My hands were shaking so badly I nearly dropped the pregnancy test onto the bathroom floor, because those two pink lines didn't just mean I was pregnant.

"Kitchen," I said.

"And the front."

"Go." Carver slid the key across the table.

"Take that.

Don't come back to your apartment tonight."

"What about you?"

"I've been managing men like that one for forty years." He picked up his coffee.

"Go, Elizabeth.

Now."

I closed my hand around the key and stood up slowly, the way you move when you don't want to look like you're moving at all.

I kept my eyes down and walked toward the back of the diner, past the counter, through the swinging kitchen door before any of the staff could object.

The kitchen was hot and loud.

A cook looked up from the grill.

"Can't be back here."

"I know, I'm sorry, where's the back exit?"

He pointed.

I went.

The alley behind the diner was narrow and smelled of old grease.

I walked fast, turned east, pulled out my phone and called Liam.

He answered on the first ring.

"I'm already moving," he said.

"I saw the guy go in.

I'm coming around the block."

His car appeared at the alley entrance thirty seconds later.

I got in.

He pulled away before I had the door fully closed.

"Who was he?" Liam asked.

"One of Marcus Vitali's people."

"Who is Marcus Vitali?"

"Alessandro's uncle." I pressed the key into my palm until the metal edge left a mark.

"He's the one who had my father kjlled."

Liam drove two blocks without speaking.

"And the man in the diner?"

"Carver.

He has everything my father collected.

Documents, recordings.

Proof of what Marcus has been doing." I looked at the key.

"It's in a storage unit."

"We're going there now?"

"Not yet.

If Marcus's man followed me to the diner, he may already know about Carver.

We need to think before we move."

Liam turned onto a quieter street and slowed down.

"Emma." He used the name deliberately, gently, the way he always did when he needed me to hear something I didn't want to hear.

"You have to tell Alessandro."

"I know."

"Not eventually.

Now.

Today.

Before Marcus decides what to do about the fact that you exist."

"I know, Liam."

"Because you're carrying his child, and his uncle kjlled your father, and someone just followed you out of a diner, and you are twenty-five years old living in my spare bedroom on a diner salary—"

"I know." My voice broke on the second word.

Just slightly.

Enough.

Liam stopped the car.

We were parked on a residential street, bare trees on both sides, a dog barking somewhere two houses down.

"I'm scared," I said.

It was the first time I had said it out loud to another person in two years.

Liam didn't say anything.

He just reached over and put his hand over mine, the way he had at my parents' funeral, steady and certain and asking nothing.

We sat there for a moment.

Then my phone rang.

Unknown number.