Chapter 4 - MY MOTHER KNEW HIS FAMILY
My mother did not answer on the first call.
Or the second.
By the third, my patience was gone.
By the fourth, Matteo had stopped pretending not to listen.
We were in his study.
Leah sat outside with Rosa building a city from wooden blocks.
I could hear her occasionally ordering Rosa to move a bridge.
Good.
Normal.
I needed normal while my entire understanding of the job rearranged itself.
Finally, Mom answered.
“Nora?”
“You worked private care on the Upper East Side.”
Silence.
Not confusion.
Recognition.
My stomach dropped.
“Mom.”
“Where are you?”
“That’s not an answer.”
“Nora, where are you?”
I looked at Matteo.
His eyes sharpened.
“In Manhattan.”
“What family?”
I hated how quickly she understood.
“What family, Mom?”
Her breathing changed.
“Nora.”
“Duca.”
The silence on the phone became absolute.
Matteo stood.
I looked at him.
He had heard enough.
My mother whispered:
“Leave.”
I closed my eyes.
Of course.
Another person telling me to leave instead of telling me why.
“No.”
“Nora, please.”
“What happened?”
“Come to the center.”
“I’m working.”
“Leave the house first.”
“Mom.”
Her voice broke.
“I promised I would never speak about them on the phone.”
Matteo’s expression changed.
“What does that mean?” I asked.
“Come here.”
Then she hung up.
I stared at the screen.
Matteo reached for his jacket.
“I’m coming.”
“No.”
His jaw tightened.
I raised a hand.
“My mother is already scared of your family.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I heard her voice.”
He stopped.
Fair.
I continued.
“If I arrive with Matteo Duca and security, she may shut down completely.”
“I can wait outside.”
“Across the street.”
His expression said he hated it.
“Fine.”
“And no background team going through her records while I’m talking.”
He looked almost offended.
“You think I would do that?”
“Yes.”
A pause.
“Fair.”
By noon, we were driving to Queens.
Leah stayed with Rosa and two female security officers I had met and approved.
That last part had been Matteo’s idea.
Not because I had authority over his security.
Because Leah did.
I wanted women introduced before they appeared in rooms.
I wanted names.
I wanted Leah told who was coming and why.
Matteo had agreed to all of it.
Maybe guilt made people flexible.
Maybe love did.
Either way, I used the opportunity.
The rehabilitation center smelled like overcooked vegetables and antiseptic.
Mom was sitting near the window when I entered.
Her hair had grown thin from treatment.
A scarf covered most of it.
She looked at the stuffed blue chair beside her.
“Sit.”
I sat.
She looked toward the door.
“Did he come?”
My pulse changed.
“You knew he would.”
“Men like Matteo Duca don’t let people connected to their homes travel alone once trouble starts.”
“That sounds specific.”
Mom closed her eyes.
“How much do you know?”
“Almost nothing.”
“That’s safer.”
“No.”
Her eyes opened.
“It may have kept you alive.”
“I am very tired of people using that sentence.”
She looked at me.
I told her about Leah.
Not every detail.
Enough.
The blue room.
The blanket.
Arthur Bell.
The hidden camera.
Mom’s face went pale at Bell’s name.
There.
“Who is he?”
She looked down.
“Arthur Bell worked for Matteo’s father.”
“I know.”
“No.”
Mom shook her head.
“You know he was a household manager. He was more than that.”
“What?”
“Fixer.”
My stomach tightened.
“That word means too many things.”
“It means when someone had a problem, Arthur made it become something else.”
“What kind of problems?”
“Employees who saw too much.”
“Police?”
“Sometimes.”
“Doctors?”
She did not answer.
I felt cold.
“Mom.”
“I worked for Salvatore Duca.”
Matteo’s father.
I had never met him.
He died five years earlier.
Publicly, a real estate magnate and shipping investor.
Privately, newspapers used phrases like alleged organized crime ties.
“What did you do?”
“Home nurse.”
“For Salvatore?”
“For his wife.”
“Matteo’s mother.”
“Lucia.”
I leaned closer.
“What happened to her?”
Mom looked toward the window.
“Officially?”
“Yes.”
“She had a nervous breakdown after Matteo’s younger brother died.”
I stopped.
“Matteo had a brother?”
“Yes.”
That fact had not appeared anywhere I read.
“How did he die?”
Mom swallowed.
“Pool accident.”
“How old?”
“Six.”
“And Matteo?”
“Nine.”
My chest tightened.
A nine-year-old losing a six-year-old brother.
A mother collapsing.
A father running a criminal family.
A fixer named Bell controlling what everyone knew.
Patterns.
“What does this have to do with Elena?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then why did you panic when I said Duca?”
Mom’s eyes filled.
“Because Lucia told me something before she disappeared.”
“Disappeared?”
“She was sent to a private psychiatric facility.”
“When?”
“Six months after the boy died.”
“Did she come back?”
“No.”
“Did she die there?”
“Officially, yes.”
That word again.
Officially.
“What did she tell you?”
Mom’s hands trembled.
“She said Arthur was watching the children.”
My skin went cold.
“Cameras?”
“She didn’t say. This was before everything was digital. She said Salvatore wanted records of Matteo and Luca at all times.”
“Why?”
“She thought Salvatore didn’t trust her.”
“That sounds possible.”
“Then she said Arthur watched her too.”
I thought of Elena.
Same house.
Same man.
Same accusation.
Decades apart.
“What happened after she told you?”
“Arthur came to me.”
My jaw tightened.
