The call came on a Tuesday evening in October, while Dante was reading to Charlotte in the living room and Mia was getting Marco ready for bed.
Dante's phone rang — an unfamiliar number, the kind he usually let go to voicemail during family time. But something about the area code made him pause.
"Excuse me a moment," he told Charlotte, and stepped into the hallway.
When he came back, several minutes later, his expression was different. Not alarmed, exactly — but unsettled, in a way Mia hadn't seen from him in a long time.
"Everything okay?" she asked, once Charlotte was distracted with her book and Marco was settled.
"That was—" Dante paused, choosing his words carefully. "That was someone from a long time ago. Before the restructure. Before all of it." He looked at Mia, and something
