Chapter 5
“Ask her where,” Dante said.
“I did. She called me spineless.” Luca sounded tired, not angry. “She says there are papers I signed.”
“Did you sign papers?”
Silence.
“Luca.”
“I signed a treatment consultation. Not a school transfer.”
“Send a copy to your lawyer. And tell Hannah about the records.”
“You're going to use this to take him from me.”
“Someone put your son outside in the snow,” Dante said. “Don't confuse that with what I'm doing.”
Luca hung up.
Through counsel, Dante passed the information to Hannah. The next morning she confirmed that the agency had asked Bianca and Luca to preserve Theo's records, including any referrals for treatment or placement. She would not disclose the investigation's confidential details. That boundary frustrated Dante, but he was learning not to confuse access with protection.
Evelyn found an ordinary business clue. An invoice from a consulting service called Summit Path Wellness had been sent to an address at the mansion, then forwarded to Dante's former administrative office by mistake. It listed an upcoming “residential intake review” and a fee of $9,500. The contact person was Bianca Rinaldi.
Dante stared at the heading. “He's six.”
“Some children need specialized services,” Evelyn said. “An assessment isn't automatically wrongdoing. But we need to know whether this organization is real and why it has been engaged.”
She advised Dante not to contact the company as though he were an investigator. Instead she gave the document to the appropriate authorities and noted that a child might be transferred without the agency knowing.
Dante remembered walking through Elena's hospital room two summers earlier. Even then she had been fighting exhaustion, but she had insisted that everyone speak to Theo as a person rather than over his head. She had made Dante promise not to use his wealth to buy the boy's affection.
He had kept the easy half of that promise. He had sent educational gifts, photographs from his travels, and money for every birthday. He had missed school events because Luca assured him everything was fine. When Theo went quiet on video calls, Dante assumed grief was the whole explanation.
Now he wondered whether the child had tried to tell him something without words. The thought was not evidence against anyone. It was evidence of his own absence, and it hurt in a way he could not solve by writing a check.
Rosa supplied another piece of context. Theo had recently begun hiding food in a drawer beside his bed.
“I found crackers wrapped in a napkin,” she said. “He said they were for the days when he couldn't earn dinner.”
Dante shut his eyes. His anger had nowhere useful to go.
“What did you do?” Evelyn asked.
“I left fresh snacks on his desk. Bianca told me to stop undermining the program.”
“What program?”
“She said it taught self-regulation.”
That afternoon, Theo had his first meeting with a child therapist arranged through the agency. Dante wasn't in the room. Hannah later told him only that Theo had chosen to talk about his airplane and had declined questions about Christmas. No one would force him.
When Dante visited afterward, Theo had drawn a runway on a piece of construction paper.
“Your plane needs landing gear,” Dante said, setting down the damaged toy, now returned to its owner.
“I know. But I don't want to fix it yet.”
“Why not?”
“I want people to know it broke.”
Dante swallowed. “Then we won't fix it.”
Theo rolled the remaining wheel across the paper. “Bianca said a place called Summit would teach me not to miss Mom.”
Dante kept his face still.
“How did that feel?”
“Like she wanted Mom gone again.”
“You don't have to stop missing her.”
Theo leaned closer, then paused. “Will I have to go to Summit if Dad says so?”
“People who are helping you will listen to you,” Dante replied. He refused to promise a result no one had decided. “And I'll tell them what you just told me, if you want.”
Theo nodded.
That evening the agency obtained a short-term court order restricting unapproved removal of Theo from his temporary placement pending further review. Dante received the news from Evelyn with relief he did not allow himself to celebrate. Theo's future was not won by a single filing.
Then Evelyn called back.
“The invoice wasn't billed to Luca personally,” she said. “It names the Elena Rinaldi Child Benefit Trust.”
May you like
Dante stood perfectly still.
Elena had left money for her son. Why was it paying to send him away?
