THE MAFIA BOSS FORCED HIS PREGNANT WIFE TO SIGN DIVORCE PAPERS... UNTIL REPORTERS IN THE RAIN REVEALED WHO TOOK HER PENTHOUSE

Chapter 03 - What Teresa Signed

Teresa Rinaldi answered the door herself. That fact would have surprised anyone who had seen her at a gala, seated beneath a chandelier while three employees waited to refill her glass.

At seventy-two she still wore her black hair pinned neatly above her collar, though the silver at her temples had begun to show. She had flour on her sleeve and an old radio playing in the kitchen.

"Lily." She looked down at Lily's stomach, then at Ruth standing beside her. "Come in before the neighbors notice."

"I didn't come to hide," Lily said.

"No," Teresa replied. "I imagine you're finished hiding."

Teresa's town house sat on a quiet street near the river. Lily had never liked its expensive furniture, but she had always loved the kitchen: scarred wooden table, copper pots, a bowl of lemons that smelled of the old neighborhood when the heat came on.

Ruth remained by the doorway. Teresa took one look at the paper Lily laid on the table and sat down without being asked.

"You signed a request to open my aunt's cabinet."

"Yes."

There was no denial. No indignation. It made Lily angrier than she had expected.

"Did you help Solen move into my home?"

"I didn't know she was moving in. Samuel told me there were documents inside that could hurt Cole. He said he needed witnesses from the family."

"And you believed him?"

Teresa studied her hands. "I wanted to believe him. That's worse."

Ruth moved a chair close enough for Lily to sit. Lily declined it for a moment, simply because she was tired of being treated as a collection of medical precautions. Then a baby pressed under her ribs, and she sat.

"What documents?" Lily asked.

"Records from an old property fund. Your aunt was trying to reopen several settlements. My husband used that fund years ago."

Cole's father, Vittorio Rinaldi, had built an empire from warehouses, parking lots and waterfront buildings. He had also built a reputation for getting what he wanted. People sometimes used the word *mafia* in restaurants where they thought no one connected to the family could hear.

Lily had married Cole believing he was making his companies legitimate. She had watched him close cash businesses, pay employees properly and refuse invitations from men whose names belonged in crime reports. She had loved him partly for the effort.

"What kind of settlements?" she asked.

Teresa got up, went to the pantry, and returned with a green folder. "Twelve years ago, several women in the old waterfront district sold their apartments to a redevelopment partnership. At least that's what the contracts said. Some later swore they had agreed only to temporary relocation."

"What happened to them?"

"A few were paid. Most weren't paid what they were promised. One died before her claim was heard."

"And June?"

"She helped them file complaints. She kept copies of everything. She was stubborn and she made enemies. Your husband respected that about her. At least he said he did."

Lily remembered June telling her not to confuse a man who admired strong women with one who could tolerate them when they stood in his way.

Teresa placed a photograph on the table. In it, June stood outside a municipal building with a group of older women. One held a cardboard sign reading *OUR HOMES ARE NOT YOURS TO TRADE*. Behind June, partly out of focus, stood a young blond woman Lily recognized immediately.

Solen Voss.

"She worked for the opposing side," Teresa said. "A junior public-relations consultant. Her father represented the partnership."

"So she knows about June's cabinet."

"Yes. But Samuel knew before she did."

Ruth crossed her arms. "You've had all this in a folder, and Mrs. June spent her last years writing letters nobody answered?"

Teresa accepted the accusation without looking away. "I answered one."

She took out a yellowing sheet. June had written to Teresa eleven months before her death: *I have proof that the signatures were assembled after the women were moved. I need somebody in that family who will tell the truth.*

Beneath it was Teresa's reply, only four lines long. She had asked June to stop contacting her. The word *stop* was underlined twice.

"I was afraid," Teresa said. "Vittorio was dead, but his lawyer was still alive, and my son had inherited everything. I thought silence would leave the past buried."

"Silence buried people," Ruth said.

Teresa nodded. Her eyes shone, but she did not attempt to use tears as an answer.

Lily stood and went to the window. On the sidewalk an elderly couple walked arm in arm, each leaning slightly toward the other. For a moment she envied their ordinary errand and its uncomplicated destination.

"Cole knew about this?" she asked.

"Some of it. He was twenty-five when the first settlements were signed. He handled shipping then, not real estate. Later he signed refinancing papers. He says he didn't know what was attached to them."

"Do you believe him?"

"I believe he learned not to ask questions when the answers would cost him money."

Lily turned. It was the first truthful thing she had heard from Cole's family in weeks.

Teresa reached for her hand, then stopped before touching it. "I owe you an apology for signing that request. And I owe June more than I can pay. I will testify to what I know."

Ruth opened her handbag. "Good. We'll need names, not apologies."

Before leaving, Lily asked Teresa whether Cole really intended to marry Solen.

"I asked him," Teresa said. "He told me the divorce was necessary, but he wouldn't tell me why. He swore he had not proposed."

"He still gave her a key."

"Yes."

Teresa looked at Lily with an expression that was almost pity. Lily couldn't bear it. She gathered the folder and headed for the hall, where a small photograph of Cole as a boy stood on a side table beside an older portrait of Vittorio.

Her phone rang. It was Cole.

"Where are you?" he asked.

"With your mother."

A pause. "Get out of there. Samuel says somebody's looking for June's records, and Teresa isn't safe."

"Neither was I. You gave Solen my home."

"Lily, listen. I didn't know she was moving in. I signed permission for an inspection, nothing more."

"An inspection of a cabinet you had no right to open."

Cole exhaled slowly. Then he said something she had never heard him admit before.

"I thought June's papers could put me in prison."

Lily looked back at the portrait of the man whose company Cole had inherited.

"What did you do?" she asked.

"I signed documents for my father when I was twenty-five," Cole said. "And yesterday Samuel showed me one I swear I never signed."