Chapter 6 - THE PRICE OF BEING QUIET
Luca sat down.
It was the first time he had looked like a man who needed a chair.
Vanessa moved behind him and rested a hand on his shoulder.
“You can’t blame yourself for every unhappy employee.”
He removed her hand.
Slowly.
“Don’t touch me.”
Her face flushed.
Enzo gave a harsh laugh.
“Daniel got careless at the dock.
That was investigated.”
“By the safety consultant your company hired,” Arthur said.
Nora tightened her hand around mine.
“Liv.
We should go.”
She was right.
I had told the truth.
A doctor had seen me.
Whatever came next belonged to people with lawyers and armored cars.
Then Arthur opened the back cover of his book.
A photograph slipped out.
Daniel Reed stood beside a woman in a yellow coat.
Her hand rested on his chest.
He looked happy in the ordinary, unguarded way people look when they don’t know a photograph will outlive them.
“His wife gave me that,” Arthur said.
“She asked whether he had been afraid at work.”
“Was he?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Did you tell her?”
Arthur lowered his eyes.
“No.”
I thought about Vanessa studying the screenshot of my rent.
How quickly she had understood what silence cost.
How little she had needed to pay for mine.
“Call the police,” I said.
Enzo stared at me.
“You have no idea what you’re asking.”
“Yes, I do.”
Luca looked toward Marco.
Then back at me.
“If we do this, they’ll look at everything.”
“Then let them.”
He didn’t move.
I felt something inside me harden.
“You don’t get to be shocked about Daniel and still protect the reason he was scared.”
Nora stopped pulling at my sleeve.
Rosa stood straighter.
At last, Luca took out his phone.
He called his attorney first and put her on speaker.
“Preserve everything,” she told him after listening.
“No private searches beyond securing records.
No threats.
No one touches the accounts.”
Then he called the police.
Vanessa started crying.
The tears arrived perfectly.
“Luca, please.
We’re getting married.”
He looked at the ring on her hand.
“No.”
One word.
No raised voice.
No performance.
Vanessa’s tears stopped.
She glanced at Enzo.
He glanced at her.
It lasted less than a second.
Long enough.
Marco’s phone buzzed.
He read the message and moved toward the service hallway.
“The basement records room,” he said.
May you like
“What about it?” Luca asked.
“The smoke alarm just went off.”