“What did he say?”
“That Mrs. Duca was ill.”
“Of course.”
“He told me repeating her accusations would worsen her condition.”
“And?”
“I believed him.”
My chest hurt.
Mom continued.
“Then Lucia begged me to help her take Matteo and leave.”
I stared.
“Did you?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because I was twenty-three and terrified.”
Her eyes filled.
“Salvatore Duca had men outside the house. Arthur knew where my parents lived. I told Lucia she needed medical help.”
My heart sank.
Same sentence Matteo might have told Elena.
Different generation.
Mom whispered:
“Three days later, Lucia was gone.”
“Taken to the facility.”
“Yes.”
“And you?”
“Fired.”
“By who?”
“Arthur.”
Of course.
“Did Matteo know you?”
“He was nine.”
“Would he remember you?”
“Maybe.”
I looked toward the window.
Across the street, the black SUV was parked exactly where Matteo promised.
“He doesn’t know.”
Mom looked out.
“You brought him.”
“He’s outside.”
“Nora.”
“He stayed outside because I asked.”
Her expression changed slightly.
That mattered to her too.
“What was Matteo like?” I asked.
Mom smiled sadly.
“Quiet.”
That surprised me.
“He hated raised voices.”
My chest tightened.
Leah flinching at his.
Generations repeat even when people swear they won’t.
“He followed his mother everywhere,” Mom continued.
“After Luca died, he stopped talking for nearly a month.”
I swallowed.
“Did Arthur take care of him?”
“Arthur took care of everything.”
There was no affection in her voice.
“What happened in the pool?”
Mom went still.
“That’s why I’m scared.”
“What?”
“Lucia said Luca didn’t drown by accident.”
My stomach dropped.
“What did she think happened?”
“She thought Arthur knew.”
“Did she accuse him?”
“She accused Salvatore first.”
“Of killing his own son?”
“No.”
Mom shook her head.
“Of covering up what happened.”
The room felt suddenly too small.
“Why would a six-year-old die?”
“I don’t know.”
“What did Lucia say?”
“She said Luca saw something.”
“What?”
“She never told me.”
Or never got the chance.
I stood.
Mom grabbed my hand.
“Do not go back.”
“I promised Leah.”
“This is bigger than a child’s fear of a room.”
“That is exactly why I’m going back.”
“Nora.”
“She is three.”
My voice broke.
“She is doing the same thing Matteo’s mother did. Telling adults she is being watched. Being dismissed as difficult. Terrified of Arthur.”
Mom closed her eyes.
I continued.
“If Lucia was right and Elena was right, then everyone who left made Arthur safer.”
“You cannot fix this.”
“I’m not trying to fix a family.”
I looked at her.
“I’m trying to believe a little girl before somebody convinces her she imagined what she saw.”
Mom let go.
Her face crumpled.
“That’s what I should have done for Lucia.”
I sat again.
Took her hand.
“You were twenty-three.”
“That does not erase it.”
“No.”
We stayed like that for a minute.
Then Mom reached inside the drawer beside her bed.
She removed an old envelope.
Brown with age.
“Nora.”
“What is that?”
“Lucia gave it to me the day before they took her.”
My pulse started pounding.
“You kept it?”
“For twenty-nine years.”
“Why?”
“Because I was scared to destroy it and scared to open it.”
I stared.
“You never opened it?”
“No.”
On the front, faded handwriting:
FOR MATTEO — WHEN HE IS OLD ENOUGH TO CHOOSE WHO TO BELIEVE.
My throat closed.
Mom looked toward the window.
“He is old enough now.”
I held the envelope.
It felt impossibly light for something that had waited almost three decades.
“Can I give it to him?”
Mom nodded.
Then said:
“Do not let Arthur know it exists.”
Too late.
Maybe.
If Bell knew who my mother was, he might know about Lucia.
He might know about the letter.
I stood.
Mom caught my wrist.
“One more thing.”
“What?”
“Salvatore used a phrase whenever Lucia demanded answers.”
I waited.
“He said, ‘The family survives because the children don’t remember.’”
Cold moved through me.
I left the center carrying the envelope beneath my coat.
Matteo stepped out of the SUV when he saw my face.
“What happened?”
I looked at him.
“Do you remember a nurse named Evelyn?”
His entire body went still.
“My mother?”
“Yes.”
For a second, he looked nine years old.
Not thirty-eight.
“Your mother is Evelyn?”
I nodded.
Matteo looked toward the building.
Then at the envelope in my hand.
“What is that?”
“Something your mother wanted you to have.”
He stopped breathing.
I handed it to him.
He did not take it immediately.
His hand hovered.
Then closed around the paper.
“She gave this to your mother?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“The day before they took her away.”
His face went pale.
“I was told she went willingly.”
“She didn’t.”
Matteo closed his eyes.
Then opened the envelope.
Inside were six handwritten pages.
And one photograph.
Matteo read the first line.
His knees nearly buckled.
I caught his arm.
He did not pull away.
“What?”
I asked.
He turned the letter toward me.
My son,
If Arthur tells you Luca drowned because I was careless, he is lying.
Matteo stopped breathing.
I looked at him.
He whispered:
“My mother was blamed for Luca’s death.”
I understood.
That was why she was institutionalized.
Not only grief.
Blame.
The letter continued.
Luca did not fall into the pool.
He was already unconscious when he went into the water.
Matteo’s face emptied.
I whispered:
“Keep reading.”
He did.
May you like
The final sentence on the first page was worse.
I saw Arthur carrying him.
