Chapter 10 - Teresa's Bad Morning
Teresa was in the kitchen.
Not the grand dining room.
Not the greenhouse.
The working kitchen where staff prepared family meals.
She sat on the floor beneath a stainless-steel counter wrapped in a blanket.
For one instant, the scene looked so much like the alley that Delaney stopped breathing.
Teresa looked up.
"Delaney?"
"I'm here."
She knelt.
A bowl of soup sat nearby untouched.
Damon stood in the doorway.
He looked wrecked.
"What happened?"
"She woke up and didn't recognize the house," he said.
Teresa whispered, "I thought I was back in Sicily."
Delaney sat beside her.
"What was Sicily like?"
Damon started to speak.
Delaney raised one hand.
He stopped.
Teresa's breathing slowed.
"My mother had lemon trees."
"Did you steal the lemons?"
"Constantly."
"Excellent."
"My father chased us with a broom."
"Less excellent."
Teresa smiled.
Delaney lifted the soup.
"Want some?"
Teresa looked suspicious.
"Who made it?"
"Probably someone with a culinary degree."
"I don't trust that."
"I'll taste it."
Delaney took a spoonful.
"Safe."
Teresa accepted one.
Then another.
Damon watched from the doorway.
No orders.
No corrections.
He was learning.
After Teresa returned to bed, Delaney found Damon in the kitchen.
"I'm sorry about Bellucci's," he said.
"I know."
"I shouldn't have said—"
"You were scared."
"Still shouldn't have said it."
"No."
He looked at her.
"I got the payroll folder."
"Frank wasn't supposed to tell you I was involved."
"He didn't need to."
"Are you angry?"
"No."
"That is disappointing."
She smiled faintly.
"You helped them claim what was already theirs."
"Your rule."
"Apparently you listen."
"Sometimes."
Silence.
Then Delaney said, "I got your messages."
"I know."
"I wasn't ready."
"I know."
"I don't want your world."
Damon's expression did not change, but something behind it did.
She continued.
"I don't want guards forever. I don't want everyone afraid of my last name. I don't want favors that become debts."
"I know."
"But I want you."
That stopped him.
Delaney's pulse jumped.
"This is inconvenient."
"Extremely."
He stepped closer.
"Are you sure?"
"No."
"Good."
"Why good?"
"Because certainty around me usually means somebody is lying."
She laughed.
Then kissed him.
This time it was not a question.
When they pulled apart, Teresa's voice came through the intercom.
"I can still use the cameras."
Damon closed his eyes.
Delaney laughed so hard she had to sit down.
The moment lasted exactly six minutes.
Then Frank entered.
"We found Vincent."
Damon straightened.
"Where?"
"At O'Hare."
"Leaving?"
"Arriving."
That was unexpected.
Vincent had returned voluntarily with his attorney.
Because federal investigators had executed warrants involving North Cross.
Because the family board removed him.
Because Sofia's death reopened.
Because running now looked worse.
He planned to fight.
Damon nodded.
"Good."
Delaney watched him.
"No private meetings."
"I know."
"No threatening."
"I know."
"No disappearing people."
He stared.
"That's offensive."
"Is it inaccurate?"
Frank coughed.
Damon looked away.
Vincent's interview lasted hours.
He admitted business disputes.
Denied crimes.
Blamed employees.
Claimed Sofia was unstable.
Claimed Teresa confused medication.
Claimed North Cross's duplicate debt accounts were a software error.
Claimed the surveillance system was for family security.
Every explanation sounded plausible alone.
Together, they formed a pattern.
Investigators followed money.
The money spoke more clearly.
Payments to shell vendors.
Payments to the fake maintenance company tied to Sofia's car.
Payments to Celeste's brother.
Payments to a private investigator who photographed Delaney's mother years after her death records entered collections files.
Then came the transaction that changed everything.
A payment two days after Sofia's crash.
To a mechanic named Luis Ortega.
Luis was still alive.
He ran a small shop in Indiana.
When investigators found him, he asked for a lawyer.
Then he talked.
Vincent had paid him to weaken a brake line.
Luis claimed he thought the car belonged to a man Vincent wanted to frighten.
He did not know Sofia would drive it.
Damon received the news in silence.
Teresa screamed.
A sound Delaney would never forget.
Not grief.
Grief reopened.
The kind that discovers six years later it had been standing next to murder.
Vincent was arrested.
Not convicted.
Not yet.
But arrested.
The next morning, Chicago woke to the headline.
BIANCHI EXECUTIVE CHARGED IN WIDENING FRAUD AND HOMICIDE INVESTIGATION.
Delaney read it at Teresa's bedside.
Teresa looked toward the window.
"My daughter was right."
"Yes."
"I called her paranoid."
"You were being manipulated too."
"That doesn't erase it."
"No."
Teresa looked at Delaney.
"You never lie to comfort me."
"I try not to."
"Good."
She took Delaney's hand.
"Then tell me this. Will Damon become like them?"
Delaney looked toward the hall.
Damon stood outside, unseen by Teresa but visible to her.
He heard the question.
Delaney answered carefully.
"Only if everybody who loves him stops telling him no."
Teresa smiled.
From the hallway, Damon lowered his head.
And for the first time, Delaney understood why Teresa had trusted her from a bowl of soup.
It was not because Delaney was kind.
It was because kindness had never made her obedient.
That night, after Teresa finally slept, Damon went alone to Sofia's room.
Delaney found him there an hour later sitting on the floor beside the unopened violin case.
He did not look up.
"I spent six years telling myself there was nothing I could've done."
Delaney sat beside him.
"And now?"
"Now I know there was something to find."
"That still isn't the same as knowing you would've found it."
He touched the old photograph of Sofia.
"I was angry with her the week she died. She accused me of becoming like my father."
"Was she right?"
"Partly."
Delaney waited.
"I thought keeping the family safe meant controlling information. Deciding who needed to know what. She hated that."
"Smart woman."
"She would have liked you."
"She would've found me bossy."
"Exactly."
He smiled faintly.
Then the smile disappeared.
"I don't want her death to become the excuse I use for every bad thing I do next."
That sentence stayed with Delaney.
Grief could become permission if a person let it.
Permission to harden.
To retaliate.
To call cruelty protection.
She took Damon's hand.
"Then don't let it."
He looked at her.
"That's all?"
May you like
"That's the whole job."
For once, he did not ask for something more complicated.
