
“What from?” Liam asked.
“Overdose.”
Silence.
“She never used drugs before Dad died.”
Naomi remembered her mother sleeping through afternoons. Bottles in the bathroom. Greg appearing with groceries.
Greg telling Naomi grief changed people.
Had Greg been monitoring them then too?
Marco found another name in the archive.
Gregory Hale.
Security subcontractor.
Naomi whispered, “Greg.”
His full name.
A payment entry followed.
Five thousand dollars.
Then another.
Monthly.
For two years after the fire.
Paid through Moretti-controlled accounts.
Liam stared.
“I never authorized these.”
“Your family did.”
“Yes.”
Naomi felt anger burning through fear.
“Greg was paid to watch us.”
“It looks that way.”
“And then he married me.”
Liam’s jaw hardened.
“That was not in any order I can see.”
Naomi laughed bitterly.
“So he exceeded expectations.”
Teresa placed a hand on the counter, near Naomi but not touching.
“What do you want to do?”
The question mattered.
Not what should Liam do.
Not what would the Moretti family do.
What did Naomi want?
“I want my father.”
“If he’s alive,” Marco said, “we find him.”
Naomi looked at Liam.
“No.”
Liam nodded once.
“No?”
“I find him.”
“Okay.”
“You can give me records. Contacts. Information.”
“Yes.”
“You don’t make decisions for me.”
“No.”
“And Greg goes through police.”
Liam’s mouth tightened.
Naomi noticed.
“That bothers you.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I know what I could do faster.”
“That’s exactly why.”
He held her gaze.
Then nodded.
“Police.”
Officer Lena Ruiz from the domestic violence unit met Naomi that afternoon at a neutral clinic Teresa arranged.
Naomi gave a full statement.
Not the edited version.
Not the version where she softened verbs.
Greg hit me.
Greg broke my wrist.
Greg followed me.
Greg threatened me.
Greg took my money.
Each sentence felt like setting down a weight she had forgotten she was carrying.
Ruiz photographed her injuries and helped her request an emergency protective order.
When Naomi finished, she cried in the bathroom for ten minutes.
Not because she regretted it.
Because truth was exhausting after years of maintenance.
When she came out, Liam was not waiting.
Teresa was.
“Where is he?”
“You told him not to make decisions for you. He figured waiting outside the interview room might look like pressure.”
Naomi looked at the empty chair.
“That was considerate.”
“Don’t tell him. He’ll become unbearable.”
Naomi smiled faintly.
Then Ruiz entered.
“We have a problem.”
Greg’s truck had been found abandoned near Cicero.
Blood on the passenger door.
The blue envelope was gone.
No Greg.
No photograph.
No sign of struggle beyond the blood.
Naomi’s stomach tightened.
“Is it his?”
“Lab will tell us.”
Her phone rang.
Unknown number.
Ruiz nodded for her to answer on speaker.
A man’s voice said, “Naomi?”
She stopped breathing.
The voice was older.
Rougher.
But impossible to mistake.
“Dad?”
Everyone in the room froze.
Samuel Reed whispered, “Do not trust Greg.”
Naomi began crying.
“Where are you?”
“I can’t tell you yet.”
“Dad, I buried you.”
“I know.”
“Why?”
“I’m sorry.”
She covered her mouth.
Samuel continued.
“Vincent gave you something. Did Greg get it?”
“Yes.”
A long silence.
“Then he knows where I am.”
“Tell me where.”
“No.”
“Stop protecting me by disappearing!”
The words tore out of her.
Samuel went silent.
Naomi’s voice shook.
“I am not twenty-one anymore. You do not get to leave me with monsters and call it protection.”
When he answered, he was crying too.
“You sound like your mother.”
“Where are you?”
He gave her an address.
An old motel in Indiana.
Then one warning.
“Come with police.”
Not Liam.
Before Naomi left the clinic, Officer Ruiz asked whether she wanted an advocate present for the next interview.
Naomi almost said no out of habit.
Then she stopped.
“Yes.”
The word felt unfamiliar in a different way.
Ruiz nodded and arranged for a civilian advocate named Maribel to sit in. Maribel did not ask Naomi to repeat every painful detail. She asked what Naomi needed before the next step.
“A copy of my statement,” Naomi said. “And I want to know before anyone contacts Greg.”
“That’s reasonable.”
Naomi looked at Liam through the glass wall across the hallway. He had remained farther away than necessary.
Maribel followed her gaze.
“Is he safe?”
Naomi thought carefully.
“I don’t know yet.”
“That is an acceptable answer.”
Naomi realized how rarely people allowed uncertainty without trying to fill it.
Later, Liam handed her a folder of South Meridian records.
“No conditions,” he said.
“What if the records hurt you?”
“They might.”
“And you’re giving them anyway?”
“Yes.”
Naomi studied him.
“That doesn’t make you good.”
“I know.”
“It makes this one decision good.”
“I can live with that.”
It was the first time she saw how change could look when stripped of speeches.
Not redemption.
A series of choices that could still fail tomorrow.
May you like
Police.
Because, Samuel said, one Moretti had already tried to kill him.
