Chapter 6 - A Seat Above the Clouds
The first time Emma flew in an airplane, she asked whether the clouds knew they were being followed.
It was such a strange little question that Alessandro forgot his own anxiety long enough to smile. He leaned toward the window, examining the white landscape beyond it with the seriousness my daughter expected from adults entrusted with important information.
"I think the clouds are minding their own business," he said.
"Good. Because Pudding is scared."
He offered the stuffed rabbit a reassuring nod. "Completely understandable."
I sat across the aisle and watched them. Emma wore the soft yellow dress Naomi had brought from our apartment, a little bow holding back her hair. Alessandro had changed into a black suit after the doctor cleared him to travel. His wounded shoulder still restricted his movements. Together they looked like the sort of family people photograph in airports without knowing the story behind the image.
I knew the story. My child had almost died. The man beside her was responsible for things he hadn't yet told me. And a bank receipt suggested my brother had helped somebody put us in their path.
Two days earlier I'd tried Matteo's number. It had been disconnected. Naomi checked his old apartment in Jersey City and found the mailbox stuffed with advertisements. I'd called every hospital I could think of. Nothing.
Alessandro had offered investigators. I'd accepted reluctantly, then made him promise that finding my brother would not mean dragging him somewhere against his will.
"You're making a lot of rules," he observed.
"You needed someone to."
"Apparently."
On the plane, Emma asked Alessandro to tell her a story about the scar near his wrist. He told her he'd fallen from a bicycle when he was young, which I suspected was untrue until he produced a photograph of himself at thirteen holding a mangled red bike. She inspected it with fierce interest.
"Did your mama kiss it better?"
His smile faded. "My mother wasn't around by then."
Emma looked at me, checking how a grown-up handled a sad answer. Then she pressed Pudding into his good hand.
"You borrow him. But give back before nighttime."
Alessandro looked up at me. I saw something both dangerous and vulnerable in that glance. He was allowing himself to be loved by a person too small to understand what love might cost him.
After Emma fell asleep, I moved into the empty seat beside him.
"Matteo is twenty-six," I said. "He started running with bad people after our father died. I thought he'd quit."
From the aisle I could hear the quiet clink of cutlery. Emma stirred in her seat and murmured that she was hungry, so Alessandro ordered her a snack before the grown-up conversation swallowed the flight. He cut an apple into small pieces with his uninjured hand, struggling enough that she offered to help him. I watched a man who used to command entire rooms accept instructions from a girl who had barely learned to fasten her own seat belt. It didn't erase my fear of him. It reminded me that fear wasn't the only thing I knew about him now.
Emma held up the rabbit. "Pudding says planes are like birds with windows."
"He's a perceptive rabbit," Alessandro answered.
"He says you can't be sad up here, because the sky is too pretty."
Alessandro glanced at me, then out at the clouds. "Tell Pudding I'll try."
"When did you last speak?"
"Four years ago. He asked for money. I couldn't give him any, and he accused me of choosing Emma over him."
"You were choosing your child."
"I know. That doesn't make it stop hurting."
Alessandro studied the transfer receipt on his tablet. "This may not be his money. His name could be attached to an account someone else controls."
"Or he sold us."
"Maybe. We don't know yet."
I wanted him to tell me my brother would never do that. He didn't. Instead, he let the truth remain unfinished.
We landed at a small airport in Maine and drove along roads bordered by tall pines. The coastal house was nothing like the Moretti mansion. It had creaking wood floors, mismatched armchairs, and blue shutters painted by somebody who hadn't bothered keeping the edges straight. Emma fell in love with it instantly because there were rocks to climb and a window seat shaped like a pirate ship.
I loved it less. Security vehicles took turns driving past. The curtains were thick enough to hide the ocean at night. Dominic walked us through emergency exits without frightening Emma by calling them anything more dramatic than "extra ways outside."
After dinner, Alessandro joined me on the back porch. He carried two mugs of chamomile tea, held with care to spare his injured shoulder.
"Are you leaving tomorrow?" I asked.
"I planned to go back to New York."
"And what does Emma think?"
He glanced through the window. Our daughter—no, my daughter, I corrected myself—was coloring at the kitchen table. The distinction suddenly felt more complicated than it should have.
"She asked if I'd come back," he said. "I told her I'd ask you first."
I appreciated the effort. I resented that it moved me.
"She likes you," I said. "That doesn't mean you own responsibility for us."
"I know."
"And I can't promise she'll still be safe just because you can afford armed men."
"Neither can I. I can promise not to lie about what I know."
We sat listening to the ocean until his phone lit up. A message from Dominic contained a photograph taken outside a bus station in Newark that morning. The young man in the image had Matteo's unruly hair and the scar through his left eyebrow. He was entering a car driven by a woman I recognized at once.
Lorraine Bell.
The woman who had arranged for Emma to wash the shirt was traveling with my missing brother.
Alessandro turned the screen toward me. "Elena, I need you to tell me whether there's any reason she might be helping him."
May you like
I stared at the picture. Then I remembered a promise Matteo had once made after our father's funeral: if anyone ever tried to hurt me, he would be the first to stand in their way.
I didn't know whether I was looking at betrayal or the beginning of a rescue. What terrified me was that Vittorio seemed to have made sure I'd have trouble telling the difference.
