Chapter 4
Dr. Emily Carter evaluated the children separately.
Raffaele chose her because she had no connection to the Moretti family.
He told his lawyer to locate someone who could not be pressured by his name.
Emily spent forty minutes with Lily.
Then nearly an hour with Mason.
She refused to tell Raffaele everything either child said.
“They need to understand that speaking to me does not mean every word immediately becomes family information.”
Raffaele disliked being excluded.
He accepted it anyway.
“What can you tell me?”
“Lily understands that certain treatment happened when you were absent.”
He looked down.
“Does she think I knew?”
“I’m not answering that yet.”
The possibility hurt.
Emily continued.
“She associates dirty clothing with punishment and clean clothing with being good.”
Raffaele remembered Lily’s full closet.
Clothing had been turned into a reward.
“What about Mason?”
Emily paused.
“He is carrying an unusual amount of responsibility for an eight-year-old.”
“For Lily?”
“For everyone.”
That answer stayed with Raffaele.
When Mason came out, he looked exhausted.
Raffaele offered to take him for lunch.
The boy asked, “Just us?”
“Yes.”
They went to a small private dining room at one of Raffaele’s legitimate hotels.
Mason barely ate.
Halfway through the meal he asked, “Am I going home?”
“You live with us.”
“I mean my other dad.”
Raffaele knew Mason’s biological father, Daniel Reed, but not well.
Vanessa had primary physical custody. Daniel had scheduled weekends and shared legal decision-making.
“Do you want to go to your father?”
Mason immediately shook his head.
Too fast.
Then he corrected himself.
“I don’t know.”
“Why are you asking?”
Mason pushed fries around his plate.
“If I tell everything, Mom says people send kids away.”
Raffaele went still.
“Who told you that?”
Mason realized he had said too much.
“Forget it.”
“No.”
The boy’s breathing changed.
Raffaele softened his voice.
“You are not in trouble.”
Mason stared at him.
“That’s what adults say before somebody is.”
The sentence hit harder than any accusation.
Raffaele thought of his own childhood.
Men telling him to be honest while already deciding what answer was acceptable.
He had promised himself he would raise Lily differently.
Somehow it had happened under his own roof anyway.
“Listen to me,” he said. “If you tell the truth, I will not punish you for somebody else’s choices.”
Mason looked unconvinced.
“Even if I did bad stuff?”
Raffaele held his gaze.
“Then we deal with what you actually did. We don’t invent more.”
Mason looked down.
He still did not tell him.
But as they left, he asked one final question.
“If Lily says I’m sorry, does that count?”
Raffaele looked at him.
“Count for what?”
May you like
Mason could not answer.
That was the third time the boy’s guilt appeared before anyone accused him of anything.
