Chapter 4: Tremont Street
I showed Tony the message at seven in the morning.
He read it twice, set the phone on the table face-up, and didn't touch it again.
"R," he said.
"Renata," I said.
"Maybe." He pulled his coffee toward him.
"Or someone who wants you to think it's Renata.
Don't reply.
Don't delete it.
Screenshot it right now and send it to my email."
I did.
"Are we still going?" I asked.
"Yes.
But now we go knowing he may already be on the defensive." Tony looked at me over the rim of his cup.
"Which means he may push harder than I expected.
Are you ready for that?"
"I don't have a choice."
"You always have a choice.
I'm asking if you're ready."
I thought about my mother asleep in the next room.
About the vase that had been my father's.
About thirty-one transfers on the fourteenth of every month.
"I'm ready," I said.
---
The coffee shop on Tremont was small and bright and always slightly too warm.
Barron was already there when I arrived, sitting at a corner table with his jacket on and both hands wrapped around a cup.
He looked tired.
He also looked like a man who had rehearsed what he was going to say.
He stood when he saw me.
He didn't try to touch me.
"You look tired," he said.
"I am tired," I said.
I sat down.
Tony was at a table near the window, his back to us, a newspaper open in front of him.
Barron sat.
He looked at the table for a moment.
"I want to apologize.
For what happened with your mother.
I lost my temper.
That was wrong."
"You str*ck her, Barron."
"I know." He met my eyes.
"It won't happen again."
"You're right," I said.
"It won't."
Something shifted in his face.
A small recalibration.
"What does that mean?"
"It means I've been looking at our bank account."
The recalibration stopped.
His expression went very still.
"The joint account," I said.
"The one with eighty-two thousand dollars in it last month."
"I've been moving funds around," he said.
"For investment purposes.
I was going to tell you—"
"Thirty-one transfers, Barron.
Fourteen months.
Sixty-one thousand to your family and twenty-one thousand to a woman named Renata." I kept my voice level.
"Which investment is that?"
He leaned back.
The apology was gone.
"You've been talking to a lawyer."
"I've been talking to Tony, yes."
"Tony Morgan." He said the name like it tasted bad.
"Of course." He looked away, jaw tight, then back at me.
"Those transfers to my family were loans.
Bruno needed help.
My mother needed help.
I was going to pay it back."
"From whose money?"
"From *our* money.
We're married.
It's joint—"
"It was joint," I said.
"And Renata?
Is she family too?"
The silence lasted four full seconds.
I counted.
"Renata is a business contact," he said.
"Twenty-one thousand dollars to a business contact.
Nine payments.
Starting the month after my mother moved in." I tilted my head slightly.
"What kind of business?"
"You wouldn't understand the details."
"Try me."
He leaned forward.
His voice dropped.
"You need to be very careful right now.
You're making accusations you can't back up, and if you push this, you will lose far more than you think.
The apartment is in both our names, but the mortgage payments — the ones I've been carrying for the last two years while you covered other expenses — those create an equity argument that my attorney will be very happy to make."
There it was.
Tony had predicted it almost word for word.
"Are you threatening me?" I asked.
"I'm advising you." He sat back again.
"Come home.
Let's talk to someone together.
A counselor.
We can work through this."
"And my mother?"
He said nothing.
"That's what I thought," I said.
I stood up.
I picked up my bag.
Barron's hand came across the table and closed around my wrist — not hard, but firm.
Certain.
The hand of a man who had never once believed I would actually leave.
"Sit down," he said quietly.
Tony's chair scraped back from the window table.
Barron's hand released my wrist before Tony reached us.
"Everything all right?" Tony said, standing beside me.
Barron looked at Tony for a long moment.
Then he looked at me.
The calculation behind his eyes was almost visible.
"We're done here," he said.
He picked up his jacket and walked out without looking back.
Tony watched him go.
"He'll call his attorney before he reaches the corner."
"I know."
"Good." He put a hand briefly on my shoulder.
"You did well.
And he confirmed Renata exists.
He didn't deny the name.
That matters."
I looked at the door Barron had walked through.
"Tony," I said.
"The text last night.
*He knows you've been to the bank.* How would Renata know that unless Barron told her?"
Tony was quiet for a moment.
"Unless she's been watching this more closely than either of us realized."
My phone buzzed in my bag.
A number I didn't recognize.
Different from last night's.
I answered it.
"Is this Adela's daughter?" a woman's voice said.
Low.
Careful.
"Yes," I said.
May you like
"My name is Renata Keller," she said.
"I think it's time we spoke."
