Leo holds up a hand to stop me from asking where my dad is and opens a door set into the side of the building. Fear makes my stomach clench. He could be luring me, too. He could be opening the door to a life where I’m too late, too late, too late.
But there’s no lifeless body on the other side. No cruel trick. It’s a restaurant, or some very small private club. Wine-colored tablecloths. Sturdy furniture.
Behind the bar, a large screen showing various shots of black-and-white alleyway. There you can see my dad’s car. My car. The vagrants huddled around the barrel.
Leo Morelli saw me coming. He knew I’d be there.
Dad sits in view of the door. When he sees me, he gives me an excited wave. A stack of papers waits on the table in front of him, a pen thrown to the side. They’ve already signed.
Leo’s voice is close, his breath warm on the shell of my ear. I can’t take my eyes off my father. Can’t help but see the way his eyes go from me to Leo, who must be a terrifying shadow in the dark of the alley. “If you want to save your father, you’ll have to pay,” he says, and my toes curl. There’s a whisper of pressure at my pocket. “Meet me here in twenty-four hours.”
4
Haley
I’m too afraid to let my dad out of my sight, and shaking too badly to drive. The Camry gets abandoned by the curb. It’s a long, quiet ride back to Bishop’s Landing.
I can’t say anything. Can’t begin to put into words what my father has done by signing those papers. By going to that meeting at all. We could have died. I narrowly avoided a fate worse than death. I still might die. There’s a business card with an address scrawled across it in my pocket. I’m afraid to take it out. I don’t want to show my father. I barely even want to acknowledge it to myself. Leo Morelli wants me to meet him in twenty-four hours. What will he do to me?
We’re wending our way through the ritzy neighborhoods when my father sighs. “It’s only a business deal, Haley. You don’t have to look so upset.”
My fingernails dig into the fabric of my purse in spite of myself. “Dad, you signed a contract with Leo Morelli.” I hold up the copy that Leo so helpfully provided to my father. Dad signed both of the documents. “This says he owns the rights to your invention forever. In every country, in every possible jurisdiction. He can put his name on it, if he wants. Call it his. It is his.”
“Not so bad as that. There are provisions for me. And every country will see my work.”
I can’t get through to him. He signed this, and I’m going to have to get him out of it.
There’s no one else. Petra’s married and busy. Cash is nineteen. So far, only the three of us—and Leo Morelli—know about the deal. The fewer the better. Caroline can’t find out. My thoughts come in staccato bursts that collide with each other and start breaking down as we pull into the driveway. I’m the first out of the car, taking huge breaths of the crystal clear air.
The front door of the house bursts open. “Dad?” Cash sounds frantic, panicked. Every minute must have eaten at him, if he can’t put on his usual level-headed image.
“It’s both of us,” I call. The wind bites through my coat. “My car is in the city. I’m going to have to hire a tow truck.” Dad climbs out of the driver’s seat.
“I hope you didn’t wait for me to eat.” He heads for the door like this night was a speed bump and not a train wreck.
“Eat?” Cash’s eyes are wide and white in the spill of light from the door. “Nobody could eat. We thought—” He looks away. Can’t bring himself to say what he thought might happen.
Inside, I take off my coat but the heat refuses to get close. A chill has settled over my skin that I can’t shake. “He signed the papers,” I tell Cash, and myself.
Cash groans, despair edging his voice. “Dad, you didn’t. Tell me you didn’t fucking sign anything with a Morelli sitting across the table.”
“He understands the vision.” Dad’s face darkens, eyebrows pulling together. “Nothing untoward happened at the meeting.”
“Dad.” It’s all I can do to keep my voice level. I’d rather scream. “You signed an agreement with Leo Morelli. He’s going to take everything you have. For all I know, he owns your invention now, and you don’t have the rights. You didn’t take a lawyer with you. You didn’t have anyone review the documents. You—” I’m going to cry. If I let a single tear fall, I won’t be able to stop. The contract could have contained anything, and my dad was too enamored with the idea to see. “It was a bad deal. Whatever he said, it was a bad deal.”
Watching him understand what I’m saying is more painful than watching him walk out the door for the meeting. My dad’s face falls, shoulders sagging, and his hands go up to his hair. “We don’t know that. We don’t know it was underhanded. There’s no reason to believe—”
“There’s every reason,” Cash shouts, and our father flinches at the sound. Dad only ever raises his voice to be heard above a particularly noisy invention, and now his only son looks ready to punch him. Cash’s fists open and close at his sides. “There’s every reason to believe they fucked you over. You sat down with a Morelli. I can’t—” A sharp laugh. “I can’t believe you’re standing here right now. The Morellis kill people. That’s what they do.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do know that. And I know the contract is terrible.”
“I can renegotiate.” Dad’s voice shakes. “He’ll understand. He’s...”
The rest of the sentence fades away. There’s nothing he can say to paint Leo Morelli as a hero. Leo didn’t offer my father a contract out of the goodness of his heart, and he didn’t save me from those men out of some moral obligation. He did it because he wanted to use us both. That’s what he does.
Headlights sweep across the living room and all of us freeze. My heart climbs up into my throat. I want to believe Leo didn’t follow us here, but there are no limits to what he’ll do. Everyone knows that.
I’m already walking to the door to meet him when the knock sounds. “I’m coming,” I say automatically, though if it’s Leo on the other side, then I’ve wasted my manners.
I open the door.
It’s not him.
Richard Joseph, Jr. stands on the front porch, breath crystallizing in the air, an enormous bouquet of flowers in his hands.
“Hey, Haley.” He’s a smooth one, Rick. His hair is a shade too dark to be a real Constantine, but he wants to be one. He wants to be part of Aunt Caroline’s family so much that he’s willing to overlook the small fact that we’re barely Constantines at all. We’re only Constantines when we’re embarrassing her. “For you.”
I take the flowers and step back to let him in. It’s only after he’s across the threshold that I come to my senses. Dad paces the living room, tugging at his hair, and Cash glares at the fireplace.
“Mr. Constantine,” Rick booms, and Dad throws a distracted glance at him. “Any plans for the weekend?”