Chapter 4 - The Night I Met Vincent Moretti
I met Vincent Moretti long before I married Derek, but the important part was not who he was.
It was who he was with.
It happened on a late spring night at Belloro, on one of those evenings when the dining room was so full the air felt expensive. Vincent came in with a woman about my age—thick dark hair, oversized cream sweater, no makeup, and the kind of deep fatigue no luxury can hide. I did not know at the time that she was his younger sister, Camille.
I only knew she looked sick.
Not drunk. Not hungover. Sick in the marrow. Fragile in the eyes.
Halfway through their meal, Camille excused herself to the restroom and did not return.
Ten minutes later, Vincent stood and asked where the women’s room was.
Something in his voice made me follow.
I found Camille sitting on the bathroom floor with her back against the sink cabinet, trying very hard not to cry. The neckline of her sweater had slipped enough for me to see a yellowing bruise near her collarbone.
Vincent stopped in the doorway. For one second, the expression on his face told me he had seen more than he had expected to see.
“She’s having a panic attack,” I said softly, kneeling beside her. “Or she was when I came in.”
Camille laughed once without humor.
“Very glamorous, right?”
I got her water. I found a clean towel. I stayed while she steadied her breathing and Vincent stood a few feet away pretending not to watch too closely. When she finally stood, she whispered thank you like it cost her something.
Before they left, Vincent called me aside.
He held out a black business card with only a number and a name embossed in silver.
Vincent Moretti.
“Camille likes you,” he said.
I smiled awkwardly. “That seems like a low bar tonight.”
His mouth almost twitched.
Then he said, “If you ever need help that cannot go through polite channels, call.”
I looked at the card, confused.
He glanced toward the front window, where Camille sat in the car waiting for him.
“She stayed too long with a man who enjoyed making her afraid,” he said. “People like that do not change because you ask nicely.”
I did not know what to say.
So I said, “I’m sorry.”
He nodded once.
Then he added, “Keep the card.”
I tucked it into my wallet and forgot about it for a while.
Months later, Camille came into Belloro alone. She looked thinner but steadier. She asked for me by name. We talked during my break, and she told me she was finally divorcing the husband who had nearly hollowed her out.
“He hated that my brother existed,” she said quietly. “He hated that there was one person I could call who frightened him.”
Then she looked at me in a way that made my skin prickle.
“Promise me something, Lena,” she said. “If you ever need help, don’t wait until you almost don’t survive it.”
I promised because it was easy to promise things you cannot imagine needing.
Camille died the following year from an aggressive cancer diagnosis no one saw coming fast enough.
I kept the black card anyway.
Not because I thought I would ever use it.
May you like
Because every time I considered throwing it away, I remembered the bruise at Camille’s collarbone and the strange certainty in her voice when she warned me not to wait too long.
Three years later, on a marble floor with blood in my mouth and Derek kicking in the bathroom door, I finally understood what she had meant.
