Chapter 4 - The Woman Waiting Beneath the Church
The message led them to an abandoned church outside New Orleans.
The building sat behind a cemetery.
Its windows were boarded.
Its bell tower leaned dangerously toward the river.
Marin counted the steps.
Forty-two.
At the basement door, she heard something.
A faint hum.
Then a breath.
Someone was alive inside.
August opened the door.
“Dela?”
A voice answered.
“Marin?”
Marin froze.
Her knees nearly failed.
“Dela?”
The voice broke.
“Is that really you?”
Marin ran forward.
She touched a woman's face.
Burn scars.
Warm skin.
Shaking hands.
And the same cheekbones Marin had traced in childhood.
Dela.
Alive.
Marin collapsed into her arms.
They cried.
No words could hold three missing years.
Eventually Dela whispered, “I knew you would come.”
Marin pulled back.
“Who took you?”
Dela looked toward August.
Then away.
“I’ll tell you.”
Before she could continue, footsteps sounded upstairs.
August drew his weapon.
Dela whispered, “We have maybe 2 minutes.”
“Who?”
“The man who kept me hidden.”
“Who?”
“Your father.”
August went rigid.
Dela explained.
After the fire, she had survived because August’s father had ordered his men to remove her.
Not to kill her.
To hide her.
She had witnessed a confrontation between August’s brother, Adrian, and their father.
Adrian had discovered that someone was selling their family secrets.
He confronted their father.
But another man had appeared.
August’s uncle.
The argument became violent.
Adrian was shot.
Dela escaped.
August’s father found her.
He could not allow her testimony to surface.
So he hid her.
“Why keep her alive?” Marin asked.
Dela answered.
“Because I knew something he needed.”
“What?”
Dela took a breath.
“Your sister is not the person August’s father feared.”
Marin frowned.
“What does that mean?”
Dela looked at August.
“Adrian wasn’t investigating a traitor.”
August’s face changed.
“He was investigating a partnership.”
“Between whom?”
“Your father and a government official.”
August went silent.
Dela continued.
“They were laundering money through medical foundations.”
Marin remembered the ledger.
The payments.
The clinics.
Her own sister.
Everything connected.
But Dela had one more secret.
“The fire was not meant for me.”
Marin froze.
“It was meant for you.”
The words struck like a blow.
“Why?”
“Because they thought you had the original evidence.”
“What evidence?”
Dela shook her head.
“I didn't know.”
Then she looked at August.
“Until I saw the piano.”
Marin’s breath caught.
“The piano?”
“The Bösendorfer.”
August understood.
“The auction house.”
Dela nodded.
“Adrian hid something inside that piano before he died.”
Marin turned toward him.
“You bought it.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I didn’t know.”
But Dela smiled sadly.
“Someone did.”
At that moment, a gunshot shattered the basement window.
August pushed Marin down.
Bullets struck the stone wall.
Enzo returned fire from the staircase.
Chaos erupted.
Dela screamed.
August dragged both women toward a hidden tunnel.
They escaped through a narrow passage beneath the church.
At the end they emerged beside the river.
Police lights flickered in the distance.
Dela leaned against Marin.
“I’m sorry.”
Marin shook her head.
“You’re alive.”
“I should have found you.”
“You were trapped.”
“I heard your voice so many times in my dreams.”
Marin touched her face.
“I heard yours too.”
August watched them.
For once, the feared man stood quietly in the presence of something larger than violence.
Family.
Back at the mansion, Dela slept.
Marin sat beside her.
August remained in the doorway.
“You don't trust my father,” Marin said.
“No.”
“Do you trust me?”
“Yes.”
She smiled.
“That was fast.”
“No.”
He stepped closer.
“It took me 6 years to learn not to trust myself.”
Marin stood.
“What did your father do to you?”
August looked away.
“He taught me that love makes you weak.”
“And you believed him?”
“For years.”
“And now?”
He touched her hand.
“Now I think love is the reason I want to stay alive.”
Marin’s throat tightened.
Then she did something she had never done with him.
She leaned forward and rested her forehead against his chest.
His heart stumbled.
Then steadied.
One beat.
Another.
For the first time, she felt something almost peaceful.
But the moment ended when Dela screamed from upstairs.
Marin and August ran.
Dela was standing beside the piano in August’s music room.
The lid was open.
Inside the strings was a small black box.
Dela pointed.
“That’s it.”
August removed it.
Inside was a memory card.
And a photograph.
Adrian.
Standing beside a woman.
Marin touched the image.
“Who is she?”
August answered.
“My mother.”
He stared.
“She died when I was a child.”
May you like
Dela shook her head.
“She didn’t.”
