“Nia Grant.”

I explained that I needed leave.

She asked whether I was safe.

I hesitated.

“I don’t know.”

“All right,” she said. “We can begin there.”

She was the operations director for the hospitality businesses, not Marco’s assistant, as I had assumed.

She arranged paid leave under the policy Enzo had offered the night before.

Then she asked whether I wanted to speak with an independent attorney.

“Does he pay you to say that?”

A pause.

“He pays me to run businesses where people are supposed to be able to report a problem.”

“And are they?”

“That is a fair question.”

I stared at my kitchen wall.

It was the first answer that morning I trusted.

By the afternoon, my mother and I were sitting in a small law office with a woman named Amira Shah.

She asked what we knew.

Then she asked what we had.

My mother brought a tin from the back of her wardrobe.

Inside were photographs, my father’s last wage statement, letters, and a notebook bound with a rubber band.

I knew the tin.

I had thought it contained Christmas decorations.

My father’s handwriting filled the notebook.

Not secret codes.

Not account numbers.

Dates.

Tasks.

Names of people he spoke to.

Things he had asked to be repaired.

On the last page he had used, one sentence was underlined.

If they say I agreed, ask them to show where.

I touched the paper.

For years, I remembered him as a man who smelled of sawdust and always checked the back door before bed.

Here he was worried.

Persistent.

Trying to make someone answer a simple question.

Amira read the page twice.

“This needs to be compared with the original records.”

“Can you do that?” I asked.

“I can request what we are entitled to receive and explain what further steps may be available.”

No instant promise.

No declaration that a notebook would undo eleven years.

My mother looked disappointed.

I felt relieved.

I was beginning to understand how much danger came wrapped in certainty.

Enzo called that evening.

I let it ring until my mother said, “You can answer.”

I stepped into the hallway.

“What did your family know?” I asked before he spoke.