The Voice On The Speakerphone

Adrian Moretti held his phone in one hand.

He didn't walk away to make the call. He stood right there in the service doorway, next to the battered kitchen chair his fiancée had just tried to throw away.

Celeste stood perfectly still.

The dining room behind them was entirely silent. Twenty-four wealthy guests, politicians, and business partners sat at the long table, pretending not to listen.

But in a house this quiet, everybody heard everything.

Adrian tapped the screen. He put the phone on speaker.

The line rang twice.

Then a rough, older voice answered.

“Moretti. I thought you forgot my number.”

Adrian’s face relaxed just a fraction. “I never forget you, Sal. You still running my mother’s kitchen the right way?”

“I try,” Sal grunted over the sound of clattering pans. “Though nobody makes the red sauce like Teresa. What do you need on a Friday night? I thought you were throwing your fancy engagement party.”

“I am,” Adrian said. “But there’s a change of plans for tomorrow. I need a table for lunch.”

“For you? Always. Bringing the new bride?”

“Yes.” Adrian’s eyes remained fixed on Celeste. “Her name is Celeste Romano.”

The line went quiet.

The sound of the clattering pans in the background stopped.

“Sal?” Adrian asked.

When Sal spoke again, his voice had dropped an octave.

“Did you say Celeste Romano?”

Celeste’s hands clenched into fists at her sides.

“Yes,” Adrian said.

“Adrian,” Sal said slowly. “Are you playing a joke on an old man?”

“No. Why would you ask that?”

“Because I know exactly who Celeste Romano is.”

Celeste took a step forward. “Adrian, hang up the phone. This is ridiculous.”

Adrian raised one hand, silently ordering her to stop.

“How do you know her, Sal?”

“How do I know her?” Sal let out a harsh, humorless laugh. “Adrian, she worked for your mother. Fourteen years ago. Right before Nico died.”

The air in the hallway vanished.

I gripped the edge of Teresa’s kitchen chair so hard my knuckles turned white.

Celeste had just told Adrian she had never been to the old restaurant.

“She waited tables for three months,” Sal continued, completely unaware of the bomb he had just dropped. “Teresa fired her. Banned her from the property.”

Adrian’s eyes were completely black.

“My mother banned her?”

“Threw her out the back door herself,” Sal confirmed. “Told me if I ever let the Romano girl near the kitchen again, she’d break my arm. You didn't know this?”

“No,” Adrian said quietly. “I didn't.”

“Well,” Sal sighed. “See you tomorrow, boss.”

The line clicked dead.

Adrian slowly lowered the phone.

He looked at the woman he was supposed to marry.

“You lied to me.”

“I didn't lie!” Celeste’s voice pitched higher, a desperate edge bleeding into her perfect composure. “It was a lifetime ago, Adrian! I was a teenager. I worked a summer job. I didn't think it mattered!”

“My mother threw you out.”

“Your mother was difficult!” Celeste snapped. “She hated anyone who got close to her boys. She hated me because I was dating your brother.”

The silence that followed was so heavy it felt physical.

Adrian took a slow step toward her.

“You dated Nico.”

“It was briefly,” Celeste said, taking a step back. “We were kids. It didn't mean anything. I didn't tell you because I didn't want to bring up painful memories for you.”

She reached out to touch his arm.

He didn't move away, but his body turned to stone.

“Answer one question,” Adrian said softly. “Were you with him the night he crashed his car?”

“No!” Celeste gasped, her eyes wide with shock. “Adrian, how could you ask me that? I was at home. I hadn't seen Nico in weeks.”

Adrian stared at her for a long time.

Then, he turned to me.

“Kate.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Take my mother’s chair back to the kitchen.”

“Yes, sir.”

He looked at Celeste.

“Go sit down. Dinner is starting.”

Celeste looked like she wanted to argue, but the coldness in his eyes stopped her. She turned and walked back into the dining room, her posture rigid.

I grabbed the wooden chair and carried it into the massive, stainless-steel kitchen.

My hands were shaking.

I set the chair down in its usual spot near the window. As I did, my foot brushed against one of the cardboard donation boxes Celeste had ordered me to pack earlier.

The box tipped over.

Old utensils spilled onto the tile floor.

I knelt down to pick them up.

But as I reached for a silver soup ladle, I saw something else that had fallen out of the box.

It had been tucked inside one of Teresa’s old oven mitts.

It was a heavy, silver chain bracelet.

The metal was tarnished, completely black in the crevices, but the engraving on the center plate was still perfectly legible.

Nico.

My heart hammered against my ribs.

I turned the bracelet over in my hand.

The silver links were twisted and deeply scarred, as if they had been scraped across asphalt at a high speed.

But that wasn't the detail that made my breath catch in my throat.