Chapter 5 - The Question Mateo Couldn't Ignore
Hazel reached the bottom of the stairs before Mateo could stop her.
Caleb stood inside the darkened restaurant.
For five years, Hazel had imagined this moment.
She had imagined slapping him.
Hugging him.
Screaming.
Instead she stopped halfway across the dining room.
Caleb looked older than thirty-one.
His face was thinner.
His shoulders curved inward.
But he was alive.
“Hi, Haze.”
Hazel crossed the distance and hit him in the chest with both hands.
“You disappeared!”
“I know.”
She hit him again.
“You left me!”
“I know.”
Then she wrapped her arms around him.
Caleb broke.
He cried against her shoulder.
“I’m sorry.”
Hazel held him because anger did not erase love.
Mateo remained near the stairs.
Watching.
Waiting.
Caleb eventually noticed him.
Fear crossed his face.
Mateo didn't move.
“You're safe here,” Mateo said.
Caleb blinked.
“I don't deserve that.”
“No. But Hazel does.”
They sat.
Caleb told them everything.
Adrian Vale had found him drowning in debt.
He offered a solution.
Simple tasks.
Passwords.
Copied files.
Caleb convinced himself nobody would be hurt.
Then Adrian demanded more.
When Caleb tried to stop, Adrian threatened to expose him.
“The half million?” Mateo asked.
“I took it.”
Hazel closed her eyes.
Caleb continued.
“But Adrian arranged the transfer. Most of it went somewhere else.”
“Why run?”
“Because Adrian told me Hazel would pay for what I did if I talked.”
Mateo's expression hardened.
“He threatened her?”
“Yes.”
Hazel stared at her brother.
“So you disappeared to protect me?”
“I disappeared because I was a coward.”
At least he knew.
Caleb reached into his jacket.
Mateo tensed.
Caleb removed a flash drive.
“Everything Adrian gave me is on this.”
Mateo stared.
“Everything?”
“Emails. Accounts. Instructions.”
“Why keep it?”
“Insurance.”
“Why now?”
Caleb looked toward the ceiling.
Toward the apartment where Luca slept.
“Because I saw Hazel online.”
Her restaurant had been featured in a local newspaper.
“I saw the kid.”
Hazel became still.
Caleb looked at Mateo.
“And I knew.”
Mateo's eyes sharpened.
“You knew Hazel was pregnant?”
“No.”
Caleb looked ashamed.
“Not until years later.”
Hazel frowned.
“How?”
“I found something.”
Caleb reached into his pocket again.
This time he removed a folded envelope.
Old.
Creased.
Hazel recognized the handwriting.
Her own.
“What is that?”
“The letter you wrote Mateo.”
Hazel stared.
“I never wrote a letter.”
“Yes, you did.”
Caleb unfolded it.
Then Hazel remembered.
During her seventh month of pregnancy, after the failed email and unanswered calls, she had written everything by hand.
She had mailed it to Mateo's Chicago office.
She had received no response.
“You have it?”
“Adrian intercepted it.”
Mateo's face went cold.
Caleb handed it over.
Mateo read.
Hazel watched his expression collapse.
The letter told him everything.
The baby.
The due date.
Her fear.
Her anger.
And one final sentence:
If you want to know your son, come find us.
Mateo sat completely still.
“You wrote this.”
Hazel's eyes filled.
“Yes.”
“You wanted me there.”
“I gave you one last chance.”
“I never saw it.”
“I know that now.”
Mateo folded the letter carefully.
For five years, both had lived inside a lie designed by someone else and strengthened by their own pride.
Caleb looked at Hazel.
“I found it after Adrian disappeared. I should have delivered it.”
“Why didn't you?”
“I was ashamed.”
Hazel stared at him.
“You stole five years from him.”
Caleb lowered his head.
“Yes.”
“And from Luca.”
“Yes.”
“And from me.”
His voice broke.
“Yes.”
Mateo surprised them.
“Adrian started it.”
Hazel looked at him.
Mateo continued.
“But we all helped finish it.”
Caleb frowned.
“What?”
“I doubted Hazel.”
Mateo looked at her.
“She left without telling me because I gave her every reason to believe I wouldn't trust her.”
Hazel swallowed.
“I also turned off my phone.”
“And I chose not to knock on your door in Milwaukee.”
Caleb whispered:
“I kept the letter.”
No one escaped responsibility.
Maybe that was what truth actually looked like.
Not one villain.
Not one innocent person.
A series of choices.
Mateo took the flash drive.
“This can clear the remaining legal issues around you.”
Caleb stared.
“You'd help me?”
“I'll give it to the authorities and my attorneys. What happens after that depends on what you did.”
Fair.
Caleb nodded.
“I'll cooperate.”
Hazel reached across the table.
Took her brother's hand.
Not forgiveness.
Not yet.
But a beginning.
Upstairs, a floorboard creaked.
Luca appeared at the stairwell.
“Mom?”
Hazel stood.
“Sweetheart, go back upstairs.”
Luca stared at Caleb.
“Who's that?”
Caleb looked at his nephew for the first time.
His face crumpled.
“I'm your uncle.”
Luca looked delighted.
“I have an uncle?”
Despite everything, Hazel laughed.
“Yes.”
Luca came downstairs.
Family became complicated immediately.
It was nearly dawn when Caleb finally left with Mateo's attorney to make arrangements.
Mateo remained.
Luca had fallen asleep in a booth with his head against Mateo's arm.
Hazel watched them.
“You can move him.”
“He'll wake.”
“He sleeps like a rock.”
Mateo carefully lifted Luca.
The boy instinctively wrapped his arms around Mateo's neck.
Mateo froze.
Then held him closer.
Hazel led them upstairs.
Mateo placed Luca in bed.
They stood together in the doorway.
“He looks like you,” Hazel whispered.
“He looks like you.”
“He has your eyes.”
“He has your stubbornness.”
Hazel raised an eyebrow.
“My stubbornness?”
“Definitely.”
She smiled.
Mateo looked at her.
Something shifted.
Five years of distance became dangerously thin.
Then Luca stirred.
“Dad?”
Mateo leaned closer.
“I'm here.”
“Don't get lost again.”
Mateo closed his eyes.
“I won't.”
Later, as Mateo prepared to leave, Hazel found something beneath the apartment door.
Another envelope.
No photograph this time.
One sheet of paper.
Mateo read it over her shoulder.
Three words were printed across the center:
May you like
ADRIAN KNOWS ABOUT LUCA.
Then someone knocked from the other side...
